We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matison Card. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matison below.

Alright, Matison thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment

The best investment you can make is always in yourself. Whether that be a class or certificate program, investing in your skill set and knowledge will always lead to more opportunities and connections within your field. For example, I took a six week burlesque intensive course with Empowerment in Heels and immediately saw results post final show. I started booking and performing regularly, had a community to rely on and consult when I would have questions, and I ended up starting my own burlesque production company within 5 months of graduating the program. By investing in myself and my craft, I grew tenfold.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Matison Card and I have been working in the creative industry for over ten years. I am a model, actor, singer-songwriter, burlesque performer, and I co-own a burlesque production company, Club Peekaboo. I design and create all of my own costumes and choreograph my own acts. I love working within multiple creative mediums and playing in the world of art.

It’s hard to decipher my “favorite” project that I’ve worked on. There have been so many impactful projects that I have worked on. To name a few: I loved being a live tv host for Fail Army, modeling for Lady Gaga’s makeup brand, Haus Labs, acting in lesbian icons Zolita and Lauren Sanderson’s music videos, and of course being in two Wiz Khalifa music videos was memorable as well. I’ve been in countless short films and co-starred in a horror feature film, “Safe House 1618.” That was a fun experience because we all lived on set together for two weeks. I’ve been very fortunate to work with incredible artists, and I have no intention of ever stopping. I was born an artist, and I will die an artist. This is the only life I could ever live, and I’m so grateful to be living it.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my business partner, Luckie Loo, in a side week burlesque intensive with Empowerment in Heels. We met up for a little meet cute lunch before one of our classes and immediately hit it off. I had confided in one of my instructors, Flash’n Mountains, about my desire to connect more with the community and she emboldened me to reach out to our group chat of dancers taking the course to see if anyone wanted to meetup before class- which was oddly scary for me because god forbid no one responded or showed up! And sure enough Luckie came to meet me and share a cocktail and snack and almost instantly we realized how similar we were and were sharing queer stories of our youth and connecting in every aspect of life. She is now my business partner and co-producer of our dance company, Club Peekaboo, one of my closest friends and a forever sister in all things.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Fail faster. It’s as simple as that. Your fear of failure or being judged or being perceived as “cringe” is holding you back. No matter what you do or don’t do someone is going to think it’s stupid. Do it anyways. There is never going to be the perfect time to do something. Start today imperfectly, fail, adjust, do it again, and learn as you go. Fail faster. You learn more from your failures than your successes anyways. You never know what will stick, so just be as authentically yourself as possible and don’t give a rats ass what anyone thinks. The loudest folks have the least talent. Be brave, be scared and do it anyways. Life is fast and you’ll never regret trying, but you will always regret not doing something out of fear. I suppose the unlearning is that there will be a perfect time to do something or that you will age out. Unlearn all of that crap. It’s never too late, you’re never too old, there will always be some “life thing” going on that could be used as an excuse as to why you haven’t started. Start anyways.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Club-peekaboo.com
• Instagram: @matisoncard
• Other: Other instagrams:
  Business: @clubpeekaboo
  Burlesque: @valivandyke

Image Credits

@momentzbyyero
@snapnon
@withtheband