We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Maldonado a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

My journey to being a full-time artist has had it’s peaks and valleys. I have been an artist (dancer, actor, creator) since as far back as I can remember. My first love was the stage. Although my dream has always been to be a working artist, I have been financially independent since I was a teen, so chasing the creative life didn’t seem like a reality for me. After college I didn’t have the luxury of going on auditions every day, or staying home to create every day. I had to work. So I did what I had to, and entered the corporate world. I made a decent living, and was able to support myself, but I wasn’t happy. The artist in me was dying. As I was approaching my 30th birthday, I told myself it was now or never. I didn’t have any children. My only financial responsibility was myself. If I didn’t risk it all to pursue art I never would. It was the scariest decision I have ever made in my life. I was used to financial security. Safety. Was I even good enough? For the first year I felt a little bit at ease because I had saved up enough money to take care of myself while I figured things out. In the first year of this journey, I created more art than in the last ten years of my life. It was transformative. I felt like I was slowly stepping into myself. As happy as I was in my spirit, I was stressed financially, because my savings were depleting, and the money I was making from art wasn’t consistent. Every time I was ready to give up, and return to corporate/work/safety, something would happen. A painting would sell. A creative opportunity would present itself. It was like the universe was reminding me to not give up just yet. It has been five years since I made this decision. I can’t say it has been all rainbows and unicorns, but I have grown as an artist and as a person. I had my first solo show at the peak of the pandemic. I wrote my first poetry book, and am working on my second. I am not done. There is work to be done and magic to be created. If I knew then what I know now, I would have definitely formed a more solid plan, with tangible milestones, to provide some sort of guidance for myself. My advice to anyone in this position is figure out what you want to accomplish. Figure out what success looks like for you, and then create a plan, with trackable tangible steps, to stay on track.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I have always been an artist in every sense of the word. I got into visual art and spoken word when I graduated college, because I needed an outlet to be creative, that I could practice from home, when I wasn’t at work. At my current state I would call myself a visual artist and performance poet. My love for the stage and the page is equal.

I feel that my creative purpose is to make people feel seen, heard, and like they are not alone. I want someone to look at my art and see themselves in it. See their pain. See their healing. It’s like with my spoken word poetry, I will write and perform a piece about something very personal. Something that feels so unique to me. After someone will come up to me and say “Your piece made me cry. I went through the same thing.” THAT is my purpose. To heal. To show people they are not alone. That pain is part of our story, but isn’t our entire story. There is beauty in the breakdown, because what comes after is more than we could ever imagine. That is the purpose of my art. To elevate and empower. To celebrate women of color, honor their pain, and celebrate their glory. What sets me apart from the rest is that I am raw. I am unapologetically real. Unapologetically me. I dive deep into topics others my hide from.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I feel like I was completely unaware of how many grants are out there for artists, specifically WOC artists. I hear so many stories of people working/living/creating off of grant money and it is a world, that to date, I am not educated on. I feel like I wish I would’ve know of all of the opportunities out there, and was more versed on writing grant applications, because I feel that would’ve definitely aided not only my practice, but my ability to be/feel free and safe in the exploration of it.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

This is something society, and on a more personal note, my family has struggled with: money. I grew up with little to no money. Everyone in my family has had to work very hard, their entire lives, to keep food on the table and a roof over everyone’s head. When I gave up a secure, financially lucrative career to pursue art, no one understood. Why would you give that up to make art? No one viewed that as an actual career, let alone something you could survive off of. I feel like for so long I was conditioned to believe that same thing. A little puerto rican girl from the bronx who grew up when and where I did was never taught to dream. I think that’s why it took me as long as it did to take a chance on myself. What helped me was stripping down to the basics. We live in a society that operates on such excess. Capitalism. Materialism. So many of us live above our means. So many people are validated by material things. When you really think about what we absolutely NEED, as opposed to WANT, you realize it’s not as much as you think it is. So that is how I started to view things. I started to live in the space of necessity, and live under my means. Then the financial burden became a bit lighter. It’s all about budgeting. Once I know my absolute need for the week/month/year, I can then rise to meet that. Or hustle to meet that. Or both. It is not easy. There are definitely high points and low points. But it’s not impossible.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brittanymaldonado.com
• Instagram: @brittanymaldonadoart