Wednesday Indie Artist Fixx with Creative Thursday

Whether it’s creating a daily painting,  doing design work for web clients, creating a weekly podcast, writing children’s books or any of the other creative endeavors Marisa Haedike of Creative Thursday turns her energy to,  it seems that Marisa can do anything she puts her mind to.  Back before Marisa worked on Creative Thursday full time, she was working a 9 to 5 job and not able to get spend any of her time in a creative way.  Marisa decided that at least one day a week, Thursdays, had to be set aside for creative pursuits and that’s how Creative Thursday was born. Now, she is able spend all her days being creative and she surely doesn’t squander any of that time!

I’m very happy to able to share my interview with Marisa today for Indie Artist Fixx.

1. What’s the name of your business and what do create and sell?

Creative Thursday -I’m a painter ~ Two years ago I joined the daily painters movement ~ painting small originals and posting them for sale online to my blog and website almost every day. I sell these original paintings and prints from some of the painting images. And from time to time I explore other creative mediums from sculpting clay, to sewing and embroidery. I also just self-published my first children’s book that I both wrote and illustrated!!

2. When did you get your start and what made you decide to take the plunge?

After several entrepreneurial attempts over several years, I finally got the courage to make my own creations and put them out into the world. Making a bridge between careers from interior design, to artist, my first creations were “re-designed” vintage chairs. I submitted these chairs to a local all women’s co-operative gallery, Ten Women, in Venice, CA. They were accepted and that was my start.I took the plunge a good 4 years before that because after working for a series of bosses that did not seem to “get me”  ~ and constantly running into creative and professional limitations set by those bosses, I could no longer work for someone else. I really wanted to do the best job I could for an employer, but realized over time that my own vision for myself always took me further than any of my jobs could.

3. What are your inspirations in your art and in life?

Everything ~ well almost everything. I’m learning to love my life more every day and within that lies so much inspiration ~ enough for an original painting almost every day 🙂

4. Were you an artsy craftsy kid? If so, what kinds of things did you do?

I absolutely was. I did everything from drawing and painting to crafting little felt characters, sewing dolls from socks and panty hose to creating a doll house out of a box, and then making all kinds of miniature creations for that very same doll house. I eventually did get an actual doll house and then preceded to make clothes for the dolls and furnishings for the new house!

Let me just say that the fact that I was so creative growing up gave me no sign that I would make my living as an artist. Looking back it probably should have been a sign, but I just never thought I could make a living as a painter, so I majored in Advertising~ so you just never know, and it’s true that the answers to what you will enjoy and probably have success with as an adult often lie in your childhood joy.

5. Tell us one funny/goofy/silly thing about yourself.

This was the last question I answered in this interview. I agonize over these kinds of questions with the hopes that something clever and witty will occur to me to share….and that alone is probably a silly thing about me. But I just remembered one incident that is all 3, funny, goofy and silly… and embarrassing. I once tried to sneak into the premiere party of the film Ocean’s 11 ~  by scaling a small wall and hiding in one of the luxury porto potties set up at the premier party location on the roof of a parking garage here in Los Angeles…but I was too anxious, came out of the potty too soon and was caught by security and asked to leave ~ fully humiliated, but fun anyway and now it’s a good story…and goodness, who doesn’t want to rub shoulders with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts?!

6. What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst?

There’s nothing better than the fulfillment I get from creating something I love. Sometimes, the day to day tasks of running a business can feel mundane and overwhelming, even at the same time. Then I remind myself how lucky I am to do what I do…and those same tasks take on a whole new meaning.

7. What blogs and mags do you read and what shops do you shop at? List as many as you want.

I LOVE blogs and visit so many I can’t possibly list them all ~ but at the moment, here are a few of my regular visits: decor8, design for mankind, poppytalk, swirly girly, cathy nichols, melissa moss, outi harma, orange you lucky, el beso, 3191, kitty genius,

mags
Dwell, Oprah, In Style, Domino, Lucky, Bon Apetit and an occasional as I call them “trashy mag”, aka US Weekly or People, while I have a pedicure ~ my great indulgence!

shops
Anthropologie, tons of Etsy shops that I love ~ buying handmade is the BEST! Amazon for my books that I love and many other things that I keep finding are available there now too.

8. What three things can’t you live without?

I can’t limit it to 3 ~ I need many things to live ~so here’s my top 3:

sean
my laptop
my surfboard

9. What does indie mean to you? You can give a literal definition, choose to be a little esoteric or a combination of both.  😉

Indie means a willingness to make your own way in the world, whether anyone else approves or not.

10. What are you reading, watching and listening to?

Reading always includes skipping between 5 – 10 books at a time ~ here’s the top 5 at the moment:
Loving What is by Byron Katie
Living in a Foreign Language by Michael Tucker
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Simple Abundance by Sarah Van Breathnach
Money and the Law of Attraction by Jerry and Esther Hickswatching

Watching:

The Daily Show
Colbert Report
Sex and the City reruns, always!
Lots of movies via Netflix, especially documentaries

Listening to:
The new Coldplay again, and again, and again

11. What’s new? Any new plans or products that you want to share?

There are some great opportunities on the horizon that I’m not ready to share just yet ~ and that’s always exciting, but honestly at this very moment, September 2008, I’m at a place where I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to and I LOVE my work ~ my business is finally, almost consistently making a living and I’m not entirely sure what’s next~ other than I know that I’m ready to take the next step. At the moment I’m trying to just feel at ease in that space in between steps.
Oh and yes, I already mentioned in one of my answers, the release my first children’s book that I just self-published and my 2009 calendar will be coming out soon!