Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Heather Freitas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Heather, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I always knew I wanted to be a professional artist even since I was a child. I went to college for a BFA and even my professors told all of us it’s easier to get a job in the arts then to become a professional artist. I felt the world was against me and with the common ( but not true notion of the “ starving artist “ I listened to them.

I tried building a business selling others art. It failed. Then at 26 I was faced with my mortality. I was awake one night and I just had this very powerful thought. If I were to die in 6 months what would I regret about my life the most? It wasn’t not having a family, or dating or going to a party. I realized that my biggest regret would be not having given it all to live my dream as a professional artist. Even if I failed just knowning that I gave it my all. So I gave it my all. That fueled me beyond words and set me up for what would be, and still is working as if I worked two full time jobs.

At the time I worked full time as a deli manager. I would put in my 40 hours a week at that job and spend all waking hours outside of it working on building my art. My deli manager job paid all my bills so as I slowly started selling art I put that money back into the business to buy more supplies and get what I needed to keep moving forward.

As sales progressed and then remained steady for months and I felt comfortable that I had enough income from my art to supplement my pay cut I stepped down from my position as manager to a clerk. I worked full time as a clerk. Again as sales increased and remained steady for months I cut my hours down. Little by little each time.

Taking the leap to go full time was one of the biggest hurdles I have ever faced in my life. It’s scary. I waited almost a year with steady sales that would have been able to support me before I quite my now part time job.

I had also been battling with a condition I had as a child that was getting progressively worse. It was getting to the point where it was hard to work a job away from home and this pushed me even harder to make it work. One day it got so bad I took a leave of absence. I now had to support myself with my work.

Having no choice but to pay my bills with my art pushed me even harder and 6 months later I resigned from my part time job.

This was not a fast process. It was over two and a half years of working around the clock and battling illness alongside with it before I went full time.

I have now been full time 5 years and I still work around 60-80 hours a week. It’s not easy but the fire within me has been my fuel.

Heather, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I remember when I was taking art classes in High School one of my teachers told us that in order to make it as an artist we had to create a style that was unique to us and us alone.she states that if there were 100 paintings from 100 different artists on exhibition that people ( without ever having seen that piece before ) should be able to instantly pick it out from all of them, without hesitate and know it was ours. I remember thinking that was impossible, that every style had already been done before.

This stayed in my mind for 10 years. One day when I was really sick and went through a breakup I pulled out some canvas and I decided that instead of trying to paint as realistically as possible that I wanted to just speak my thoughts through my work.

I didn’t care about realism. I cared about the process. I was trying to heal myself emotionally and physically through a painting.

When I finished that piece I stood over and it and I just had this profound feeling of “ this is it “. It felt like I had a child. My style was born and from that moment on I tried to replicate the process on everything I created moving forward eventually leading to my signature style I am known for today.

I am an artist and my work was born out of healing. It helped heal me emotionally but my medical condition continued to progress. I became obsessed with trying to heal through my work because I had doctors telling me literally my illness was in my head. That it was impossible for me to have so many symptoms affecting all body systems.

When I couldn’t heal myself I became obsessed with healing others through it. For me, that was the only thing I felt like I had in my control.

I firmly believe in the impact art can have. I feel like with fast fashion, yearly design trends and fast furniture that were programmed to buy just pretty things. Things crafted for a season that provide no actual value to us. Things meant to be discarded.

The purpose of my work is to not only outlast trends and be something to cherish for you whole life but it is created to impact one’s life. Each piece made with the intent to not only bring beauty to one’s life but to heal them, to inspire them, to bring laughter on full mundane days, to bring light on dark days and most of all to connect. To be a reaching hand and a hug. That’s what my work did for me when I was isolated, sick and alone and it’s my intent to do that for others with it no matter what they are going through, throughout their life.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’m actually having to pivot right now and almost feel like I am back at the start. My main sales income has come from social media and with the new algorithms coupled with inflation it has not been easy lately.

I want to make an impact in this world with my work and having to pivot in times of hardship has yielded what I feel like is a greater impact for all instead of just those with a fine art budget.

I have released more affordable collectable collections like sweatshirts, pillows and tumblers with my work on them and in doing so expanding my work and its impact to all.

I never thought this would be something I would do but because I had to pivot it brought these lines about and I’m actually really happy about that because in the end my work is about impacting as many of those who connect with my work as possible and this has allowed that for so many more people.

Sometimes, I have learned through all of this that the darkest or hardest of times being about the most bright and beautiful futures.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I care deeply about my clients and about my following. Each and every one of them regardless if I know them personally or not.

In an era of social media I feel like we actually are more disconnected than ever. I want to and care so much about connecting with all of them and fostering actual relationships with them. My clients, my audience is not just a number on a spreadsheet. To me they are family.

Honesty and transparency are huge to me because that is how you build trust and you can not build a string relationship without trust. I never once played the “ fake it until you make it “ and I actually think that has yeilded a stronger bind with my community.

We connect with people we can relate to. We connect through hardship and triumph because that is real life. No matter who you are. The foundation of my business is build on impacting, healing and inspiring and the best way to do that is to be genuine. To share ups and downs.

I guess as an artist this may be easier to do but as also a consumer I wish more companies would do this. I’ve seen so many ads lately that if you do some digging are just not true. Twisting of narratives to sell their product or claiming a sales history that isn’t true. That is not how you build trust and trust is the most important part of building a connection and a foundation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heatherfreitas.com
• Instagram: @heather_freitas
• Facebook: @heatherfreitasart

Image Credits
Photo with the giant pet painting was done for Pet Dental USA , Gilbert AZ and is in their office lobby.