We were lucky to catch up with Misty Lucien recently and have shared our conversation below.
Misty, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I’ve always felt a longing to create. I can’t remember a time I didn’t enjoy losing myself in the experimental process. My parents divorced when I was young and I was an only child. Art was my great escape from a confusing family dynamic. My passion for creating grew when I was alone in my room, a place for big dreaming beyond my circumstances. On visits with my mother we would often sit in her studio and paint or make art together. It was a way for us to connect.
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 background and context?
When I was twelve, I remember loving Architecture and I received my first drafting table. I would look through books, fascinated with buildings and worked on trying to do perspective drawings. I was inspired by Matisse and his loose renditions of rooms that also inspired me to draw furnishings and furniture. To this day, I still paint chairs, but looking back it was all about the lines.
As a teen, I attended a private all girl Catholic school in Dallas, TX. That’s when I met a teacher that would change my life forever, Mr. Wally Linebarger. He came to our school my Junior year. He was a wildly enthusiastic art teacher, encouraging me from the moment we met. I knew I loved making art, but up to this point, I never knew it was something I was meant to “do”.
I tried to hide my love of art, sometimes being teased for being too sensitive, I was afraid of standing out and not being accepted. Sharing this passion made me feel uncomfortable. Being vulnerable was hard, but at the same time, I craved the feeling I got when someone truly appreciated my work. Mr. Linebarger made me feel seen and heard. He encouraged me to keep going. By my Senior year, my love for drawing and painting received awards in state competitions. The fall of 1996 I was enrolled in College for visual art studies. I wanted to teach and inspire, like Mr. Linebarger.
But the trajectory of my life would completely change in the fall of 1999 when I became a mother at age twenty. I had not finished my studies or ever dealt with any childhood issues that built my foundation. I was unhappy, struggling in an unhealthy marriage. After two years I started over as a single mother.
Determined to provide for my son, I resolved to put my creative aspirations aside. I took jobs in high-end retail and trained with Prada Beauty as the business manager. But I continued to strategize creative avenues to build my own business. Meanwhile, a wonderful job opened up with a Designer as his Marketing Manager. I was with him almost two years when I took an opportunity, with a national publication, Modern Luxury Magazine, in Dallas. I was now the Marketing Manager and assistant to the Editor, Terri Provencal. She took a liking to me and saw potential in my ideas and encouraged me to style photoshoots for editorials with content, curate gift guides and layout marketing materials for print. I was getting a diverse creative experience that allowed my talents to grow. Although it was not directly my passion it allowed my creative talents to broaden. I was developing in the school of life, grateful for the opportunities to learn so much and be paid.
In 2005 l started to paint on weekends and at night. In the Fall, I participated in the first Art Conspiracy Collab, relief for Hurricane Katrina. Later that year was my first real gallery show at a local Dallas gallery, “In Color”. I sold three paintings. This felt rewarding and I gained confidence in my art again.
In 2006, I relocated to Austin, Texas, remarried and had my second child. During this time I worked from home selling vintage clothing on Etsy and created marketing campaigns for two other vintage stores in town. I was painting but I still felt lost wanting to build something more substantial in the direction of art for myself.
As a teen I also liked to fashion jewelry out of wire and beads. In 2011, making jewelry became my focus and to create unique, yet simple, linear pieces. The colors and shapes resembled my paintings. I loved working with my hands and honed my craft until I felt assured of my work. SuSuJane was launched and I began selling to friends, acquaintances and boutiques.
In 2013, with a close friend now in wholesale sales, we started B.Stellar Jewelry (bstellar.co). I designed and handmade hundreds of pieces, sometimes hunkered down for weeks. During this time, an injury from a car accident flared up causing me to stand while I meticulously cut and crafted wire, drilled crystals and gems, assembling them into original design creations. I styled photoshoots, designed the logo, and produced all marketing visuals from Austin. My partner was in Dallas selling my line at the Design Markets. After three years, I relocated back to Dallas to be closer to my business partner and showroom.
Sometime after this successful exhibition I realized my work had been overshadowed by misrepresentation by my partner. I felt empty and betrayed, I felt like an imposter. She was social, and what I thought was propelling us and the brand, was propelling her. But, it was my work. Our split was brutal and devastating. I felt myself spiraling into a deep depression.
In early 2020, Covid shut the world down and unpaid invoices threw my business into the Red. I was burnt out creatively. I’d gone through another divorce and was a single mother again. Pivoting to survive, I took a job as a Teller for a local bank. It was pure torture. My brain was not meant for the day in, day out of a “normal job”. I lasted almost one year. I felt outside of myself. Masking my anxiousness and self doubt for years I’d relied on antidepressants. It wasn’t until Covid that I really knew I had to shift my thoughts and habits. I quit everything, including drinking regularly. This tested my fortitude and character like no other decision.
During this time, I took a leap of faith to gear up B.Stellar again. I started making jewelry. But I also ventured into home interiors, redesigning rooms for friends. One project led to another, and although I did not have a steady paycheck I was making it work and was happy with what I was achieving, enjoying the rewarding feedback from clients.
After almost a year of building my own interior business, I realized I needed to learn more. I took a job assisting a designer with her husband handling the back end. It was less than a creative position helping their clients order wall papers and ordering products the designer sold her clients. What they proposed as my creative job duties, was reduced to clerical “do anything” assistant. My own business momentum in designing rooms one job after the other almost halted.
It was during this time I began working on a wallpaper project. I started painting again, playing with these designs as patterns. I felt alive and grateful for this new opportunity. I was not supported creatively in my job, so I knew it was time to plan my exit when they decided to downsize their business and move it to a new location.
My wallpapers “Perry” and “Mecca” launched in the Fall of 2023 with LOOKSEE Collective(lookseecollective.
I have learned throughout the years, as an artist, I must live authentically by listening to my own intuition. I try to ride the wave of creative opportunities, learn from the process and appreciate my struggles that have made me stronger and creatively more diverse.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a Creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a Creative is the feeling I get when I make something from an internal vision, the peace I feel inside. I love the opportunity to push myself to translate the world around me, from my perspective.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being is an amazing sourcebook for the creative. He is able to articulate the feelings and actions of an artist and the flow that keeps us going. This book helped me step back into my creative intuition and out of my head.
Contact Info:
- Website: bstellar.co, lookseecollective.com
- Instagram: bstellarjewelry
- Facebook: bstellarjewelry
- Linkedin: Misty Burns- Lucien
Image Credits
Elizabeth Marie Peterson