We recently connected with Maria Stevens and have shared our conversation below.

Maria, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I have always felt like an artist. I have never questioned that feeling and yet, pursuing art as a full time career never felt like an option. I graduated college with a bachelors in finance and even worked in that industry for two whole years, In that process I did not feel like myself. I thought that art wasn’t something that could be more than just my passion and that I had to do something more to support myself. What I didn’t realize was that, in putting my passion to the side I was putting myself to the side. Getting my degree felt strenuous and laborious and working in the finance industry proved to be even harder to maintain. It felt like my job was taking energy away from me, leaving me nothing to give in my free time, the dedicated time I had for art. I realized that making money doing something I did not love was no way to live. I decided that I needed to make a big change in my life and take a risk. I decided that the higher the risk the higher the reward. I quit my job and decided to pursue my career in art. Since then, I have found a fulfilling part time job in a museum space that I love and have been able to paint my best work yet. I’ve shown in galleries, created my own website and made space in my life to do what I love and live for myself. I still have so much to work towards but the beauty of it is that I am excited and motivated and I can’t wait to make an at career that I am proud of.

Maria, 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?

My name is Maria Stevens and I am a Greek painter originally from New Mexico. I am first and foremost a painter but I also love working in textiles and painting murals. My work ranges from hyper realistic oil still life’s to micro-crocheting beads to creating large scale murals. My work in the last year has been almost entirely introspective. I completely changed my life when I decided to pursue art full time and after that change when I found the time to paint I felt like I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go. I decided that I would paint something I hated. It seemed like a good exercise to change my perspective and create a piece focused on transformation. It seemed fitting as I was in a transformative period of my life. I decided to paint a still life. Throughout all my years of painting I have never hated anything more than the traditional still life. I decided to collect fun objects and make it my own. After that I decided that the focus of my work for the time being would resonate around moments I wanted to capture, painting discarded items/trash, or things I may dislike. Ultimately my work this year has allowed me to embrace transformation and has allowed me to push my art and myself.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

There is no specific road to becoming an artist. Most careers have a clear cut route but being an artist is completely up to the individual. This can feel totally daunting without an example or a specified way to do something. When I first started selling prints of my work and putting my self out into the world, the highs and lows were extreme. I felt an extreme sense of pride after starting to produce prints of my work and signing up for pop up markets. It was a challenge to develop a website and to make prints of my work and in doing this I felt a sense of achievement, but the lows were extreme. On the days I had spent money beyond my means to be ready for a market or pop up and then sold next to nothing were mentally and financially exhausting. I felt like I had failed because I hadn’t sold out or even broken even. In those times it felt like I needed to change my work or what I was selling or maybe even what I was doing. The reality of those situations is that things take time to fall into place and all that matters is that you keep trying. In any career you will experience success and failure but all that matters is what you take away from the experience and how you go forward. I learned that I don’t need to change my work for anyone, I just need to find the right market.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being artist is being able to step back from a piece of work and genuinely feel proud. It is the feeling of looking at a piece that took an exceptional amount of work and perseverance and knowing that you pushed through the hard parts and produced something you can look at and feel proud of. It also feels rewarding to fulfill a passion and to have created a tangible piece of work that other people can enjoy.

Contact Info:

• Website: planetmarz2.com
• Instagram: planetmarz_222