Meet Angel Valdez

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

Angel, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

I definitely lean into nostalgia when I need to give my creativity a spark. I love going to my local CD/DVD store and going through all the CDs, either trying to find more Rihanna albums or stopping myself from buying more Madonna albums. I love listening to CDs, they remind me of how different the world was when we still bought physical media, listened to the radio and had to wait for our favorite songs to play. Watching movies and films is also a necessity. I really feel in love with movies and the art of cinema when I took a film class in college and was introduced to Meshes of the Afternoon, Tangerine and Cannibal Holocaust. Psychological thrillers are my favorite; they feel so timeless and surreal and scratch my brain in a way that can either calm my anxiety or create new ones like having an airplane turbine crash into my bedroom. I know the phrase “healing your inner child” may be a bit saturated, but engaging in things you never got to experience as a child can also be rewarding and inspiring in so many ways. So go ahead, buy that Tamagotchi, rewatch that old movie and play one of your favorite albums on CD.

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

Hi, my name is Angel Valdez, and I am a fiber artist and small business owner of Angels Yarn. I specialize in colorwork crochet ranging from tapestries to blankets but I also dabble with amigurumis, clothes, accessories, and much more. I had learned how to crochet as a child and seeing the influx of videos online during the pandemic really brought back my interest in the hobby as an adult. What I love about crochet is the endless possibilities by using different techniques, textures, small, large or even micro dimensions. My next goal is to learn how to do cut out crochet and eventually create mixed media with various fiber art techniques and textures. Since I started my business in 2024, I couldn’t be any happier. I love creating art, learning new skills, making new friends and building community.

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?

The three qualities that were most impactful in the beginning of my journey was trusting myself, trusting others, and learning when to say no. I used to be very unsure of myself and my aesthetic, always relying on the reference image of others and never experimenting with my own style. As I began to get more confident in my own skills, I still lacked trusting in the opinions of others. At first, I used to feel like my friends were misunderstanding me as an artist, but it took time to realize that the hopes and dreams my friends had about me and my art was only encouragement and motivation to keep going. For anyone out there that is on a new journey, I encourage you to learn when to say no. Saying no sounds easier when said and done, but I had to realize that if I don’t put myself and my time first, I will burn out, I will go into a negative space and isolate and I will keep going to this place until I learn when to say no, set my boundaries and give myself the time and space I need and deserve. We are only humans; we are not machines.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

A challenge I have been facing is being self-aware of my own escapist habits, learning not to rely on them and instead build positive habits. I had a long phone call with a friend the other day, and they gave me a reality check that I didn’t know I needed. I was telling them about how I wanted to visit and get out of my city and do a bunch of fun activities together and I didn’t realize it until she had mentioned it, that I was trying to find an escape. This isn’t something unfamiliar to me, during my days in college I was constantly driving from College Station to Houston, to Austin, to Dallas literally anywhere and everywhere just to not be home and alone. Back then it was to avoid the stress from school and the isolating feeling of being away from family and friends that I grew up with, but nowadays it’s to avoid the stress and monotony of my job (woohoo so original). But it comes to a point where I cause myself more harm than help and I start to isolate unintentionally. What I’m doing now to resolve this is learning to reframe my expectations and not put so much weight on them. Another friend once told me “Expectations lead to disappointment”, the quote may not apply to all situations but in this case, it emphasized that if you allow disappointment to be an outcome you are expecting it to be a possibility. What happens if you stop worrying about following an agenda or an imaginary list in your head? By removing these expectations, you start to give your mind a little bit more space to focus your time on the present moment instead of events that have or haven’t happened. Not everything has to be an experience either, the same activities I want to do out of my city can also be found here, and if not, I can find smaller ways to accomplish the same feeling of catching a break by either calling an out of town friend, doing a puzzle, thrifting for magazines and creating a collage, or simply having a movie night with company. To all my Type A personalities, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself or your expectations and just because you can handle being alone doesn’t mean you need to be.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @angels_yarn
• Other: TikTok: @angelsyarn
  Email: shopangelsyarn@gmail.com