Meet Olivia Trim

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Olivia Trim. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Olivia below.

Olivia, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

I was so lucky to grow up in an artistic family. My entire family (immediate and extended) is connected to a creative or artistic pursuit. Growing up I was extremely encouraged to devote time and energy to artistic pursuits. Even to this day my parents house is covered in artwork created by my sister and I. Despite all of this love and devotion toward the arts as an expressive pursuit, I still felt outside and societal pressures to not pursue art professionally. I also felt connected to other professions. They were non-traditional, but were generally part of a larger organization and therefore felt a bit more “real” than trying to build a business as a painter. Because of this, I joke that I have lived many lives, as I changed professions often. Working seasonally allowed me to work in fields as diverse as outdoor education, community program development for non-profits, food service, sewing production and much, much more. Despite trying out all of these professions, within a year or two of any job I consistently found myself burnt out, frustrated, moving and leaving behind a life in pursuit of a new one, and hopefully happiness.

At some point, I was on the phone with a friend and mentioned that I thought I wanted to pursue art professionally. She responded by saying, “Well OF COURSE you do! You keep returning to this idea. How many times have you gone back to your art business?” She was right of course, but it still took time to believe in the idea and myself. To believe that my art was worthy of space on the internet and in a world where it feels like we are inundated with art and people trying to make it as artists. Once I decided that I didn’t really care what anyone else thought, I realized that what I wanted was to be a painter. And I also knew that once I believed in myself enough to have the courage to share my work over and over and over again, that eventually people would notice and would respond to my belief in myself.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a painter. I have been painting for the better part of the last 15 years. I have been selling professionally for the last 3 years. I primarily work in watercolor but will also work with acrylic paints. Despite the different media I treat them the same and produce a similar style of painting regardless. I focus on my interactions with the outdoor and natural world, whether that is a particular vignette or a larger landscape painting. One of my favorite things about painting is that is an opportunity for us to share our style, our vision, how we interpret our surroundings on the page. Everyone who participates in a creative pursuit will produce something slightly different, and that is what makes it exciting for me. I know that what I produce will be different from everyone else because my perspective is different.

I will be finishing up with the Durango Farmer’s Market for the Harvest and Holiday markets as well as doing some other markets around town for the holidays.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three words that come to mind are tenacity, curiosity and compassion.

Tenacity –
Working seasonally for so many years, I have had to learn how to work through even in the toughest of situations. My work ethic has developed tremendously as a result of this and keeps me pushing even when it feels hard. I know that with this line of work, lack of inspiration is one of my most difficult challenges, but I know that if I can find a way to keep pushing through, the inspiration will come back.

Curiosity –
I feel like the more I open myself up to various opportunities, to new people, to new experiences – even to noticing the smallest things, the better I get at the craft and the profession of being an artist. When I allow myself to be a sponge, to ask questions and to listen without judgement, I am able to connect pieces that I would’ve otherwise blown right by. When I am just open to the experience, I am able to soak it all in and then be inspired later.

Compassion –
The profession of being an artist is hard. Identifying as a painter is hard. Actually producing artwork is hard. We do it because the positive aspects far outweigh the negative ones, but it doesn’t deny the fact that what I do is often so hard. When I have compassion for myself – practice being kind to myself despite the quality of work I produce or how productive I am in any given day, I feel so much better about all of it. I know often we hear that to be an artist, you have to have a thick skin, which is true, but I feel like the more I practice being compassionate with myself, the less I worry about what other people have to say. And then I can just focus on producing work that feels authentic and joyful to me.

My advice is to let the journey happen organically as much as possible. When I try and force things to work, they usually don’t work. I often find that if I trust in the process, I am surprised and delighted by the end product. My initial vision for how something will turn out almost never comes to fruition, but it’s always replaced by something even better.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

As uncool as it may be to admit, I often feel overwhelmed. There are just so many different ways to feel pressure as an artist. Whether its the societal pressure of doing a job that doesn’t always get approval from others, making enough money to make life work, producing work that feels both authentic to me and appeals to an audience, or even just making day to day decisions such as deciding what packaging to buy, it’s a LOT and all the time. Add in the pressures we feel from social media or other sources, and it can be debilitating.

I feel like my growth the last 12 months has focused a lot on how to many the overwhelm. At some point, I just decided that what other people thought about my work, about how I run my business, even how they felt about me, didn’t matter. The only opinion to those things that mattered was my own. If I wanted to seek out other advice I was fully empowered to do that myself. Once I took off the pressure of trying to make every customer happy, I was producing much better work that felt so much more authentic to me. I started selling more. I started capturing the attention of other successful artists in my community and different opportunities started to pop up. All of this helped me separate my self worth from the work I produced. I used to think that whether or not someone liked a piece was somehow a reflection of whether or not they liked me (as silly as that seems.) But once I realized that once I put a piece out in the world, it wasn’t mine anymore, that question of self-worth was able to be separate from my work. My work was a reflection of me, of my perspective and style, but it also was a mirror for whatever the viewer was bringing to the viewing experience. Once I was able to take off this fundamental pressure, it all became a lot easier.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.moonbeam-art.com
• Instagram: moonbeam_art.design
• Facebook: Moonbeam Art and Design