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

Alright, Maria Viviana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Living abroad. I was 22 years old when I decided for the first time not only to leave my home, but also my country (Venezuela). One of the main reason could be our political situation, but first we wasn’t that bad in 2010. It was a gut feeling which was trying to taking me away from where I was and what I was doing. I had the desire to grow, wanted another way to live, far from any comfort and also to see other ways to create. It sounds excited and it was! but also when I see the letter of acceptance from one of the company which I wanted to work with, kind of scared me because the plan now, became a reality.
While I was working on my trip the day of leaving started to get closer and with it feelings like fears, nerves, and some doubts started to appear “Do I really want to leave all?”, but even with all of those feelings I left… Buenos Aires – Argentina was my first teacher abroad a city where I didn’t expect anything else, but to grow. But also there were other gifts next to it this grow… new people, new culture, new challenges and also new skills that I didn’t know I had.
This, was just the begining to move away from where I feel stuck, then I moved to Toronto – Canada because with a language is too comfty to live and what happened ? I went for English and I came back with new skills, friends, and other non tangibles things as less afraid of start a new life. Today I’m currently living in Miami, this time it was not the curiosity and no either a new language a pandemic made me re design my family and professional plans. This time Im not only left my family, my country but also I had to leave (in good hands btw) my creative small floral business, but once s good friend of mine told me that the ideas always fit in the suitcase and it so, I re started my business now called “El truck de las flores” and here I am again, with new fears, new challenges, but with the certainty that Im growing and next to it other amazing things are coming by default.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

When I came back from living abroad I saw in my hometown that something boring was hapenning in the floral business and also at the same time, due to Venezuelan political situation a lot of Venezuelan had to leave their home looking for better opportunities. In this, I found and opportunity to gather my desire to change the way that flowers were being used and also I wanted to cut the distance between Venezuelan who were living abroad and their family, how? trough flowers wrapped and designed creativily. Now it wasn’t the distance, two years ago I came to Miami just for 15 days and the pandemic started and it made me reinterpret the meaning behind the flowers and it was where we created “El truck de las flores” a place designed for people who care not only about their feelings, but also their loved ones having their own flowers bouquet. I’m Maria Viviana Colmenares usually people called me Vivi which I like it. Im an architect, entrepreneur and creator of “El truck de las flores”. El truck de las flores is located in Kendall and so far our truck is designed to receive people curios about to see, and live the flowers in a closer way. We allow people to walk in and while the become part of the space they also start to feel free to talk about their loved ones, special ocassions and even sometimes about their love sad stories. The truck is kind of therapy express place. It is a place where we want them to feel free in the language of flowers.
As a creator and a believer that creativity allow us to express ourselves in different ways I also have my personal brand that it was how I started called DlaVii there is one of my creative save space where I want to go beyond a bouquet of flowers.

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

I have had to unlearn constantly a lot of things which Ive been repeting as if they were real, but one of the most important so far and from my experience is that PERFECTION DOESNT EXIST, it is unreal. I hide myself behind perfectionism for so long and it made me feel in some way “good” because for me, I was thinking that I was not a comformist, but I was completely wrong. That mindset only was killing a bunch of amazing ideas, perfectionism It was pulling me to a “save” space that it wasn’t save, because from my point of view the only save space is where I can feel free to be imperfect.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Asking for help. We are not alone in our creative journey. During my architecture career I saw how people hided their projects and their mockup inside black bags and at the same time others were showing and helping with their skills. And it made me think for so long that in this creative world we must take care of our ideas, but as closed as we are with our ideas as closed our possibilities to grow will be.
There is a lot of people willing to help us, to give us a hand where we are stuck in our own ideas. Creatives must help creatives.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @d_lavii @eltruckdelasflores
• Facebook: Vivi Colmenares Marquez
• Linkedin: Maria Viviana Colmenares
• Twitter: viicolmenares
• Other: @d_lavii is my personal brand account and @eltruckdelasflores my business account