We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Metrova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Metrova, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned through continuous practice, and adding my own flair. Knowing what I know now, I would have started to challenge myself much earlier. That would have helped me experience the typical hiccups artists go through without the stress! My drawing skills are most essential part of my process. I’ve always drawn and painted since a toddler but as a paper artist, drawing to scale is very important to make sure everything is proportional. The only obstacle in my way was my mind telling me “this is it”. Now that I have risen over that hump, I don’t that there is so much more to learn and experience! My craft just keeps getting better and better

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am designer and paper artist for Paper Row. My primary goal is to elevate custom greeting cards and entice everyone to use them as artwork. I celebrate people through greeting cards! I am most proud of myself for sticking through since the beginning. My craft has gotten better, and my client base has expanded to areas I would have never imagined. I would love to be the go to custom paper artist that works for high level brands to make stationery

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding is building my life from scratch, and truly enjoying the journey. As a creative, there is a sense of freedom that is unmatched. No one can judge my art….it’s from my heart and my gut

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I had a client reach out to me about a last minute order. At that time, I had a hard time saying no so I accepted, and ran into problems with time. On a day where I had received a decline to work with a favorite brand, I also got stuck in a storm and couldn’t get home on time as expected. I stopped by the art store and bought EVERYTHING needed to make that last minute order. I was already in a terrible mood and had to adjust my mindset to be in a creative space for the art I was about to create IN MY CAR. 4 hours later and after the storm, I had finished and it was AMAZING. I waited until getting home to send a late night picture, and the client loved it. Her card was overnighted the next day, and she recommended me to another now client of mine. Needless to say, if I wasn’t passionate about my craft, I would have sulked and sat down after the bad news but instead I took it as a chance to prove to myself how resilient I was. I got it done through a storm!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.paperrowcards.com
• Instagram: @paperrowcards