Meet Bonnie Hayden

We recently connected with Bonnie Hayden and have shared our conversation below.

Bonnie, 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 found my purpose because I had to in order to save my life. A couple of years ago I was going through some very tough challenges in my life – health challenges, work challenges, family issues. Everything was crashing down around me and my heart had an electrical circuit that was malfunctioning causing it to beat 200 beats a minute at random times. I knew that if I didn’t make changes I would not survive all of these things. As a lifelong artist, I also knew that if I could do art every day it would be healing. So, I created a project where I made one piece of art out of colorful cotton pom poms every day for a year. Each character or “Pom” that I created had a story and I learned something new every day while researching their stories. From Jane Pomda to Pomino Acid to the Pom Ness Monster, I had a ball making all of these characters and writing their stories. More importantly, I relaxed every day, and had joy every day, and fulfilled a promise and commitment to myself every day. Through this daily art practice, I found a healthy way to manage my stress, and to connect with my heart and with my spirit. This daily practice transformed my life because it transformed my soul and my attitude and my relationship with myself. My health improved and my challenges were resolved. I realized that the next step – after completing 365 poms, was to share them and my experience making them with others, with the goal of inspiring people to find healthy ways of managing their stress through finding joy, creating fun, and playing. Yes, my Poms are cute, but they are really for adults – to inspire and help adults remember to enjoy their lives, to play, and to take care of themselves. I like to say that out of breakdown comes breakthrough and that was definitely the case for me.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I sculpt characters – animals, (Marty the Lactose Intolerant Mouse), people, (Pom Selleck), feelings (Pomtuition), and just about anything out of colorful cotton pom poms. My grandmother taught me how to draw and use pastels and to jewel things starting at the age of 3, which lead to painting murals and all kinds of wonderful creativity. In between creating works of art, I am an estate attorney. The research I do as an attorney and the business skills I’ve cultivated through practicing law have translated into writing 365 stories – one for each of my Poms – and two books, “The Poma Sutra” and “The Adventures of Puff, the Pompliment Cat”. I’ve created many custom Poms for patrons and had 4 events in the past year – including one at Michael Kors in Century City and having a tent at the BT5K Walk benefitting the American Brain Tumor Association. We had a Valentine’s Day show at the Larissa Love Boutique called “Love Pom” and a fantastic show at Bijou Indochine called “Dragons and Gems”. This year, Behold the Pom is a sponsor for the BT5K Walk (supporting the American Brain Tumor Association), and Dr. Sara Bellum, renowned Pom neuroscientist, will be hosting our tent with me on Saturday, October 26th at Tongva Park in Santa Monica. Concurrently with the Walk, we are having a pop up art show at Curated Los Angeles, an incredible jewelry store on Montana Avenue, from October 22nd – October 27th. At the Beauty, Brains, and Jewels show, hosted by Pomlizabeth Taylor, we are launching our own Pom jewelry line which is available at the show and on the Behold The Pom website. Pom brooches and earrings will be added to our other special merchandise; Good Luck Pomigami Cranes, Pom wreaths and paintings, and our wonderful Pom books. A portion of the sales proceeds at Curated L.A. that week will go to supporting the great work of the American Brain Tumor Association and the BT5K Walk. We have also teamed up with Bonsai Coffee Bar and on Sunday, October 27th a portion of their sales will also go to helping the American Brain Tumor Association. So, people can wake up, grab a cup of coffee and a flyer for the show, and then head over to the Beauty, Brains, and Jewels show (if they didn’t make it earlier in the week) for some Sunday shopping. Rise and Sparkle! Creating the Poms for my 365 day project has turned into a lot more than making Poms! Our pop up shows are a reason to grow and spread the word about Behold the Pom. There will also be one more event after our show at Curated L.A before the end of the year at a wonderful shop called “Sin Barko” on Montana Ave. in Santa Monica. That show will begin on November 9th and go through the end of the year. It will showcase my paintings of hummingbirds, dragons, and other bejeweled animals.

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?

First, the ability to focus and keep a commitment, no matter what. Second, the ability to analyze and synthesize large amounts of information quickly and efficiently. And third, the ability to create beautiful art, even if it’s something I’ve never made before – so to create with courage. Regarding the first skill, I’d advise people to make themselves – their health, mental and physical – a top priority in their life and to do this by making a promise to themselves. For me, that promise was to do something positive for myself every single day for a year. The promise to create something I love through a process of looking at beautiful colors, touching something soft, learning something new, creating with joy and positivity, kept me accountable to myself and to others in my life whom I asked to support me in this project and journey. I set up a structure for my project so that I could succeed – which included sending my Pom of the Day to a group of friends and creating a travel kit so I could make my daily Pom even when I was traveling. The process of creating was much more important than the result. Regarding the second skill, as an attorney, I can read a lot of information and boil it down to a few sentences with relative ease since I’ve been doing that for over 20 years now. It was very helpful in researching all of the stories for the Pom characters that I created. I learned so much. So, the advice I would impart is to stay curious, keep learning, keep growing, and to again, enjoy the process. As I wrote more stories, I remembered how much I loved creative writing when I was growing up, and I infused the stories with my personality and sense of humor. I made them fun and I made them my own – even for things I found challenging to learn the first time around when I was a kid, like things having to do with science. I made a Pomino Acid and learned about amino acids again with fresh eyes (and brain). Regarding the third skill, as a lifelong artist, first taught to draw by my Grandmother when I was 3 years old, making art is a part of my spirit. I’d advise people beginning a project or looking to make a change in their life to revisit the things they loved to do while they were children and to start doing those things again. As a child I had the ability (and time) to play and be in joy and explore and the things that I loved that came purely from my spirit. As I got older and became an adult, I was bogged down with a lot of serious, heavy things and responsibilities and I lost a lot of that play and joy. Revisiting it and bringing it back into my life – even if only for 20 minutes some days – was completely reinvigorating and transformative. And the consistency of doing that every day for 365 days in a row truly caused a positive shift in my heart, mind, spirit – and physical and mental health. My project did not make the problems and responsibilities in my life disappear, but it did help me to manage my stress and my mental health so that I could deal with the challenges in my life from a much healthier, positive place.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

I was just mentioning to a friend today that in trying to share my Poms and the project I did for 365 days and now all of the other art and Pom products that have come from it, I find myself starting a business. Starting the business and all of the responsibilities and tasks that come with it feels very adult and heavy to me – these things are not nearly as fun as creating the art. Trying to form a team to help me with the things I’m not great at or don’t have time to learn is a challenge because people do not have the same work habits that I do, the same timeline, or the same passion for the Poms. I often feel uncomfortable because I am doing and learning a lot of things I’ve never done before. I also understand that while people are inspired by my vision, no one will love my company and my Poms as much as I do and so the level of commitment is not necessarily there when I am working with others on this business – which is incredibly personal to me. Plus, as I work on the business I have less time to create the art that I love to make because I am managing social media, putting together art shows, creating merchandise to sell, maintaining a website, and forming partnerships. I often feel that I am losing my work-life balance for something that was pure joy and play for me when I originally formed it. My relaxing project is turning into another stressful job. So, I am trying to find joy in all of the new things I am learning. I am grateful for all of the lessons I learn as I take on and conquer all of the challenges in starting my Pom business. I am proud of myself for coming so far and for persevering. And I am pretty constantly talking to friends and family – getting their advice. I am talking to partners whether that be social media advisors, photography experts, film makers, marketing people, other business owners – to get their input about the best way for me to move forward in sharing my Pom mission and vision and to navigate the business challenges that come up.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Bonnie Harris Hayden
Brandy Menefee

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