Meet Keira Curtis

 

We recently connected with Keira Curtis and have shared our conversation below.

Keira, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

To develop my self confidence and self esteem, I had to learn and cultivate 3 lessons. How to love myself, how to respect myself, and how to know/understand my worth. The first lesson was the hardest, but it opened the door for me to be able to embark on the journey to setting myself free of the expectations of others and build a life I can be proud of.

Thinking patterns in this are everything. I found that in order to love myself I had to separate myself from events, things, or behaviors that caused me pain in order to isolate the problem. When I started, I found when things would go wrong I would say I hate myself. I found after reflecting that many of the things I hated were behavioral patters, responses, or previous events. While I couldn’t change the past, I could control how I react to things in the present. To do that, I spent many months making a habit of separating myself from what I hated so I could have more control over myself and begin to make adjustments. I visualized who and what it was I wanted to be and what I wanted for myself and used that as a goal/reference. I realized if I didn’t believe in myself, I would always fail. However, even if everyone in the world didn’t believe in me, as long as I could believe in myself, I’d have the power to prove them wrong.

One of the big things I realized was that I am the only one living in my head, and that I needed to be able to like who I was to be happy. If people didn’t like who I was, they weren’t meant to be in my life, and the right people would be. This shift led me to finding people who were more like minded and allowed me the safe space to continue to grow into the person I am now.

This helped me get to stage 2, which was understanding respect. For me it wasn’t giving respect, but receiving respect and setting boundaries that I struggled with. What I realized was that treating others the way I wished to be treated wasn’t respect, but common decency. Respect is to treat others the wish they wish to be treated. When I was able to make that distinction, it helped me understand how to set boundaries and better respect the boundaries of those around me. Which helped me transition into the final stage which is value.

Self love and respect are essential to understanding value. You have to love yourself to know what you value, and what your time means to you. Respect helps you set and enforce the boundaries that allow you that freedom.

In conclusion, thinking patters were how I was able to overcome my lack of self esteem and self confidence issues. The more I worked on my thinking patterns, the more I was able to achieve and build a relationship with myself. The stronger the relationship with myself, the stronger my self confidence grew as I was able to trust I could overcome each obstacle. This is all possible because I changed how I think.

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?

So I have lived in 5 states as we would move when my dad would change jobs. As a result, I got to see many different types of people and experience many different sides of American culture. I lived in Maine, Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, and now New Hampshire. This made it difficult for me to put roots down, but in the long run allowed me to see and experience many things I normally wouldn’t. This led me to want to search for community as I never really felt like I belonged. Art and music were my escapes from this and later lead me to be part of those communities in adulthood and solidify my dream to create a community of my own.

Throughout my life, I have learned that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. Humor is my lemonade and how I am able to stay happy and positive throughout my life. As a result, much of my art is focused on the more whimsical and humorous! Specifically I tend to make art of trash pandas, avocado puns, and crack head squirrels; each stemming from different inside jokes or inspiration. The trash pandas were inspired my New Hampshire. Raccoons just embody Live Free or Die to me as they just are unapologetically authentic. The squirrels are inspired by caffeine and drug addicts I’ve seen. The avocado’s stemmed from an inside joke. I used to work at chipotle, and one day I stubbed my toe and said “Jesus-Guacing Christ” to which my coworker replied “I want that tattooed to me ass.” I was like “Bet” and never stopped. The angrier people got the more it encouraged me! The joke has spanned for roughly 6 years now, and the reactions of other is what fueled my desire to keep going. Its been really cool meeting so many people who enjoy the joke as much as I do. Something so silly and bizarre just works! I am working on other concepts as well to expand the family of personified silliness, but as of right now that is where I am at. Overtime my products and services have expanded as I have explored different types of markets. I make jewelry, offer portrait services, murals, tarot readings, palm readings, and henna as well. My little art business has become an amalgamation of all the things I hold dear and I’m hopping to continue to build on that.

Music is my other love. While art is my mind, music is my heart and soul. I have written music since I was a kid, but I became active within the New Hampshire open mic scene in 2021 after I graduated college. I wanted to become a professional musician, but also wanted to get over my stage fright and home in on my performance skills. Open mics were also a good place to network at since I could find commission work and get an idea of what was happening within each community, which is what broke me into craft fairs and got me into popup shops. I’ve spent about 3 years working on building a network and foundation from which I can build from. Its still an ongoing process, but I believe that anything is possible if your willing to interact with people and put the time and effort into your work. I’ve used music as a means of both exploring my interests, finding community, and building my network for my art. About a year and a half ago, I joined a band called Catalyst, which was a cover band. We split and went on to form a new originals band in February called Ashborne and that’s been loads of fun as well! We are in the process if trying to get recorded this coming year, but we’ve got 17 originals and have gigged out a handful of places such as Root Awakening Kava Bar in Nashua and Terminus in Nashua.

Over all my dream is to bring together my 3 favorite communities and create a space where people feel free to be authentically them and connect to other like minded people. Art, music, and metaphysical communities are full of such wonderfully creative people and I would love to see a space where those things can come together for both the creatives and those who enjoy it the most.

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?

I think my three most important skills are perseverance, awareness, and my willingness to adapt. I think it’s super important to understand that perception is what shapes the world. Everyone is going to experience the world differently, and that acknowledging that and being aware of it can make a huge difference in ones ability to understand and connect to others. I struggled with understanding the people around me, so I went out of my way to self educate myself on human psychology and picked jobs that pushed me to interact with people as I secured stable income to support my business endeavors. These various positions gave me a lot of incite and gave me the skill set I needed to be able to succeed in what it is I am trying to do. Success is subjective and journeys are not linear. Sometimes we have to make pitstops in places we wouldn’t think of to have the tools necessary to succeed in what we wish to do later. It’s our job to understand that we decide how those experiences affect our perception and use that knowledge to take the next step.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I think a lot of it is approach, but I also think without a willingness to grow there cannot be progress. Ignorance is not bliss, it leaves room to be taken advantage of. I think strengths are great, but if you do not know how to apply them, then they aren’t being utilized and it can lead to stagnancy if one doesn’t know what they are lacking to make the next steps. I’m personally all for Jack of all trades master of none is still better than a master of one. I have my strengths, but I think I’ve been able to make it this far because if my willingness to fill in the gaps and continue to learn and expand my skill set. I am one person, so there are definitely limits, but I found that at least having the understanding is a good way to get on the right track for knowing what the next steps are in moving forward.

As an artist having a large skill set is a necessity. To be successful as an artist, one can’t just be technically good at art. They must also be their own marketer and promotion team. Art is very much a doable, tangible field, but without the ability to understand how to turn ideas into consumable product and how to sell that product to potential buyers, your left with a skill set with no outlet to bring in income. The technical skill is only the prerequisite, the skills paired with it are what set you apart and allow you to connect with the communities you wish to be apart of. We cannot expect people to buy what they don’t know exists, and once they do, it is also our job as the artist to give them a reason to buy the product; to show them what sets as apart and why we should be the ones they buy product from over someone else.

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