We recently connected with Christianna Duthie and have shared our conversation below.

Christianna, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Knowing what I know now, nothing can be sped up. There are things you as a person can do to prepare yourself for the future, but that is virtually all you can do. I grew up always painting, but that is a skill that must be developed. Just like any other trade. No matter how you decide to split up the time, the same amount of time must be spent improving yourself. If your capacity as an artist needs 10 hours of work in order to make your “Starry Night”, you might do that all in one night, or in one week. It was the same with modeling. It took me so long to learn my own comfort ability level, how to go to castings and find them, how to network, and so many other factors that improve your image and experience. Never underestimate the power of experience. Once you have it, everything is much less time consuming because you know how to do it.

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 back background and context?

As a model and artist, I am most proud of continuing to pursue my desires. I want to continue trying out new things like acting, and creating art for others. I would like to create an audience to sell my art, or commission art for those who have a vision they may not be able to put into the physical. That’s what I love about modeling as well. You can bring someone else’s vision to life, and I love the opposite about art, bringing my own vision to life.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

If there is any book I would absolutely endorse, it is “The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” by Steve T. Harvey. He has a talent for educating people and giving them real information. One can only change by tapping into their brain. They must be able to tell themselves how to change and how to reframe their mind. It is the most important factor in your life. Your brain can learn anything, and those lessons are completely habitual. And if you are not changing them, then you are sometimes stagnant. Now if your neural pathways are negative, you will feel completely confused on how to change, and it takes effort to do that. This book sincerely taught me how to do that.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to learn how to become disciplined and equally unlearn that. I grew up doing a sport that was extremely tedious. In order to succeed, you needed to not only have laser focus, but you needed to have strength. I excelled in those things, but I lost sight of my vulnerability. Unlearning those things was difficult because I did start to learn to be a perfectionist, and that is never healthy. Learning how to have both love and focus is wonderful, because it is really the best of both worlds.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @christiiaanna
• Youtube: Christianna Duthie

Image Credits
Instagram Handles @katiepuc_photography @meneztosociety @erin_jeannephotography