We recently connected with Payton Mullinax and have shared our conversation below.

Payton, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

Pretty Stoned Art is a fine art brand centering cannabis as the subject matter to infuse a feeling of luxury into the glamorous stoner’s lifted lifestyle. Pretty Stoned Art was born from dreaming, playing and disregarding the rules of how society tells us we’re “supposed” to live. It has taken five years for the idea to develop into the physical manifestation, and it’s really just getting started. Along with the art, I’m also creating a sober support program to offer guidance, insight and encouragement to people that are alcohol-free and still use cannabis as part of their wellness routine.

The pace of Pretty Stoned Art’s evolution was exponentially increased when I quit drinking in August of 2023. I struggled massively with procrastination for four years because of overwhelming self-doubt, perfectionism, imposter syndrome and fear of judgment. Those are also a lot of the same reasons I drank, to avoid the discomfort of facing those fears, worries and doubts. I had gotten to a breaking point and decided something needed to radically shift in my life if I wanted this dream of Pretty Stoned Art to become a reality. I knew deep in my heart that there was a much more fun and fulfilling life out there for me, and I’d have to stop numbing myself with alcohol and drugs to truly experience it. (I don’t consider cannabis anymore of a drug than caffeine! To me, it’s medicine.) As simple as it sounds, I made the decision to believe in myself and my art with 100% conviction, and that belief has fueled every small step I’ve taken to create this brand.

The past year of navigating sobriety and facing my fears to bring Pretty Stoned Art to life has been transformative, eye-opening and expansive beyond comprehension for me. I had to learn how to paint and find my style as an artist because I had no formal training, besides two semesters of art in high school. To hone my craft and grow my social media presence in the last year, I took a couple local painting classes, focused on ultimately completing paintings rather than making them perfect masterpieces, shifted my beliefs to feel that my work is good enough, worthy of being shared and sold, as well as documenting the process for social media content, and learning how to build and engage community online – not to mention dodging censorship from Instagram because my work supports cannabis consumption, which is against the platform’s guidelines.

As I’ve shifted my beliefs this past year to further support my vision, this work on my mindset has been bringing me opportunities beyond what I dreamed of for years. I’ve completed over 30 paintings, sold four original paintings, done 9 live painting events, shown art at a few shows, grown my Instagram following by hundreds, have found more fun, freedom and fulfillment than I ever thought possible and honestly, so much more. I only say that to share with others what’s possible when you finally go all in for your dreams.

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 was inspired to start painting weed as a way to de-stigmatize consumption, normalize use, support wider accessibility to the plant and move towards healing the societal damage done by the War on Drugs. While I know my part in that may be small right now, I believe it all adds up and contributes to progress. Growing up in the conservative south, I was under the impression that weed was “bad” for most of my life. Being a curious soul, when I was 19, I gave smoking a chance and then, to my surprise at the time, I actually really liked it. It has helped me manage severe pain from past health issues, it stimulates my creativity, supports my sobriety from alcohol and drugs, influences me to slow down, be present, and connect back with nature’s wisdom. With the countless ways that cannabis use has impacted my life so positively, I felt a call to share this narrative with other advocates and canna-curious people through painting, which is an art I’ve been drawn to since I was little.

I create pot-inspired paintings, but they aren’t your typical trippy, stoner art. My work is influenced by the luxurious Art Deco aesthetic, but with bright colors and a contemporary twist – for the glamorous stoner soul. My first official series is named “The Hollyweed Collection,” named after the iconic stunt pulled on the Hollywood sign making it read “HOLLYWeeD” in 1976, and again in 2017. Pretty Stoned Art is so much more to me than just weed paintings. It’s a movement of infusing luxury into a lifestyle that’s still so harshly looked down on. It’s about self-acceptance and self-expression in a world that so desperately urges you to conform. It’s about rebellion, reclamation and reformation.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

As I’ve been working on Pretty Stoned Art over the last several years, I’ve had to do a lot of learning, but probably even more unlearning. One of the most defining lessons I’ve been unlearning is the fear of rejection and integrating a feeling of safety in sharing my self-expression.

I grew up in South Carolina and, there, the societal standard is for young women to be polite, lady-like, agreeable and modest. I didn’t have much of a reference, if at all, of women that went against the grain and lived in ways that challenged these standards. This conditioning had a lasting impact on the way I lived for a long time. I felt alone, constricted, small and like there was only one “right” way to live – getting a good job, finding a man, settling down, having kids and selling my soul to a life of confinement to them. I didn’t know much about what I wanted at 19, but I knew I didn’t want to live that way. I did know, though, that I wanted to explore outside of my home state, work on creative projects, do yoga in beautiful places, meet different people and find a deep peace within myself. My intuition was begging me to follow my curiosity, but my conditioning was begging me to stay quiet and submit to tradition. It felt like an internal tug-of-war in my mind.

Being accepted by family and “friends” is what I thought mattered for most of my life, not realizing that appeasing their expectations and tip-toeing around rejection would be at the expense of my joy and self-expression. I grew up being a people-pleaser and was beyond terrified of what my family would think if I detoured from their expectations and lived more non-traditionally, so I stayed quiet, until I couldn’t anymore. I had overwhelming existential questions about who I was, why I was here, what life is about and what else was out there beyond “the norm.”

I finally realized I had to explore these questions and allow authentic self-expression to satisfy my soul. That journey meant more to me than keeping my family comfortable and avoiding rejection by them. I realized their discomfort was their own to tend to, not mine. I had to live for myself in an authentic way. I eventually felt courageous and stable enough to face the possibility of rejection from them, so I let the curiosity lead me, while learning how to accept myself and feel secure and confident doing things my way, deviating from the norm. Pretty Stoned Art wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t left South Carolina, followed my curiosity and started sharing my self-expression along the way.

This journey hasn’t come without loads of questions from loved ones, but my family has now mostly started to come around to my sometimes eccentric lifestyle. They may not fully understand why I do the things I do, and that’s okay, but I do know that they love me and want me to be happy.

Some takeaways from this lesson have been that facing rejection isn’t usually as bad as we anticipate it to be, when we live in alignment with our authenticity we draw in more harmonious relationships that support us, and if we’re lucky, our loved ones will allow love to overcome their rejection of our different lifestyles. Also, the satisfaction that comes from raw self-expression can make life feel like pure magic.

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?

As an artist, I don’t simply make art because I want to. I make it because I have to. Being creative is as necessary to me as brushing my teeth. I am not being dramatic. I’ve come to realize that I must create if I want to maintain my well-being. It’s something I couldn’t stop at this point even if I tried – it just pours out of me, whether it’s through painting, writing or decorating. It’s a natural expression of my beingness. I am an artist down to the depths of my core.

I struggled with depression for many years, and looking back, I was creating very minimally, if at all. I truly believe self-expression is a healing antidote for depression and it’s why I absolutely have to center my life around creativity. Not to sound grim, but otherwise, life is unbearable. That’s why I create. It’s part of my purpose. It’s my connection to something bigger than myself. It’s my medicine (besides weed, of course).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://paytonmullinax.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pretty.stoned.art/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@prettystonedart