We recently connected with Abel Mejia and have shared our conversation below.

Abel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Have you ever had an amazing boss, mentor or leader leading you? Can you us a story or anecdote that helps illustrate why this person was such a great leader and the impact they had on you or their team?

In fact, right now I work with him, he is my boss, my uncle, but also a person who inspires me from all angles. As a human being and as a professional. I lived in Ecuador when the pandemic started, I had a restaurant and I had to close it, that’s when he called me and invited me to come to Tampa. Right now I work with him in his company but he also values ​​and promotes my artistic part a lot. I owe him a lot.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Abel, I am from Ecuador, I am 42 years old. About 8 years ago Halloween was coming up and I hadn’t bought a costume for my son, so I searched the web for a way to make a mask. There I found a provider of digital files to make paper masks. I bought the file and started putting it together, it took me about 5 hours, which were very therapeutic, I relaxed and really enjoyed making my son’s mask. It became a hobby but while I lived in Ecuador it was never more than that. Now here in Tampa I see that people value art much more in general and that motivates me to design my own larger pieces. Basically I can make any kind of shape with paper polygons. The next step will be to work with a more resistant material such as metal. Once I start a piece, I can not stop, it is difficult to describe the satisfaction I feel when I finish a work, and even more difficult when people see it and speak well of it.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Although I consider myself a person who enjoys technology, I have my discrepancies in relation to whether certain NFT’s are art or not. I 100% respect other people’s criteria, but from my very personal point of view, I think I appreciate more art that is more tangible. I understand very well how much effort, knowledge, time and passion a graphic designer can use to create a digital design, in no way do I detract from value or importance, but as long as that file is inside a flash drive it does not exist and it does not matter who it is from. If I print that design and capture it in a painting in a room in my house, then I will see it as art.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

In my case and I think it is the case of many, sometimes we do not know the capacity we have to create, sometimes we focus on other things during our lives that we never get to know that creative side within us. Very probably in Ecuador I would never have assembled the David or the tiger, it is being here in the USA where that artistic side practically flourishes in me. I definitely would have liked to discover that creative side much sooner, however right now I’m really enjoying it. I must confess that such a great bond is created with certain works that it is very difficult for me to let go of them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @rtist1980
• Facebook: @rtist1980