Meet Rachel Dawn Lauver

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

Rachel Dawn, 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?

For a long time, I didn’t keep my creativity alive.

Four years ago, I moved into a new apartment and found boxes and boxes of old, unfinished creative projects. Art portfolios I hadn’t added to since college, instruments I hadn’t played since high school, abandoned book ideas, half-sewn clothing, unopened art supplies that had now dried up. So many skills I used to be so excited about that I hadn’t made any progress toward in years.

I realized all the time I used to spend creating things was now spent consuming things; and all that social media and TV and useless stuff I was buying was consuming me in return. Eating away at my attention span, my creativity, my wallet, and my ability to truly enjoy anything.

So I challenged myself: every time I got the urge to scroll on my phone, I would draw instead.

Immediately, it felt like the world slowed down. That small switch gave me back all that time I was wasting mindlessly scrolling through the dopamine slot machine of social media.

Now I know, keeping creativity alive in a world so centered on consumerism, convenience, and media-consumption means consciously choosing to nurture creative habits every day.

I didn’t expect it then, but reigniting creativity gave me back my life, my time, and my mind. Every day that I choose to create, I can feel my focus and attention span improve, I feel joy again in place of what felt numb for so long, I end each day feeling like I accomplished something tangible and took a step toward the life I want to live.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

My name is Rachel Dawn Lauver and I am the artist and owner behind Green Velvet Creative. An online shop of art prints, apparel, and commission offerings, all vintage-inspired and hand-drawn by me.

Art used to be a way for me to escape real life, but lately, my art has been about noticing and appreciating it.

There is so much beauty in the everyday. In a world that wants us to constantly compare and aspire and want more, it feels freeing to just love the life you have.

I used to be afraid of living a boring life. There were so many things I wanted and so many paths I went down thinking I’d find happiness there. I moved to new places, I traveled, I climbed the corporate ladder, I quit and became a full time artist…

And now, I live a quiet life in a cookie-cutter suburb of Cincinnati with my husband and our little Jack Russell Terrier Corduroy and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

All that time I spent chasing excitement never brought me fulfillment because I never stopped wanting more. No matter what I was doing, I was always convinced that there could be something better out there. I never just let myself be content with what I had.

That’s what my art is about. Getting out of the rat race, slowing down, choosing creativity, seeing the beauty in my city, appreciating the ones I love, paying homage to the places that hold my favorite memories, and making art for others so they can do the same.

You can check out my art at GreenVelvetCreative.Studio or Etsy.com/shop/GreenVelvetGoods

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 have been most impactful in my journey have been creativity, curiosity, and connection.

A lot of people want to become artists because they dream about leaving their stressful jobs and living a slower, more authentic life. Just to end up joining a creative industry that has become just as fast-paced, profit-focused, and competitive as the corporate world.

We can all remember a time where art fairs and online art markets were places where you could find unique, original, handmade things from passionate artists. But everywhere you look now, you can see these spaces becoming saturated with lazy, uninspired AI and dropshipped art created solely to make money.

Advice directed to new artists seems to always be about finding profitable niches- even if it’s not something you care about- finding the most popular listing and copying it, choosing your specialty not based on your passion, but based on what’s easiest to sell and scale.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If every artist’s goal was to make art that felt personal and unique to them, there wouldn’t need to be so much competition. If every artist marketed by making genuine connections with people, we wouldn’t need to constantly churn out content to stay relevant on social media. If every artist focused more on curiosity than convenience, we wouldn’t have so much cheap AI art or crafts in danger of going extinct.

I’m actually in the middle of a creating YouTube series called Creative Connection where I talk all about this! I’ve talked to many new artists who feel like it’s impossible to keep up with constantly changing social media algorithms, shortened trend cycles, and online marketplace saturated with AI art and dropshipping. The series is all about how rather than try to keep up, our goal as artists should be to lean into what AI will never be able to do, create real human connections with people who resonate with our art.

If you’d like to check it out, it will be posted on Youtube.com/@GreenVelvetCreative

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

Lately, when one task feels overwhelming, I pick a second task to be my “procrastination project”.

I have a really hard time staying focused on one thing at a time, especially if it’s a long-term task. For a long time, if I felt overwhelmed by a project, I would procrastinate with something unproductive like scrolling through my phone. Which often led to losing motivation entirely and just scrolling through my phone for the rest of the day.

Now I try to pick two projects at a time and whenever my brain needs to switch gears, I have another project to focus on. Surprisingly, even though I’m technically working twice as much with this strategy, it does feel like my brain gets more of a break than when I would let myself get distracted by something unproductive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://GreenVelvetCreative.Studio
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/greenvelvetcreative/
• Youtube: https://Youtube.com/@greenvelvetcreative
• Other: https://Etsy.com/shop/GreenVelvetGoods