We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole Leth. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Nicole , we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
Generosity is a big part of my creative practice. I am constantly trying to put the things into the world that I wish existed during times in my life when I needed them most. I guess it is kind of like the Golden Rule – “treat others as you would want to be treated” – but in an artistic sense. I want to create things and deliver them in a way that make people feel the way I want to feel – which is loved and seen and connected.
This is a big force behind the actual content that I create. When I sit down to write and design new affirmations and compassionate statements for billboards, postcards, etc – I always ask myself, “what are the words that the tender parts of my heart desperately need to hear right now?” and then I write from that place.
I also think about generosity a lot when I am planning the delivery of my projects. 99.9% of my work is done anonymously and freely in public spaces and that is hyper-intentional for me because that is the way I would want to receive the artwork if I were a viewer.
I want to experience art work that uses compassion to create loving spaces to heal and reflect in our chaotic world. I want that work to be free and anonymous so as a viewer I can receive it fully without feeling like I’m being sold to by a company or marketed to by an influencer. My heart deeply desires that work so I want to create it so other people can feel it.
I read once that our goal as humans is to heal enough that you can give people the love you never received but always wished you did. For me that is the exact meeting place of creativity and generosity and what I hope to achieve through my career.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Hi, my name is Nicole and I’m a 30-year-old artist, writer, and human being living in Los Angeles! Through my art work and projects I’m working to put words that matter into the world so that people will remember that they matter, too. Sometimes this world makes me feel powerless and heartbroken, but this is my way of fighting back and trying to create compassionate change and space for real humans to find real healing in whatever ways they need to.
I started this project in 2010 in response to losing my father to suicide after a long battle with addiction and mental illness. The early days of this project looked like a 17-year-old me driving around my Iowa town with a journal and a bag of spray paint, stopping at abandoned buildings and warehouses to paint anonymous words of compassion and affirmation for others to find. In a lot of ways, this project saved my life. It became a way for me to alchemize trauma and practice creating beauty out of the hard parts of life. It became a way for me to write the words that I needed to hear to help me heal and share them in anonymous and public ways in hope that they would help other humans heal, too.
Since then, this project has grown in ways I never could’ve imagined. It has become my full-time job and received support from global corporations, donors, grants, media outlets, and individuals that make expansion possible. The writing in this project is always written, designed, and produced by me and is always shared in anonymous, free, and accessible ways. Through this project, I have shared tender yet honest poem-like affirmations on road-side billboards, airplane banners, semi-trucks, barges, urban wheat-pasted posters, stickers, yard signs, hand-made quilts, fliers, and murals all over the world. I have partnered with cities, schools, hospitals, prisons, and psychologists to integrate compassion into their operations and environments. I also work to create iterations of this work that humans can engage directly with in an intimate way – I have built “free flower shops” in public spaces and created a mailing service in which 100,000 people have received hand-addressed postcards with my written affirmations on them every month for over three years.
I have posted over 600 anonymous affirmation billboards so far, in addition to hundreds of other tangible integrations of visual compassion. This work has been experienced by over 100 million people world-wide and was awarded a life-time achievement OBIE award in 2020.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The most important thing I’ve ever done is fail, both professionally and personally. My art career and personal life has looked like a lot of different things over the years — I’ve taken a lot of unexpected turns and hit more rock bottoms than I could’ve anticipated and felt every dimension of success, grief, and joy, but the lessons I’ve learned from all of this turbulence has been the biggest blessing. I know how to do a lot of things really well now. I know how to do business deals and how to talk to people and how to fabricate things. I deeply understand topics and techniques that are not directly relevant to what I currently do but support it significantly. My failings are my super power.
Additionally, I would say knowing how to write has been extremely helpful on my journey. So many opportunities and connections really depend on being able to write and connect deeply in that way.
Lastly, being a good listener. As an artist – or really just human being in general – life gets more beautiful the more you listen. There is more inspiration the more you listen. There is better feedback the more you listen. Listening has helped me a lot and I think it is a very important part of any career or art practice.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
The current challenge I am trying to work through is how to combat creative burnout. I’m trying to find a work/life balance. I’m trying to be okay with having to give myself permission to take days off (even if they come in the middle of the week) in order to recharge the part of me where creativity comes from. I’m trying to remember / relearn the fact that inspiration and creativity comes from being out in the world experiencing life and humans and emotions — I so often expect myself to have an endless bank of creative ideas after just sitting in my house doing chores and working all day. I’m trying to integrate more balance into all of these components — allowing myself to fully experience life and viewing it as an important part of my job and valuing it the same amount that I value toiling away in my office working. One can’t exist without the other. Resting and recharging is just as valid and important as actually doing the work because it is what enables the work to exist.
Contact Info:
- Website: myaffirmationproject.com
- Instagram: @myaffirmationproject
Image Credits
Nate Watters, Caroline Adams
