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

Ezra, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission is simple. It is to support as many creatives that I can.

The path of a creative is not an easy one. Personally I spent a few decades actively creating music, being a freelance photographer, a visual artist, and have taken on several other creative roles to fill in the gaps.

I understand how deep the passion runs, and how much the fire burns in the heart of a creative.

My mission now is to utilize my studio space and influence to encourage and empower local creatives. One other thing that I do understand very well, is how hard and lonely it can be trying to support your life as an artist.

No one should have to go through this journey alone.

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?

My name is Ezra Hezekiah. I was born on a military base in the Republic of Panama, Central America. I was raised in a military family and spent the majority of my early life traveling. Although my travels afforded me many wonderful and rare experiences, they also came with little stability. The one constant that I had was my creative abilities. Very early in life I learned that I was talented in the realm of art, and would draw often, to keep myself preoccupied.

By the time I entered my teens, I had advanced from just drawing to creating music and having a fascination with photography. This fascination would carry well into my early 30s, as I spent two decades in music production and roughly another decade as a freelance photographer. I did all this while maintaining various corporate jobs along the way, to sustain my creative goals as well as my life expenses.

In March 2022, I was laid off from my management position at a large firm in the financial sector. I had spent over 20 years in this industry and had seen many ups and downs since the financial market crash of 2008. In late 2021 I experienced a life changing family tragedy. That coupled with the March 2022 layoff completely redirected the trajectory of my life.

During my entire corporate career, I was a moonlighting creative. Working towards the goal of someday opening my own business. I worked almost 18 hour days fulfilling my corporate responsibilities, and also exploring various creative opportunities to expand my presence and understanding of the local arts community. Through all of this I experienced how extremely difficult it is to pursue the goal of being a full-time creative.

Fast forward to March of 2022 after the layoff, I made a very gutsy decision to open my own Art Studio / Gallery. On November 1,2022 I opened the doors of Province 8 Art Studio to the local community. The art studio is now a hub for creatives in the Houston area. A little bit of everything transpires there. Local artists utilize the space to create, we also have art classes to help develop the techniques of aspiring artists, all the way up to professionals. The location is also an event space and we host a wide variety of events.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Action. I believe it was action that helped to build my reputation within my market. I spent a lot of time engaged directly within the arts community here in the Houston area. Boots on the ground is always the best way to get to know people and also to let people know who you are and what you’re about. I spent several years going to a lot of different, art markets, and showing my work. Attending many pop-up events over the years. My artwork has been in various art exhibitions. . Most recently I was awarded the title of Houston BIPOC Arts Network & Fund Artist of 2023 along with 24 other amazing artists and creative’s in the Houston area.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson that I had to unlearn the most, was trying to do everything by myself. Prior to opening my current business, Province 8 Art Studio LLC, I had previous failed attempts at starting a business. Learning to believe and trust in others was always a roadblock for me. I believe that attachment to distrust stemmed from not being able to form firm relationships, due to constantly traveling as part my military upbringing. Constantly being uprooted and having to start over can create a distrust when it comes to people. This is something that I carried from my childhood into my adult life, and it definitely had an adverse impact on my business relationships. This was a behavior that I had to unlearn in order to be successful.

Contact Info:

• Website: Province8artstudio.com/houston
• Instagram: Instagram.com/EzraHezekiah
• Facebook: Facebook.com/Province8ArtStudio
• Youtube: YouTube.com/@blacrhinoartgroup
• Other: Instagram.com/Province8ArtStudio_llc www.province8artstudio.com/houston