Meet Christina “UB” Munny

We recently connected with Christina “UB” Munny and have shared our conversation below.

Christina “UB”, so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?

This is an intriguing question because I’ve always had an intense sense of empathy from a very young age, but only recently grew back into that sense of empathy. I come from a set of families with traditional values and a lot of times, those values lead people to become impatient, rigid, or “tough” – all things I was raised to think were the end goal in life. In so many ways, I fought my empathetic nature in order to fit the status quo as a kid and a young adult. Sometimes, I even had to conform to being more harsh and unempathetic in order to survive a situation, even though that isn’t how I would naturally handle things.

Now, I go out of my way to live through the values I naturally leaned towards as a child. I set up a small Free Little Library that focuses on making gently-used arts and craft supplies available to people in my community – leaning into my values of generosity and striving for equity. I bring my own tote bags to the grocery store and compost in our yard because I value eco-friendly and sustainable habits. I sub-in to run local artist meetups, shop at local small businesses, and create opportunities and events for people to gather in order to sustain and uplift local communities. I’ve donated profits from my business to causes I believe in – causes that would make certain close family members balk and criticize me. That criticism once meant more to me than living up to my values did. That isn’t true anymore.

In short, I slowly grew from a person who allowed a lack of empathy in others to dictate how I “should” be into a person who takes stock of their values, double-checks that those values are sustainable and are something I can stick to in tough situations, and stands up for those values. It takes a lot of patience with yourself and others to uphold your empathy in hard times. That patience is a muscle you have to work out in order to gain and keep strength, but it is well worth it to live a life that speaks to the empathy that was always there for me.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I use eco-friendly and recycled materials to make whimsical, spooky, and fantasy-inspired art for the weirdos and misfits of the world. My favorite materials include paper maché clay, reclaimed fabrics, and biodegradable cotton products with my art printed by small, US-based printers.

Recently, I’ve been excitedly exploring a combination of two of my passions, sewing and drawing, by learning how to design fabrics! I draw and design different repeatable patterns, send them to a US-based printer, and my mom and I turn those custom fabrics into awesome products like towels and pot holders. I look forward to bringing new illustration collections, patterns, and products to my audience in the future!

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?

#1: Self-motivation is a really tricky, but absolutely crucial skill to develop in the early years of your career. Whether you struggle with analysis paralysis, being easily distracted, task overwhelm, fear of failure, or a myriad of other reasons to stifle your own motivation, the trick is to find systems and hacks that tell your brain what it needs to hear in order to do the thing. For instance, I suffer from task overwhelm: there’s too much to do, too many small tasks within the big tasks, and even if I could find where to start, my brain is already in panic mode. Naturally, in this state, my brain just won’t do anything. It’ll panic and sit there and the problem will continue to compound around me. Instead of doing that, I try to redirect my brain to a small task that is manageable. I take a deep breath and sometimes it takes a little longer than ideal to do that task, but even if it’s just cleaning out my email inbox, cleaning up one corner of a room, or gathering all of my paint brushes into one spot, that small task can make all the difference in showing my brain, “You don’t need to panic. We’re safe and we can make progress at whatever pace we’re able. It will be okay.” There’s a million little hacks out there that override your brain in a similar manner. As a resource, I suggest KC Davis’s short book, “How to Keep House While Drowning.” Don’t forget to have patience with yourself; I still go in cycles of motivation, where I can tackle the world for a few weeks and then I have a week or two where nothing gets done and my brain is acting funky. Those cycles are okay and you’ll learn how to find less-taxing work to save for those low periods.

#2: Leaning into community is another essential skill that is honestly non-negotiable in this 8+ billion-people-large world we live in. I started my artistic journey because part of my community believed in me enough to let me quit my day job. I continue on that journey with the help of my family and friends, who do everything from buy products, to share my social posts, to show up to my events, and more. Not to mention the ways I’ve been able to meet people and get my products into local shops, niche art fairs, and other awesome places over the past year. The trick to leaning into your community, in my opinion, is to give more than you take: show up to your friends’ events, volunteer to help them out when they’re a hand short, and leave comments on as many of their social posts as you can. Of course, it’s also healthy to pop in and say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking of you,” every now and again and to show interest in other peoples’ lives, not just their businesses. This can feel like a lot to manage, so I use my calendar app to remind myself to send friends a check-in message, to check their socials and leave a few comments, and I of course use my calendar to keep up with all of their fun events. If you aren’t a people person, it can feel daunting to start leaning into your community, but the rewards are many and it is possible to manage the habits of a good friend with the use of a system or two to keep you on-track.

#3: Critical thinking skills have a wide range of uses when you’re a small business owner. One big area I’ve had to use these skills during the past year is in looking out for scams. The art vendor world is rife with people posing as event organizers, clients, or opportunities that will take your money if you aren’t looking out for yourself. If you’re in the art vendor space, be aware of what scams are common at the moment, which ones have been popular in the past, and what red flags to look out for when communicating about your business. Critical thinking skills are also useful in understanding what your product offerings should look like, alongside the feedback you get from customers. Other areas where critical thinking skills matter include deciding what vendor fairs to sign up for, deciding how much work is too much work for an opportunity you’ve been offered, and deciding how to invest back into your business when you make a profit. Critical thinking skills are tough to quantify, but it’s moments of conflict and decision-making where those skills come in handy. I would suggest looking up online courses in critical thinking and learning how to vet your information sources as places to start in improving this skill.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

This is a fun question; I think I would live life very similarly to how I do now. I have a lot of areas of myself, such as self-confidence and community-building, which I want to get stronger and I would likely lean into the skills I thought would help me fast-track those pieces of myself. I do honestly feel that I push myself in as healthy and as sustainable a fashion as I can in my current state. I’m happy and finally settling into a niche that I feel confident about in my career. I want to say that I would spend more time with friends and family or I would travel, but the truth is that I only have so much energy to give the world and I’m currently just outside my comfort zone, which seems like a healthy place to be. As I write this, I begin to think that I would maybe try to make as much art as I could and hire someone to help me put it out into the world, trying to hit one or two pieces that would take off with the masses and become my legacy. That’s food for thought in the next decade.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ubdraws.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ubdraws/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ubdraws/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe2DUqcO7nIK62gofM2f8ZA/videos
• Other: https://patreon.com/ubdraws