We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Adriana Sabrina Koc Spadaro. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Adriana Sabrina below.

Adriana Sabrina, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

In the Summer of 2022, I got the dream job I always wanted. One year later, I quit to pursue a deeper calling. My career in corporate marketing was not shy of meaningful opportunities. In 2016 I landed a role with a fashion brand to create content and strategy to empower women, which lead me to working with a billion dollar brand to design global campaigns. My portfolio lead me to my ultimate dream position as the creative director to lead a company rebrand for design and strategy. All of this, a career path of 15 years, and yet something was still calling. In the spring of 2023, I decided to leave my fancy job to pursue the call of my inner artist. I was on a healing journey, and the time was ripe to trust the call. This impulse had been speaking to me for years, a desire for meaningful impact and bigger expression, but I didn’t quite know what that looked like. By Fall of that same year, I signed a lease to a 1000sq warehouse with the intention to fuck around and find out. The no plan plan. Intuitively lead, I dropped an intense grip of the ego, and set out to discover the power in healing intuitive art and self awareness. Today, I run workshops that blend interception and creativity to discover ways to heal the inner artist and strengthen the benefits of art for wellbeing, mental health and as a spiritual practice.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As an intuitive artist, my role is to enlighten the creative path of finding play in our purpose. After decades of managing my own mental health and trauma recovery (and most intensely during the pandemic), I found the profound benefits of a personal and intentional art practice. Healing through the body with creativity, self discovery, and movement has unlocked the doors of feeling alive. To be in a greater sense of purpose cannot be measured by the outside world, and taps into the worthiness of feeling in one-self, body, mind, and spirit.

In this digital age where information is power, it is easy to over analyze and stay in the mind. Embodiment is not celebrated because it threatens the bullshit that the mind thinks makes us happy. We cannot just think our way out of our problems, and while confronting the feeling may be scary, it is how we become aware of our alignment.

To work with me is to find space to feel into one self. Art as a pathway to intuition is experience the energy of allowing depth come through with play. Art lets go of the analytical mind and works through discomfort with creation. Practicing art through the body peels off the layers of insecurity and fear. It confronts judgement, shame, sensuality, and pleasure. The big ticket pay off of a consistent practice is learning the felt sense of being in flow, tapped in, and turned on by the creative spirit. Once this sense becomes more familiar, it can then be applied to all aspects of life. I help make the invisible force feel tangible with drawing, painting and large canvas mark making.

The importance of play and art is often disregarded. My belief is that blending self awareness, healing aspects and spirituality through art can enlighten anybody who is willing. Although the feeling of intuition is unique to each individual, it is a response from our spirit to embody our creates genius.

My one on one sessions or group classes dive into the practice of energy work, self reflection, and creating for the purpose of creating. With gentle invitations, we let go of outcome and tap into creative freedom and liberation. Breaking the mold of good or bad, practicing art under my guidance will unlock a sense of knowing from within.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best way to support artists is to acknowledge the creative spirit from within. I believe, that every human on this planet is here to be in relationship with their very nature of becoming. The role of the artist is to be tapped into society and reflect back what is needed for a more sustainable, healthy, and abundant world. If we all took time to listen to our own creative desires, we would be more tapped into pleasure, which naturally makes us want to share the energy with others. If society only saw how valuable creation is, then we would invest into an ecosystem that felt truly abundant. If everyone invested in the artist from within, we would then understand the value of art.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

If anyone has ever experienced burnout, they know the emotional turmoil it comes with. After some racial work trauma during BLM, pandemic pivots, and corporate gaslighting, my nervous system hit full shut down mode. This manifested into physical and mental health issues which triggered a dense depth of self worth. I am no stranger to trauma work, but the pandemic hit a particularly intense nerve of existentialism, anxiety and panic attacks.

Just short of a year ago, I was still suffering from the hangover of the pandemic. As a woman of colour, the war on our psyches and bodies is a daily battle. I’ve learned through my resilience that healing doesn’t make the war disappear but instead, creates a right relationship within us to make change. Reality isn’t going anywhere and the only thing we can control are the choices we make within it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aostudio.space
• Instagram: adri.lovesyou

Image Credits

Abbey Stimpson, Ocea Hill