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

Milica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

I have learned to create boundaries that allow me to strike a balance between my work and my life. In both my professional career as a film and television industry administrator, and as a creative business owner, I have had to apply this lesson in order to become more flexible with changes that come my way, including changes in health and schedules. Unfortunately, I had to learn this lesson the hard way, as I have run into issues at an old job because I didn’t create this boundary for myself. I became extremely stressed out and it seeped into my day-to-day life, outside of work. Creating mental boundaries around my 9-5 (i.e. if it’s not during working hours, I won’t give my energy to it) has allowed me to cultivate a better relationship with not just my business, but a healthier environment for myself to enjoy things outside of work.

Balancing both my career and business has been a lesson in itself; trying to be flexible enough to see what works based on the season of life that I am in has been extremely important. I learned that I need to be gentle with myself and give myself grace. Especially as a creative, it is difficult to force myself to create when I don’t have any inspiration or motivation to do so. This includes not having strict rules around whether that balance is 50/50 at all times (and oftentimes it’s not so perfect). By allowing myself the flexibility, I can adjust that balance between work, business, and life as needed.

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

I am a self-taught nail artist and illustrator, creating hand-painted designs. My business is named “Rhymes with Pizza” because I’ve had to tell people how to pronounce my name ever since immigrating from Serbia in 1999. I have been practicing nail art for nearly 20 years. What started off as occasional nail parties I hosted for friends, ended up expanding into a small business in 2015. After a layoff, I decided to take the opportunity to get my nail tech license. I have done nails on photoshoots, TV sets, pop-up shops, etc. In the last couple of years I have expanded that into more traditional forms of art through prints and greeting cards, which are created from original watercolour paintings I make.

While my day job is managing data and legal paperwork in the film and TV industry, my real passion is my art. However, having this very technical knowledge of legal matters and business affairs also helps me in my own creative endeavours.

As a child of the 90s, my art focuses on nostalgia and feelings of joy and comfort. Through my own mental health journey, I found that I gravitated towards nostalgic content. The familiar always felt safe, and it incited comforting memories of childhood. My goal is to create designs that help others get in touch with these feel-good memories.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As someone who has a very academic background and is a high achiever, I was often taught that creativity is not a source of success. Creative endeavours were often equated to silly little hobbies, and not something to be pursued or built upon. Because of this thinking, I didn’t see my own creativity as a form of growth or achievement to be celebrated. While it did start as nothing more than a hobby, it took on a path of its own. Even though I don’t have financial “success” from my business, I have been able to grow tremendously through it. It has taught me more lessons than any other job, because I wasn’t afraid to fail at it. I believe that because I didn’t attach any particular expectations of monetary success to it, it flowed more easily and I was less frustrated by it than many of my 9-5 jobs. Ultimately, I had to redefine what success looked like for me, and that I don’t need to make thousands or millions of dollars from my creative business in order to continue pursuing it. It is a worthy cause in spite of that, even if it’s just to make me and a few other people happy. If I made it into my sole source of income, I probably would have quit a long time ago. True creativity cannot be boxed in, it doesn’t function without flow.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Self-expression and belonging are my main reasons for pursuing my creative journey and continuing with my business in spite of all the ups and downs. I believe that any creative pursuit is an extension of ourselves. It can often make me feel vulnerable to share anything new I have created, especially if it’s something I haven’t tried before (whether it’s a new technique or a completely new creative outlet, like when I decided to expand my business to include more traditional forms of art like watercolour painting). Sharing something that I’m still learning so much about has been a challenge, but also a great way for me to grow and find a source of belonging. The creative community is an enormous one, and there are so many sub-communities within it which is exciting.

Creating art that resonates with others or makes them feel pretty or confident (through my nail art), or comforted or nostalgic is what brings me so much joy. It’s the perfect marriage of validation and creating a sense of belonging between myself and someone else.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rhymeswithpizza.com
• Instagram: @rhymes_with_pizza
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhymes.with.pizza/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milica-dodic-b0524659/
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/RhymesWithPizzaShop