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

Alright, Natasha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

During the time that I was a preschool teacher I had a burning desire to seek my purpose. I loved working with children, but I felt like I was called to take a different path, and one that aligns with my true passion. I was reading a lot of self-development books, and one of them was called Leveraging The Universe by Mike Dooley. This book is about finding my purpose, rekindling lost passion while manifesting my dreams into a reality.
One day I lost my job due to a minor petty reason. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I knew that this was a supernatural opportunity to take a leap of faith and giving it a shot to follow my dreams of becoming a full-time artist. So I went back in my thoughts to remember what it is that I loved doing most as a child. After some deep thinking it came to me that I remember that I had always loved drawing and painting. So then I asked myself, what can I do with what I love so that I can serve my community? I love working with people. So I decided to take it to a larger scale by becoming a mural artist, since it gives me an opportunity to work with people while doing what I love.

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?

My name is Natasha Azari. I am from Miami Beach Florida and currently live in Daytona Beach since 2009. Art has always been a part of my life since I was a kid. I loved drawing cartoon characters and would always doodle during class. I remember looking forward to going to art class during elementary school. As a matter of fact, I’ve wanted to be an artist teacher when I was in elementary school. As time went on during my teen years I had stopped painting and getting in touch with art. I lost my sense of purpose and was longing to find my true purpose again. Several years after highschool, I was working a a server, then worked as a preschool teacher for a few years. In between I was going to college to study psychology and public speaking.

As I mentioned briefly before, In 2016 while I was working as a preschool teacher, I was learning about the concept of manifestation, lost my job, then took a risk.

So with the little bit of money I had and my last check, I decided to buy paint and asked my friend if I can volunteer to paint a mural in his bathroom. I ended up painting two murals in his bathroom. Then I posted it on social media and that’s when the word started going around about me painting.

One day while I was at a venue on Seabreeze Boulevard, Daytona Beach, the owner of the venue (by the name of Richard Kitt – who is now good friend of mine) approached me and asked me if I’d be interested to paint a mural at his Dive Bar venue located behind The Taproom on Seabreeze Boulevard. That’s when I took that opportunity to launch and build my portfolio from there. Ever since then, people were recognizing my murals and I kept getting hired by residents and business owners to do murals for them. Over the course of 6 years my portfolio has expanded with a lot of murals. I’ve painted murals for Pabst Blue Ribbon company, Windsor Palms Disney Resort in Kissimmee, Kid’s Cabana preschool, Daytona Lagoon, Daytona 500, Wynwood Miami, and more. I’m also a live art performer and have done live art performances at various events/ festivals.

In 2020, I wanted to do something greater by getting the community involved in beautifying the city in Daytona area, so I started a non profit organization called Save The Arts Movement (Co-founder James White), which is about working together with other artists and other people to participate in a public mural collaborations. I also have a passion for getting the community involved because I understand the satisfying feeling of longing to make a difference in other people’s lives and I wanted to give other people a chance to be a part of something that makes them feel like they are contributing to their community.

In the past two years with Save The Arts Movement, we got commissioned our first mural collaboration by the city of Holly Hill city manager Joe Forte to do a underwater theme mural behind the LPGA bridge on Daytona Ave. The collaboration involved four artists by the name Ania Amador, Taylor Renee, Tasha Roth, and I. We also had a few other volunteers come out to help as well. The city of Holly Hill and residents were so impressed that Mayor of Holly Hill Chris Via gifted the participants a certificate of recognition for the neighborhood mural beautification.

Then the next following year we got commissioned again by city manager Joe Forte to do another Mural on the LPGA bridge located on US1, which involved two other artists by the name of Danielle Cleary and Ian Cleary from Heartspace Art to collaborate with me on the East and West side of the bridge wall. A few volunteers came out to help facilitate as well.

My goal is to brighten up our city with as many murals as possible and get more artists, and our community involved by beautifying our city one mural at a time through facilitation and collaboration. And who knows, maybe in the future we may keep expanding beyond other cities as well.
I believe art changes the way we see our surroundings, and if we can put our creative minds together to create a visual stimulating atmosphere, then we set a valuable example to our community through the power of collaboration.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

It bewilders me when I hear people tell me that I’m so lucky to have a full-time career doing what I love to do on a daily basis. That it must be great, and it seems so easy and fun. While that can be true, it’s also very misleading without having an understanding of the pre-requisites of what it takes to get to that point. And it’s not even a destination. There will be days that have discouraging moments, failures and setbacks, and other days that feel exciting and rewarding. There’s been so many times where I have found myself to feel so frustrated and felt lack on confidence in the progress I was making. Then I would take breaks just to get back into focus. It took a lot of trial and error to breakthrough every milestone. I’m self taught. It’s always harder when you’re self taught. Just think of it as any other craft you have practiced throughout the years. Remember that starting point? Compare it to how far you’ve come with it. Practice after practice makes you resilient enough tolerate any challenges you have coming your way while proving to yourself how bad you really want to get better in your craft. It’s also a great way to keep yourself in check if you want to know how bad you really want it. It cements in the reassurance that it’s worth pursuing for the long term.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

To me the most rewarding aspect would be witnessing how my artwork has evoked a positive emotional response in people, and the meaning behind it. I’d have clients to make a request for me to paint them a mural based on something that they connect with. For example, a few years ago had a client who asked me to paint an underwater mermaid mural for her granddaughter because her granddaughter loves mermaids. So we did a surprise reveal once I finished painting an immersive underwater theme, and her granddaughter was in awe and speechless. I could see it in her eyes. It was one of the most fulfilling things I felt.

I also have clients who I developed friendships with. It’s a great feeling when I finish painting a mural for a client, then a few days later they invite me out to go fishing or to a cookout!

Contact Info:

• Website: savetheartsmovement.org
• Instagram: Natasha_azari_art
• Facebook: Azari Art
• Youtube: Azari Project
• Other: Azariart.com

Image Credits
Tyler Mard And Roots Rhythm Photography