We recently connected with Kirsten Langston and have shared our conversation below.

Kirsten , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Up until 2010 I was working as an administrator in various offices. In 2010 I got hurt on the job and I was told I would never work again and I would be on disability for the rest of my life.

Enter the tarot. While I was recovering, my cousin gave me a deck of tarot cards, and two years later on a fluke, I got hired as a reader in a metaphysical shop. I had also written and self published three novels that went nowhere. I was frustrated. I wasn’t making money aside from pocket change and no one was reading my books.

In 2017 someone suggested, “Go on YouTube.” I thought, ‘and do what?’ It seemed silly. But I did it. I decided to read tarot cards on YouTube. My first video I read on Donald Trump and it was a hit. I made more. Those also did well. Eventually I started a Patreon and people were paying to watch me. In 2021 I wanted to cut out the middle man and have my own subscription website for all things paranormal and mystical. Thirdeyechampagne.com was born.

The money started in a trickle, but within about a year of being on YouTube and having a Patreon, I had a full fledged business on my hands. I no longer needed to read for private clients. I could create videos, write blogs and do livestreams and make a living from the creative work alone.

Kirsten , 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 come from a family of mystics; my great great grandmother was known as “The Witch of Benicia.” Mystical and paranormal subjects and occurrences were normal my whole life. I always had an interest in hauntings and weird things like Big Foot. Still, I never thought I would be where I am today, making a living from it. I do still work with private clients, which I find incredibly gratifying. I’m sure some people might be imagining some old school fortune telling but that is not what I do.

With private clients, I use the archetypes of the tarot and my experience in life to help get them through major and minor life events. I’ve helped clients through pregnancy, divorce, marriages, job loss, job searches, romantic situations, spiritual awakenings and everything in between. In my creative work, I like to create blogs and videos about things that are weird and totally out of the realm of mundane reality.

I like to dig up stories about people who swore they’ve seen fairies or Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. I love bringing paranormal mysteries to life, or reading cards on Jack the Ripper or Wild Bill Hickock. Although lots of people create content on these subjects, I don’t think anyone is doing it quite like I do.

Thirdeyechampagne.com is my baby. It is my biggest accomplishment to date and it was a long hard road. I wanted to create an inclusive, safe digital space where people could explore their spiritual side but also have some fun with it too.

My mission is to bring to cosmic bubbly to anyone who wants to join the party. I want to inform and entertain. I want to help as many people as possible and I think that thirdeyechampagne.com is the perfect vehicle for that.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Building my website thirdeyechampagne.com was such a huge lesson. I met with a few web designers and nobody really wanted the job. Then I met with someone who was very enthusiastic and came highly recommend. But it was going to cost me a fortune and it was money I did not have. Someone suggested I crowd fund it. For six weeks I was running auctions and livestreams and selling anything I could to come up with this money. I auctioned off personal items, including my first tarot deck that sold for over $1000. I went over my goal, thanks to my generous and very kind supporters.

Long story short, the person that I hired built me a shoddy site, that broke constantly and then when I asked them to fix it, they ghosted me. Then I found out I overpaid by a lot for the site. It was a very harsh lesson. I lost over half my subscribers due to the broken site. I was totally out of money. I hired other people to fix it but it just kept breaking.

Still, I didn’t give up. I could have gone back to Patreon. That was the safer option. But I believe in what I’m trying to do. And I believe in my vision for this Third Eye Champagne. It was a major setback for me creatively and financially. After a couple of years of searching I finally found the right person to help me realize my goals for the site. And it is now exactly what I envisioned it to be (without breaking!).

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

For a thriving creative ecosystem we need to start with arts programs for kids. The focus is so much on other things these days and art and music programs get shut down or underfunded. We need to show people, as a society that the arts have value. We need to show kids that we support their talents.

We need to normalize the idea of paying well for creative work. Right now, there is a huge emphasis on churning out content to game an algorithm. It is not conducive to creative endeavors. I think we need more platforms where art, all types of art, is available to us, and not because that person pays to post or posts twenty times a day.

As individuals, we need to pay small and mid-level creatives for their work. We need to platform each other. Make digital spaces where people can freely create and display their art.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thirdeyechampagne.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thirdeyechampagne/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KirstenLangston
• Other: https://linktr.ee/thirdeyechampagne
  

Image Credits

Misty Jones
Christopher Burnside