Meet Maya Jensen

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maya Jensen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Maya, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

If you’ve ever heard, I’ve done so much for so long with so little I can do anything with nothing. My resilience comes from that phrase being learned into my bones from my lifetime already lived, to my ancestral blessing’s teaching me “never give up”, with a positive attitude that looks for the content side of … the bright side of life…My resilience comes from the same place that decides and drives the determined wind ….my resilience comes from a silent knowing of a world or a story that can and has been coming true…..every moment a miracle and i intend to live every moment like it is …….!!…the most wonderful thing that is ,has, and actually happening in order for this text to happen I couldn’t list the trillion billion things that have had to happen just right in order for me to be here right now talking to you…. I am one of those persons in life that you could base a movie on. My resilience comes from being told that “the world doesn’t work that way “ (context:- telling parents,family,teachers,anyone when i was young, that i am a Artist…easiest explanation)…and in all the notions of being living becoming an artist while younger were a challenge to learn live love laugh through while being and becoming the artist i am now-what I’ve been and begun again….i am begining every moment with the resilience of the child with that exact energy that confidence that knowing that I can do anything if I put my mind to it… or if you can make it through life with your child like exuberance still intact you know you are……………………don’t remember the rest of it… my resilience comes from. I believe I knew I was an artist when I was five and at the end of high school when nobody knew what they were going to be. I still knew what I was after the 20s 30s 40s of my life and the Chase after the all American dream, I still know now I am and have been given a second chance on a lifetime that for all practical purposes parts of it I’ve misused ……….my story normal background, normal upbringing definitely middle of the middle class smack dab middle of Nebraska a struggle in my neighborhood to find others that saw the world as I did …. A visual learner ,perhaps a bit on the spectrum…… no one to acknowledge your really seen… 20’s were a drunken blur given, handed opportunities while living rockstar existence in the forgotten neighborhood alleyways of a collection of cool towns all over United States..(lots of art, lots of, lots of art),….30’s A collection of businesses, relationships, adventures, and lessons….(enough art, lots of adulting)….40’s back to a limbo like what have I done? What am I doing drunken existence that all ended March 23, 2021 and what I went into a scheduled appointment to find out if my gallbladder needed to be removed and the surgeon in her appointment office looked at me and said I know exactly what this is…. She took three steps towards me and looked up at me and without hesitation said to me “ are you willing to never ever drink alcohol ever again?….. and in the microseconds of dumbfounded wait what…. I said back to her….” yes.”….. and she said….” are you willing to go over to the ER right now immediately?”…… and I replied……” yes”…. I made my way across the street to the emergency room at the hospital in which a lot of people nurses and doctors were ready for me…. What was happening to me was an acute/chronic hepatic liver failure…. The ER doctor literally said to me that my liver was like toast and I said to him that I was really upset because that was not a clinical term and he says well you pour water onto a piece of toast, what happens …. It doesn’t absorb anything. It just all runs off and he started to describe what my liver was not doing and why I have three days three weeks three months to live ….Five days later, the the Eureka moment….. Mr. Jensen you have hepatitis C…. At that moment, I really didn’t know exactly what it was …..kind of thought HIV ……I knew of my intravenous drug use during a couple semesters during the second college I went to…… and of course I knew that I have drank my entire life, but it was incredibly shocking to hear at 48 years old that I had three days three weeks or three months to live… I found out during my first night at the hospital. There was such a thing called a meld score….. a 3 month model for end stage liver disease…. And in a scale of 6 to 40, I was a 31…….. The first week out of the hospital, I needed to report to my primary physician my new gastroenterologist…. Radiology a dietitian and nutritionist blood draws twice a week And my liver transplant team …….that’s right my liver transplant team. Over the next three months six months nine months ….. lots of visits to Presbyterian St.Luke transplant center in Denver, Colorado, as well as Gastro technologist in Grand Junction to continue to tell everybody exactly where my liver was at and exactly where I was at on the transplant list at 11 months my med score dropped below 15 and I was officially taken off the transplant list or I still hold onto my candidacy and will join the list again as I progress into the later stages of late stage cirrhosis… at 18 months marked the end of my second round of some very horrific pharmaceuticals that were given to me to to rid my body or my liver of hepatitis C …. What literally that is happening to me now because of these super Duper pharmaceuticals is a whole Nother story … currently upon my calculation I’m seven years into the 12 years they give me according to the classification of how late in cirrhosis I am and all I can see is an entire lifetime to be lived in a brand new body mind … with my spirit and soul intact ……oh my goodness, I did not mean to do any of the things that I’ve already done to get me to the point that I’m at now became a notion that has long as since passed and gone for me, I acknowledge everything that I’ve done to be where I’m at right now and I am grateful. I am so thankful that all the molecules in my body still decide to form my body in the moments that I get to experience that are a miracle to me. I thought the three months prior to my hospital visit was the toughest thing that I’ve ever endured physically mentally spiritually, but it was the 3456 months after the hospital that became one of the toughest things that now my resilience to all of life hard aches and hardships and mis forgiveings and trials and tribulations and pain and fear and terror of a life not yet fully lived …..became my love of life and how grateful I am to be the spirit in this body With the opportunity to do so many things and a lifetime that was handed back to me after I quit drinking on March 23, 2021 i’ll speed forward and of course you get it by now. I can’t possibly record type everything that is coming to me right now, but I wanted to get enough down to show tell you guys that I have much to share and tell maybe a phone call during a really revealing moment of vulnerability which is most moments for me could work as a way to get my story down in chronological order oh yeah have ADHD wasn’t diagnosed until I was 50….. I will think more on where I get my resilience from but for now in a One sentence answer I would say I get my resilience from the same department that made me and makes our universe, unknown, and unfathomably massive and expanding …reachable only by a dream like notion that fuels the belief and brawn behind the all of the worlds never been dones, never been seen before once in a lifetime only for this moment was once only imagined and once only lived in type mentalities Soulful souls, a unquestionably spirited spirit or a heart that only hears and sees the notions of triviality and wonderment…. i’m so positive of an individual that I can’t help but inspire others around me and all that I meet to be more of the person that they truly are …..I could give Tony Robbins a run for his money…..I have a tattoo on my right wrist from the hobo lexicon that means never give up… I had it put there to remind me to never give up on art or the artist God-given talents that is stowed upon me at birth, although life all of its trials and tribulations the white picket fence the bustling booming 52 employee business… installing finish carpentry/ milwork in the fancy 5star hotels/homes in and around aspen,the American dream, the yada yada yada…… I closed that chapter and moved to paonia,Colorado Bought 108 year old house, turned it into an artist in residency program… in which before the program started during renovation…I installed two circle skylights in the main gallery, art studio room only to have the synchronistic magical appearance of two circles, touching drawn out with sunlight on the floor in front of me one summer afternoon, as if it was a sign I reminder to never give up on becoming the artist…. my resilience comes from all the artwork let resides, be filtered in my mind that I had love to see brought onto into this existence for the first time ever on this planet in my lifetime. I have so much artwork to get out and share I never meant to spend a lifetime as a drunk, and working out all the pains involved in achieving the American dream to someday find the time to live out my passion or childhood dreams ….ive lived parts of my dream in every moment of my life and i am thankful for my resilience to the mundane themes programmed into our psyche throughout our lives….
Out of everything that life has handed me so far in life….I believe my smile to be genuine, my vibration to be true and authentically sound, my soul and spirit are playing unabridged unbound joyfully curious alive and beating spontaneity to the very moment we all share and are all in…. and in every moment in every day of my life I’m living a dream come true

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am currently coordinating or putting everything together as far as my webpage, which is and will be…www.arthurmaya.art
Email….maya@arthurmaya.art
Facebook…..i think im maya Arthur
Instagram…..arthur maya 23 …?
Etsy….123artworks
I might have some others not for sure ..losing focus and maybe i can come back and fill in more blanks in this category later?
Paonia colorado…….come visit…ask …someone will point you in my direction
970-355-8385
I am looking to paint huge murals anywhere…

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Talk good to the water!
Your word is bond!
Choose love over fear…….
Know that while you’re doing the things that you don’t wanna do you’re getting good at doing those things that you don’t wanna do at the time that you don’t wanna do it when you thought that it couldn’t be done that can be done. It is getting it done that allows you all progress sense of accomplishment and achievement…. worthiness they can only be instilled during the action or the actions of doing it where your mind goes and where it goes what is not supposed to tell us things about ourselves and if you can get all through the things that are monkeys squirrel mines offer up to us to Aid and assist us away from the moment of obtainment clarity and completion of a task that will multiply in its importance as time counts and keeps track of the moments that make up our character

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

My first sketchbook and every sketchbook,…or painting since….

One of the other questions I could’ve answered was is there anything going on currently in my life right now that I have to overcome and that would be my current health issues and a relationship need to and the pleasure of reinventing so to speak myself into the artist, I already was instead of the carpenter. My body is reluctant to be anymore because of late stage cirrhosis I was told there would be complications and I wasn’t really prepared for some of those complications to present them self this quickly and I’m not really sure what exactly these neurological movement disorder things really are but for the first six months of not being able to do my regular MRI and endoscopy complete blood panel work up every six months like to deliver transplant team in Denver suggest due to Medicade dropping me because I am making too much money and the only reason why I am making too much money. Is that the year that my liver almost failed I racked up a lot of bills I was out of work. Covid was just getting done and the money that I have to make to cover my bills puts me out of the category to the Medicade. I’m experiencing these involuntary kicks spasms jerks that could be the start of a non-typical Parkinson’s that is associated with late states, liver disease, and cirrhosis. It’s made it kinda hard for me to work normal hours being , a carpenter, but what a blessing and is given me all the time that I’ve ever wished for to become B and figure out how to pay the bills being an artist. It’s like everything in my life has to these moments in the last three years that will launch me into the rest of my life as long as my body allows it .

Contact Info:

• Other: I’m too tired to list all the handles or fill out the above categories…i will at a later time though….promise pinky swear