Meet Melinda Martinez

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melinda Martinez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Melinda, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is something that developed within me as a child growing up in the Army. My father is retired U. S. Army and we travelled the world for the majority of my young life. We’ve lived on various Army bases in the United States & Germany. I had to be really good with packing up and moving every 2-3 years. As a kid, I hated it because I hated having to leave my friends. But now, I see how it helped me to become adaptable on a personal & professional level. I’ve become accustomed to change and finding my footing relatively quickly. On a professional level, it attributes to my creativity in that it allows me to not remain stagnant for too long and fuels my hunger to learn new techniques. It also aids in overcoming challenges with momentary brushes with imposter syndrome. All of this fosters healthy growth for me as an artist and as a human being.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m an Artist with a passion for self expression. Theatre is my first love. I began my creative journey as a child performing plays for schools and local productions and continued that through college. I have always been a creative in various capacities though. I began refinishing and painting furniture last year and have grown my small business, MTZ Crew Designs, with one single focus in mind; I create what brings me joy. I told myself from the beginning that I’d only do this for as long as it is providing complete joy in my life. And so far, it really has. I’ve learned so much about refinishing furniture and properties of various paint products. I take on challenges of unwanted furniture or decor and identify ways to improve upon their current use. I don’t typically paint one color pieces. The majority of my work thrives from use of extensive amounts of color, various textures and a deep love of florals. Some of my passion projects are often infused with elements of deep, raw emotions. I fully understand that we are all on different journeys in this world so my style may not speak to some and that’s okay.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Having a good starting point in terms of how to use various mediums to create is essential. There’s so much information out on the world wide web & this is so crucial. For me, it meant watching countless hours of YouTube videos and some podcasts to learn the business and to learn how to use tools and processes appropriately.

For anyone starting off, I would suggest developing a good support system too. Find a community of like minded individuals to lean on when you’re learning. When I first started, I joined several different groups of professional furniture painters & refinishers. The support you can get from those who have gone before you is incredibly beneficial.

Learn to be open minded and adaptable, learning from your mistakes. Because mistakes are inevitable. But also stay true to who you are as an artist. Listen to your gut. Take chances, but remember who you are at your core and always create what brings you joy.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

In my first year as an Artist in the field of Furniture Restoration & Painting, I’ve learned many lessons; some easy and some hard. However, my largest area of growth resulted from tuning out nay-sayers. As a creative, you begin to learn that not everyone shares your same passion. Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily vocal in their disapproval of you. This was very eye opening to me. Learning to bounce back from this kind of feedback can be challenging if you allow it to be. I had to remind myself frequently that my end goal is just to create what makes me happy. Allowing anyone to steal that from me wasn’t an option. Healthy criticism is a perfect opportunity for growth. But, internalizing any form of crude negativity only tears down a persons psyche and ability to create freely. If I could impart any words of wisdom in this regard, it would be the words I live by and are engraved on a ring that I wear daily: You Do You!

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Image Credits

Headshot photos by: Unlawful Sisters Photography

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