Meet Terese Young

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

Terese, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours? 
This might sound cliche but I think confidence is more about self acceptance. I turned 50 this past year and was so surprised about how that would change me! Even though I have a very independent nature and a history of doing things differently than most, I also had people pleasing tendencies and spent WAY too much time caring what others thought.

That all started melting away after my bday and it’s been the most liberating thing ever! Maybe others have been living that way all along but I wasn’t. I don’t look or feel the same physically as when I was younger but I wouldn’t trade this new found freedom for the world!

Accepting yourself warts and all, in my opinion, is the greatest gift you can give yourself. When you’re able to turn the volume down on self criticism it creates soooo much more space for you to appreciate your uniqueness. It also seems to limit your exposure to negative people because their messaging doesn’t match your internal ones.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a contemporary abstract expressionist painter. What I love so much about it is the ability to continually explore my obsession with color. When you go to a city and see big, beautiful murals on the buildings, tell me that doesn’t create such warmth and beauty!! I don’t do murals but if I can create a similar energy inside someone’s home, that brings me a lot joy.

I tend to paint pieces that are very calming but also have a lot of movement. The world feels like a dumpster fire right now so I like that even on a small scale, I’m doing my part to counter that. I’ll be able to look back at my life and say I added more peace to the world, not conflict. That’s important to me.

I’ve recently relaunched my website (www.teresemyoung.com) with help of a VERY talented woman named Billie Hilliard. We both worked really hard on it and it feels so authentic to who I am. It was such a nice experience collaborating with another creative since I work alone 98% of the time (other than my fabulous assistant/dog, Yogi) I’m really proud of the work we did together!

If you had to pick three to succeed that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Not comparing yourself to other artists is sooooo important to succeeding. That’s a tough one and I have to continually work at it! Social media is a necessary tool for artists but also the biggest trap for luring you into the comparison game.

When I catch myself doing it, I remind myself that we each have such unique talents and paths. There really is room for all of us to shine. Do I get envious? Of course! I’m human. But using other artists’s successes as inspiration or learning is the way to go. Ask them for tips! I did/do and am always willingly share mine to those who ask.

Another vital thing to succeeding is asking yourself WHY you do what you do. Once I identified WHY I paint and what is unique about my skillset, I made a much bigger effort to show that to the world. My WHY is to create more calming yet uplifting energy in the world. Once I answered that, it gave me more purpose and laser focus on accomplishing my goal.

The 3rd tip ties back into the self acceptance topic. Let the world see you. REALLY see you! If my personality or style isn’t a good match for someone, I’m truly ok with that now. I have zero interest in pretending to be someone else.

It can be an extremely vulnerable thing to show your art to the world sometimes. I’m not interested in working with people who don’t appreciate me or my work AS IS. Rock what you got! I’ve always believed that but after turning 50 am actually living it more.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

Travel, travel and more travel!! It’s what brought my husband Ian and I together over 28 years ago and still our happy place today. We have exploring new cities together down to a science and are very complimentary travel companions. I’ve always joked we would do great on the show Amazing Race! If I only had 10 years left, I’d want to see as much of the world as possible!

I’d probably still focus on painting in between trips. My paintings could be little pieces of me floating around the world long after I’m gone and that’s very comforting! They are like little time capsules of my life. They could keep my spirit alive indefinitely.

I’d also spend less time worrying about trivial things or what may or may not unfold in my life. If you knew your time here was limited, that seems like such a waste! Ok, now I see I need to adopt this mindset now in my life so thank you!

Contact Info:

  • Website: www.teresemyoung.com
  • Instagram: @teresempaintings
  • Facebook: @teresempaintings
  • Linkedin: Terese Meshanko Young

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