For the Love of Creatives: Unlocking the Power of Community
Imagine a space where your creative spark is truly seen, a community where people get you. That’s what Maddox and Dwight bring each week on For the Love of Creatives. As your hosts and “connections and community guys,” they dive into conversations that bridge the gap from solo journeys to powerful collaborations, transforming “me” into “we.”
In each episode, explore a variety of engaging formats, from insightful dialogues between Maddox and Dwight to conversations with everyday creatives who’ve overcome challenges to reach new heights. You’ll meet fellow artists, innovators, and heart-centered creators sharing their stories, and together, we’ll discover what it means to create, collaborate, and co-elevate.
Tune in, share, and join us each week as we celebrate the magic of community-driven creativity.
For the Love of Creatives: Unlocking the Power of Community
#016: The Art of Breaking Free: Amber Goodwin's Journey from Cultural Expectations to Creative Liberation
When 12-year-old Amber Goodwin discovered glass painting in Pakistan, she couldn't have known her creative journey would require breaking free from cultural expectations, an arranged marriage, and toxic artistic communities before finding her authentic voice.
Growing up in a traditional household where art was "just a hobby," Amber faced immense pressure to pursue conventional careers despite her passion for creation. Years later, after living under her parents' roof into her thirties, she made the courageous decision to claim her independence—a choice that paralleled her artistic awakening. As she gained agency in her personal life, her creative confidence flourished, revealing the profound connection between personal autonomy and artistic authenticity.
Amber's most challenging moment came when a hurtful interaction with a fellow artist silenced her creativity for three months. The turning point arrived when another artist encouraged her: "The world cannot stop seeing your art." This powerful reminder became the catalyst for Amber to develop her unique textured dot technique, setting her apart in the fluid art community and helping her build a following of thousands.
Through her story, Amber distinguishes between toxic competitive environments and supportive artistic communities that celebrate each other's successes. By consciously surrounding herself with people who share her values of respect and mutual support, she created space for her authentic expression to thrive. Her journey demonstrates that staying true to ourselves often leads to our most meaningful artistic achievements.
Whether you're facing cultural barriers, critical voices, or self-doubt in your creative practice, Amber's advice resonates with universal wisdom: don't procrastinate on your dreams. Start today, live in the present, and take immediate action toward your creative goals. Visit ambergoodwinart.com to discover her distinctive textured artwork and connect with this inspiring creative voice.
This is Maddox & Dwight! More than anything, we want to connect and communicate with you. We don't want to think of you as listeners. We want to think of you as community. So, scroll to the bottom of the show notes and click the SUBSCRIBE link. Thank you!
Thank you for listening to the For the Love of Creatives Podcast. If you are enjoying the podcast, please scroll to the bottom of the show notes and Rate & Review us. We would SO appreciate it.
Become a SUBSCRIBER to Get Notified of New Episodes
Want to be a Featured Guest?
For the Love of Creatives Community
I'm just letting it go and I have. It's been like a year now.
Speaker 2:How can you take your power back from her? She took your power away with that conversation that conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, I think I got most of it back by starting to do art and really focus on stuff like creating this, like heavy texture dots that I do it. That helps me grow, I feel like this incident into creating something that none of the fluid artists or acrylic poor people have done. Um, it's a specific niche you know that I created, so I think that helped me.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast. I'm your host, dwight, I'm joined by Maddox, we're the Connections and Community Guides and today we're joined by our featured guest Amber Goodwin.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, maddox and Dwight, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. I'm Amber Goodwin. I am a artist and my full-time job I work at Texas Health, dallas, but I love art and I love creating and I love being part of the creative community and so awesome to meet Dwight and Maddox, who share the same type of mindset as I do, so I'm super excited to be here today.
Speaker 3:We're certainly glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Also tell the audience how we met Amber.
Speaker 1:So we met of all places, at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. That was their first year. They restarted the festival after the original organizer retired and I just saw Maddox and Dwight strolling around and they stopped by my booth and I was just immediately drawn to both of y'all's kindness, um, and I just felt a connection, and you actually liked my paintings too, which was awesome. So it was.
Speaker 2:We did and we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I just I just had this ease of like explaining my process to both of you and just you understood what I was saying and yeah, we met there and it was like the luckiest meeting I've ever had. I mean, I talked to a lot of people at these shows, but they don't turn into friendships as this one has, and this was back in, I believe, 2023, I believe.
Speaker 2:I think you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah Time flies. Yeah, and it's. It's been a year and we're on to our what like second year and yeah, just so, so amazing. I mean that was the best time. That was the best thing. I feel like that came out of the show was getting to know you both.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we feel the same way, absolutely. And for those that are watching video, the painting to the left of my cabinet back there that has the big word authentic on it is one of Amber's paintings. There's a little bit of glare on it from the window.
Speaker 1:Yeah, resin.
Speaker 2:It's lovely, we love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, I'm glad it went to a good home.
Speaker 3:Well, tell us a little bit about how it was that you got started with creating art.
Speaker 1:So originally I started art back when I was 12. I was 12. My mom had enrolled me in this glass painting course which you know you use this paint by Pebeo called Vitrel. It's really stinky, by the way, so make sure if you're going to use it then wear proper protection Because, yeah, it does smell really bad.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was just a lady who, I guess, used to live in London and she went to art school there and at that time I lived in Pakistan, where my family's originally from. I lived there for about four years, I want to say. I want to say, and this lady just had, you know, she made a, she bought a house and she actually made this art school in this property that she had bought and she taught glass painting, she taught silk, screen painting, um, just a lot of stuff, and it was very interesting and she was good at it too. And so I would go there every Saturday for about six hours and just paint on mirrors and glass and I learned to use this thing called relief paint, which is kind of like an outlining you do so the paint doesn't spread around.
Speaker 1:So I learned that and I did it for a while until we moved back to the States and those materials weren't available here, which I was kind of shocked because I thought everything would be available here, you know. And then I, you know, when I went to college I started doing a lot of watercolor art with watercolors and my art teachers there really pushed me to like, sketch and use watercolors. And I actually had my first exhibition in my sophomore year during Black History Month, during Black History Month, and I remember that a professor wanted to buy one of my floral watercolor paintings but I just, I just could not part with any of my stuff, so I was just I didn't want to sell it to her and I just said no, that's not for sale.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I remember my dad was like oh, why? Didn't you sell it Like, like she, you know, just sell your stuff. And at that time I was just like, oh well, do I really want to sell my stuff? You know my art, and that was a difficult thing, which is still a little difficult sometimes, to part with art.
Speaker 2:Um, it's. It sounds like your art is really for you. Yeah, yeah, for you, yeah. I have a question when, at 12, when you started painting on glass, was that your idea or was it mom's?
Speaker 1:It. Actually it was my idea. And it was my idea because I saw my aunts, which are my dad's, my dad's side of the family. They were doing it and they have no proper training and I just it's a pretty popular thing to do in Pakistan, the glass painting. A pretty popular thing to do in Pakistan, the glass painting. But they were the first ones who I saw in my circle actually do glass painting.
Speaker 1:And I remember my eldest aunt she I don't know if you're familiar with those paintings of like the persian mythology where they have the very dainty looking, you know people. They're like kind of white, you know they're painted white and they have very intricate like designs, like persian motifs and and stuff. And uh, my eldest aunt would actually paint those. They look very like, I would say, the oriental paintings back from that time, kind of like those oriental paintings where you saw like the reds and the blues and the golds. So she would glass paint those and I thought, oh, that's really cool, I want to learn this and I don't know why she wouldn't like teach me, which was kind of weird. So I did talk to my mom and she found the school. I don't know how she found this lady. But she found this lady and I went and I made a lot of last paintings there and unfortunately we couldn't bring them since we were moving back and my brother broke a few because he was playing I don't know cricket in the house. So he smashed a few of my paintings which, um, it was horrible back then but now when I think about it it's like kind of funny that he broke them because, like, I can make them again, I guess.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, it started out with my aunts and then my mom saw the interest and she was like well, you know, amber needs to do a hobby, uh, outside of school. So that's how it all started and my mom would go with me. My mom, um, that's actually the one time we actually were able to kind of bond, because she went and did the silk painting part there, yeah, and she painted a sari. I remember I think I still have it. She dyed the fabric, you know, first, and it was like a ombre green, like a pistachio green, and then it went to like a dark green and then she painted like these really beautiful pink tiger lilies on them and we would go together and that was was like I had a lot of fun going with her. Um. So, yeah, that it brings back good memories of of my mom and I going together and being creative together, you know it sounds like your family was supportive of your creative desires.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because we do, we talk, have a lot of these conversations and it's amazing how many creatives report that family was not so supportive. It's like, what are you doing? Like get a real job type, you know thing you know thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think back then, like they kind of, I feel like my mom and my dad viewed it as just a hobby. Because when I went to college it kind of shifted. It was like, oh no, like you need to be a doctor or or a lawyer or an engineer, so, um, they were always or an engineer, so, um, they were always, um, open to the, I guess, the hobby part of it. But I don't think they've ever viewed it as being a career, which to me I wanted it to always be a career, um, and it was just kind of frowned upon. Uh, that's.
Speaker 2:That's a cultural thing, though, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yes, it absolutely is, which is kind of sad because my youngest aunt she was a she passed away.
Speaker 1:She was a set designer for the Pakistan television um channel, which is like kind of like PBS there television um channel, which is like kind of like pbs there. And then she used to set design, um, and she actually went to art school, um, she went to this college called the national college of arts, um, which is a college that was built when the british ruled over, uh, pakistan and india, um, so they created like these colleges and that we still students go to today, uh, and they're considered pretty prestigious. So she went to this national college of arts and she got her degree from there, uh. Her daughter followed her footsteps and got a degree in textile art, uh, which is pretty popular there as as well. So, uh, they would always be like, oh look she's, she's, she struggles. You know like you'll end up like her. And she did struggle, but I mean, she wasn't in a good marriage and, uh, she kind of had to, you know, make ends meet on her own and I felt like she did not have the support that she needed.
Speaker 1:Um yeah and it trickled down to the generations to to come. But I have to give it to her for doing what she had always loved to do, which was her art, and she oil painted. And I felt like she was always compared to my elder aunt and everybody was like, oh yeah, she does really good art and her paintings are really good, and I felt like she was always compared. And my eldest aunt is like a math genius. Um, she, she was always into statistics and all those number things. Um, and I didn't really like that, you know, being compared. Uh. So yeah, I kind of think about it and she's kind of. My inspiration, I would say, is that she stood her ground and basically died doing what she loved to do.
Speaker 2:Couldn't want for more than that, could we?
Speaker 1:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Couldn't want for more than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean the heart wants what the heart wants. So in my life I've seen so many people sell out and give up what they love to take a job that makes money, thinking that that was the right way to go, and most of them are miserable at the end of their life.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely, which I have a really great example.
Speaker 1:We have friends, or my parents have friends, who are doctors, you know, and stuff, and that's the one thing they complain about is that, oh, we never wanted to be a physician, like I wanted to, like be a software engineer, I wanted to write like a program, you know. Or one lady wanted to be a chef from one of my dad's friend, his wife but they were always pushed and you can see like they're just not happy. You know, it's kind of like a robot, like, oh, they wake up, go to work. It's just they're just not happy and yeah, they may be stable and and stuff, but it's like, are you really happy? And art makes me happy. So that's why I do it and it would be nice to be a full-time thing and I'm working towards that and being more confident in reaching that goal, because I want people to be inspired and not think that, oh, you have to be something that your family tells you to be. I feel like it's a little bit of manipulation to me sometimes and I don't want to do that to my kids.
Speaker 2:I think it's definitely manipulation.
Speaker 3:It is. It's the subtle way that we're bullied, we're trained. It's the subtle way that we're bullied, we're trained. So how is it that you are able to move past that and, instead of being forced to do what you have to do to earn a living or to earn the acceptance of your family, to go toward what you want to do?
Speaker 1:Right, that took a long time for me to gain that confidence and and, as I would say, a Brown person, my parents aren't very like religious, but I mean they do follow like the traditions, like not dating and stuff that was frowned upon and uh, so that there were certain things like we couldn't go spend the night at our friend's house, uh. So I just broke away from all that and that happened when I actually met my husband. Um, I was 30, I think I was 31 or 32 and I still lived with my parents. I'd moved back in with them and I they were always trying to like arrange my marriage and and and stuff. And I don't know if y'all know, but I was married before. I had an arranged marriage. My dad arranged my marriage and it was to an Indian guy who we thought was on a student visa, but he was actually on a visit visa. I found that out when we went for our interview. It's very grueling process and he had overstayed on his visa and as soon as he got his green card he left and yeah, and that was a very hard time for me. It took me years to get over that. I feel like I still don't have closure, but you kind of have to move on.
Speaker 1:So my parents, after that whole ordeal, were still trying to look, and I would always get when they would try to arrange these meetings with these men and their family. When they would try to arrange these meetings, like with these, you know, men and their family, like the minute they would find out I'm not a doctor or I'm not, like you know, in a prominent field, they would just ghost my parents and I thought to myself I'm like, I'm always going to be stuck here, I'm always going to be stuck at my parents' house doing what they tell me to do and I'm 30, like I'm 31. And, um, again the whole manipulation, like oh, you live in our house, you know, um, and I kind of just I know this sounds bad I went behind their back and started dating online and that's how I met my husband. I met my husband on online. I know a lot of people say a lot of stuff about online dating and, trust me, I've I had a hard time but thankfully I met my husband and he was totally okay how my parents were, because any other normal guy would be like I don't want to deal with this. This is like you're a grown person, you know. But he was okay with it and he planned a camping trip and my parents wouldn't let me go and I just thought I don't want to be stuck here.
Speaker 1:I cannot be stuck here doing in in everything like whether it's dating or art or whatever decision that I make. I can't do this I. It takes a lot of courage to just walk away from your parents and because you have the fear of, oh, you're going to, you know, get rejected or they'll just not like you, just these fears, or you're going to let them down, that's the biggest one. And so I got the courage to move out and I moved. I moved out and my parents were very hurt by that, and but I feel like that is the best decision that I made for myself to do my art and to think that this can be something that can be done full time if you have the right tools and the right strategy, the right planning to do so.
Speaker 1:I was like I cannot deal with people saying that, oh, you can't make anything off of it, and why do you always have to make everything off of something that you love? Just share what you're doing, share your creativity, and to me that stuff will come, you know, um. So just taking that step of moving out has really helped me in a lot of stuff, especially the art as as well, because it's given me the confidence that you don't always have to listen, you don't always have to have someone in your ear telling you that, oh, this isn't going to work out Like you have to. If you, if you fail, you have to fail and learn from that. Um, I hope I'm making sense here.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's perfect sense.
Speaker 2:Perfect sense. I just want to acknowledge that you took a bold and brave move and you know I want to champion you for making the decision to have agency in your own life. Yeah, absolutely. I got to ask have you fully acknowledged yourself for that? I mean in really really fully acknowledged yourself for that? That's huge.
Speaker 1:Um, I haven't, but I should, um, and I think the thing that holds me back is, uh, and maybe I want some assurance from, like, my husband, you know, because he's always talking about powerful women in his life, like his granny, who's like 102, and then his mom, but I don't get anything from him like, oh, like you, because it's a big deal in our culture for a female to move out and to marry someone who's a non-muslim. By the way, like my husband didn't convert, I didn't ask to convert, um, so I guess I'm wanting some words of affirmation from him to kind of seal that deal.
Speaker 2:uh, but I can, I give you a little clue sure you probably won't get that from him until you can give it to you ah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true you mean you can't expect him to celebrate something about you that you haven't been willing to celebrate about you? You just talked about what a big deal it was in your culture to make that decision to move out to marry a non-Muslim. And it is huge to marry a non-Muslim and it is huge and you're in a tiny percentage of women that would have made the choice to be that courageous Right and you're not getting the acknowledgement because you haven't been willing to give you your own acknowledgement.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I mean, you just get this strength, like it's so hard to explain. I have friends who, like will ask me who are in, like I guess, the same type of you know boat, who have someone who they love, but like they're not from the same culture or like they're not from the same profession that their parents want them to be, they're not from the same profession that their parents want them to be, and I I feel like it's something that you can't just like tell someone, like they have to put a foot down, and it's just the strength that comes to you, you know, to walk, to walk away. It's just this unimaginable, undescribable like thing. But but yeah, like you, you do need to, like a person does need to go and, you know, kind of go in into their heart and be like, yeah, I did achieve something and acknowledge themselves, like you're saying, whether it's like life stuff or art stuff, like I totally agree with you on that.
Speaker 1:Well, basically what we're talking about here is you just owning the badass that you are.
Speaker 3:That's cool. I can tell the ways that you're reliving the hurt and you've. You've come out of it. So that's something that's happened in your past and it's something that uh it. It hurt at the time, but you need time for it to develop a bit of a scar so that you're strengthened by it. You're not forever wounded by it.
Speaker 1:Right. Right, Because you know what. I have a daughter, and I mean even though she's only four, but I want her to be strong and confident and I want her to, you know, be comfortable coming to me and not being told like, oh no, this is how it's done, you know. So I get that I'm doing this for my daughter too. Well, it's a pretty big piece of incentive I think yeah yeah, she's already very sassy, so I I think she'll be fine, but like, yeah, she, she, yeah you.
Speaker 2:You are probably her number one role model. I mean your your husband is but he, but you probably are with her more than he is perhaps.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, it's always mommy, mommy.
Speaker 2:Right. So you're in the number one place role model and she is going to follow your lead and your cue, I mean, which is kind of incentive in and of itself to to really show her the her, the badass that you are, so she can follow in your footsteps. You know there's something important about owning who we are, and we do that on multiple levels. You can own that you're a badass for moving out from your parents and doing something that was totally unacceptable to your culture. You can own that you're an artist. I'm amazed at how many people we talk to that won't own that they're an artist, or own that they're a writer, or own that they're even creative.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And there's something really powerful about owning whatever it is, you know. I mean we could probably go down all kinds of rabbit holes and look at the things that you could own if you were willing to make that choice.
Speaker 1:Right, right, no, you're right, because, as I'm, you know, finding myself as an artist, finding things that I gravitate to and learning from it, it's like, yes, this is what I want to be, this is, even though it's starting out late, this is something that I want and have always wanted. I think for a lot of creatives, it's they. They get scared or I know, for, like the art that I do and the posting that I do, like on YouTube and stuff, I don't consider myself a YouTube artist. I think the main thing is to figure out what you want to do with your art. Like, are you like a content creator or an artist?
Speaker 1:And I think in the acrylic, poor, fluid art world, a lot of people they're just like okay, I'll post stuff and I'll get monetized and it'll just be a fast deal, but I want to stay true to the art and what I create. I just don't want something fast, and I'm not saying they're doing stuff fast, but it's like I want to be true to the stuff that I create and I want it to be original, Like I just don't want to.
Speaker 1:You know I'm inspired by people, but I also want to be inspired by myself. Um and Dwight and I have talked about this in the past that sometimes you have to be your own inspiration and be confident enough to to say, yes, I am that person. And even if you're an asshole, like say, I am an asshole, yes, I act like an asshole.
Speaker 2:I think you're completely right. I think that sometimes we have to own it in order to manifest it. You know, I started, probably a year ago. I started telling people that I am a community leader. Now, do I officially have a community that I lead? No, not yet.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're working on it, we have a following, we've got a bunch of creative people on our mailing list, we host events, we just launched this podcast recently and but do we have a like a community that quote, unquote, I or we lead? No, but I'm owning that, I'm a community leader and I think that it will come to pass, because owning is what manifests owning and believing and acting as if.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we're. We're doing the grunt work too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and that goes to your point Like, if you have in your mind that this is what I want to be, I feel like the good vibes and the good energy comes that way as well and you're successful. And this goes back to like the art community. I mean, I wouldn't say like I'm not part of the community. I'm cordial with everyone, but, um, it's always like just fast, fast, fast, and they just want to be better than the other person. Um, and they're not true, not being true to their selves. So I would just recommend people to be true to themselves and yeah, and then create. That way you will achieve so much, even if you make mistakes, like you'll find yourself in that process.
Speaker 2:I feel like you know, a lot of what you're describing sounds rather toxic to me, and you know there was a time in my own process where I often felt like I didn't fit in, I don't fit in, I don't belong here, I don't belong here. And then there was this day when it all shifted and I realized that I had been seeing it completely wrong, that it wasn't that I didn't belong, it was that I chose not to belong because that group or that group or that group weren't my people. You're describing a group of artists that they're highly competitive, everything's fast and they're very quick to be judgmental of each other's work.
Speaker 1:That's not a community I would want to be part of right I totally agree with that and that is why I kind of just do my own thing. I post when I want to post, um, uh, and it's because it's about the art at the end of the day, it's about creating and creating something meaningful, because I I can just do whatever, you know, the trend is, but but I want to be original to myself and and that does weigh sometimes people who are starting out, it does weigh them down, uh, because it kind of becomes like a popularity contest or like you know who follows you more, who likes you more, and I think that's very detrimental to a, you know, to an artist, to to create, like the goal should always be, in my opinion, to create your art and share because you want people to see it, not more of a numbers game, you know, that's, that's the deal and amber.
Speaker 2:may I share a different perspective. Sure, You're talking about the art community and all the competition and the. You know all of that and how you find distasteful, so you pulled away and you're doing your own thing. I want to suggest that you be mindful of that not being about community or art. That's about those people.
Speaker 1:Right, I agree.
Speaker 2:You know you have to really zero in on what it is, and if you make it about community, then you're going to be isolated. But if you make it about those people and you disassociate yourself with them because they're just not your people and you look elsewhere for community and other artists, you will find them. You will find people that will celebrate every piece of work you do.
Speaker 1:You will find people that will be right there cheering you on, you will find people that will believe in you in those moments when you can't believe in yourself, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. I remember which this goes back to. I don't want to make this like like a political thing, but when this whole Gaza thing started, with the bombings and stuff that are going on, I reached out to an artist that I had helped in the past assist in her classes, and she's Jewish. And I reached out to her because you know she has family there and I just wanted to see how she's doing. You know she has family there and I just wanted to see how she's doing and, um, she gave me like this big lecture on the palestinian people there. Um, I have family that's been there. We, we know how people are treated there. My brother, I believe, has volunteered there, as he he is, he's a physician and I mean I don't want to go into like the details, but her, I reached out to her because I care, I looked up to her as an artist and I reached out to her because I thought, as a community, whatever's going on on both sides is wrong, um, and instead I was told that you know, the Muslim people are taught from childhood to go kill other people and which is not true because I was raised in a Muslim household. I wasn't taught that. I feel like the way I act is because of the, of what my parents taught me, you know, and what the interpretation that I get from the, from the faith, and it just put a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm like, well, we're artists, like we're supposed to spread joy and color and inspire, and I didn't create a painting for about. This happened back in, yeah, 2023.
Speaker 1:And I contacted her like late October and after she said that I never responded back to her. I didn't paint for like three months. I was just so devastated, I didn't feel like painting. It wasn't joyful to me because I was just seeing all these artists on like different sides and I was like, well, no, we need to just come together. You know, there's both sides are hurting and it really hurt me. So I didn't paint and it was very difficult. I would try to talk to my husband. He doesn't get it. I did my own research on the conflict and just found out some stuff, you know, which was interesting, and still to this day, it bothers me because I've never responded back to her.
Speaker 1:But there's another artist. Her name is Kimberly Blackstock. She is amazing with dots like the dots that I do. Hers are a little bit thinner than mine, I keep mine a little bit thick, but she's a pretty famous Canadian artist, um, and she does a lot of charity work for um, the, the children like around the world, um, including that region. And I reached out to her. I mean she's really she's. I mean she's pretty big and I can't believe.
Speaker 1:She responded back to me and the one thing she said she was like the world cannot stop seeing your art. You create, just keep on creating. I may cry at this, but that's when I late in January of 2024, I started posting again and I started growing. I have like 7,000 followers now on Facebook and I just it just just went, you know, thousand this month and then a thousand more and and people really started to respect me. And I'm not political on my page or anything. You know, I don't like post anything because I feel like that's personal to me, I can discuss with my friends and family. I don't need to go like airing that out. But that one thing, that one statement she made to not stop creating, that is the community. That is the type of community, like the artists that you're talking about. That I want to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Seeking ye shall find my dear, that's right. Seeking ye shall find my dear, that's right. Seeking ye shall find. You know, when we start putting ourselves out there, it doesn't matter what we're putting out there. You're putting art out there. We're putting our ideas and our stories out on social media. We're putting this podcast out on social media. When I put my first podcast out in 2021, it was not long before I started to get hate mail and people would say absolutely the most hurtful things they could possibly say, the most hurtful things they could possibly say. And I knew this was coming because I had read enough from people who write about this. You know people who are in those places. They're out in the world. They're out politically or they're out publicly or they're out in some way.
Speaker 2:And I'd said, read so many people that said you have to anticipate that it's going to happen. You have to anticipate there's going to be a certain amount of haters and you have to decide, before it ever even happens, that you are not going to give your power away to them, that you're not going to give them any oxygen. So I don't ever, ever respond to it. We just got a piece of hate mail. We just launched our podcast on Wednesday and we got a piece of hate mail that was just the most vile thing that you could imagine. And I said we got our first piece of hate mail today and he was like what did it say? And I told him, of course he wasn't prepared. So it kind of took him back a little bit. Me. This is not my first rodeo. I just laughed. I just laughed. I've gotten to where that is going to be. It doesn't matter how hateful they get or what awful things they say. I am going to meet it with laughter, not give it any oxygen, and then move on.
Speaker 1:Right. No, that is totally what you need to do, because I have gotten some negative comments like oh, what a waste of paint. You know not hate like you guys got, which is just not acceptable at all I choose to do. What you do is like either delete the comment, move on, I don't respond back. Um, I know some of the artists that I know if they get like a comment like that, they will take a screenshot of the comment and I wanted to know your opinion on this. They take a screenshot of it and they'll do a huge public post like oh, another hater. And you know they start like doing the same thing that person's doing and start bashing that person and I just feel like that's, I mean what's the point.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. This hater that came up the other day and said what he said. That crossed my mind. I thought you know what? Know what? I'm gonna cut that piece out with his photo in his name. I'm gonna blow it up really big and I'm gonna put it out and it it is you. You want to put them in their place. But I thought you know, if I do that, then I'm no different than he is.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I mean, and they do that, and I'm just like it's really good entertainment though, because I just like scroll through the comments and read everything and it's like, oh you know for you to be able to let go of the conversation with the woman who lectured you about the war and the fact that your people are killing her people.
Speaker 1:That is a tough one. I am still trying to come to terms with that. I want to sometimes just you know how you just want to just tell someone off, um, I want to do that. But I also have like, like what we just talked, like talked about, like I will just be like her if I do that I can go and do like a real or like blaster on social media, but I won't be different from her, even though she did that in private.
Speaker 2:But still like it well and and I promise that it may make you feel better for a few minutes and, and it won't, it will be. It will last about this long, it'll be short-lived.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, you're, you're right. So I just um, I'm just letting it go and I have it's been like a year now.
Speaker 2:How can you take your power back from her? She took your power away with that conversation conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, I think I got most of it back by starting to do art and really focus on stuff like creating this, like heavy texture dots that I do. That helps me grow. I feel like this incident into creating something that none of the fluid artists or acrylic poor people have done it's a specific niche, you know that I created, so I think that helped me and I was kind of like you know excuse me for my language, but F this I'm going to like do my art and she's going to be stuck with her following and her like little friend group, while I want to grow, I want to be in galleries and be known in my community, whether it starts locally in Dallas, but at some point I'll be probably bigger and better than her. So that's that's the one thing that keeps me motivated that, oh yeah, I'll be bigger than you one day. Maybe that's like just a dream, but you know.
Speaker 2:I want to tell you just a little bit and then we'll move on, because this is a little bit off topic, but I still think it's important because, as a person of any kind of creation, a creator we're going to put our stuff out there and we're going to get some shitty feedback. So this is important for us to kind of know how we can handle this. I've experimented, explored, and one of the things that I've come up with that helps me tremendously is I look at the other person and I ask myself what must be going on in that person's life. What kind of pain must they be in to do what they've done or to say what they've said? And, if I can, I mean pain comes from hurt people, hurt people, so she's hurting, or she would have lectured you the way she did. And if I can bring myself to that place where I can feel compassion for that other person, that changes everything, if I can feel compassion.
Speaker 2:When I was growing up, there was a boy that bullied me through years of school. He was the one that hurt me the most and there was a point in my life when I realized that for him to do what he had done to me, there must have been something going on in his household that was absolutely unthinkable and unbearable and I found compassion for him and it all just melted away, like I could bump into him on the street right now and be able to sit down and have a conversation with him. Because when I could, when I could realize how much pain he was in to do what he did and and search for compassion in me, it was my own compassion that freed me right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a tough one to find, um, because I feel like with this person, um I, I don't know what goes on in in her life. I mean, she makes it seem like it's it's pretty nice and you know um good, uh, but don't we all is that today's world?
Speaker 1:we call it the perfect facebook life right, but I I do get your point in um feeling compassion and empathy from the point that you know she wasn't raised like me, so I have empathy and compassion for that. That. If someone is behaving the way they are when it comes to conflict not the bullying part and I've had friends who I've had conversations with and they're like you know what we understand, We'll go educate ourselves as well. So sometimes I feel like when people act racist or whatever, I really feel like they were raised that way to. To think that way and that's where the compassion part comes is like they were taught that um and feeling compassion doesn't mean you're condoning their actions right right it's not letting them off the hook, it's letting you off the hook.
Speaker 1:Right, Absolutely being the bigger person. Yeah, this is really good.
Speaker 2:I mean I continue to kind of drill down on this, because you let that stop you from painting for three months. You let the words of one person completely stop your creative joy for three months. This is a topic that's real important, because we got to figure out a way to inspire and educate our creatives around us so they don't make the same mistake you did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you were lucky enough to uh, it's to light that spark again to figure it out and not and not have only be three months, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And now I think back I'm like why did I ever do that? You know, like I should never have stopped, but time to move on to bigger and better stuff. But yeah, and that's the message I would give to other creators is, you know, surround yourself with people who respect you. Who you know, surround yourself with people who respect you.
Speaker 1:Who you know even you may have disagreements with them, but you're still like respectful um, yeah, I I feel like that's lacking in a lot of people today is being a little tolerant um amber, you are such a bright light, honey.
Speaker 2:Shine that light, shine that light yeah, oh, thanks guys.
Speaker 1:I'm lucky to have you guys in my life we feel very blessed as well yeah, we do, we do.
Speaker 3:Well, we're drawing near the close of our time and we like to drop in some rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:OK, so we're just going to drop a couple on you here today. First one what keeps you going through tough times?
Speaker 1:oh, what keeps me going? Uh, I would say buying more paint. The art store. You know, whenever I'm down I go to like michael's or jerry's or something, and it just makes me happy.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:What's one word to describe your creative journey? Experimentation, always experiment.
Speaker 3:That would love that. That's a good one. What's?
Speaker 1:one lesson that you've learned in your creative community? Oh God, there's several, but the main one, which we talked about today, is to be around people that have the same passion and creative goals as myself. That's, that's, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2:Be around people that lift you up yes.
Speaker 3:That's right. So in our wide ranging conversation we we've talked about many things, but is there?
Speaker 1:anything that you would like to share with our listeners that we haven't covered, I would like to share. If you have a dream or if you want to achieve a goal, don't let, don't procrastinate. Don't be like, oh, I'll do it. Like tomorrow, start. Start today, live in the present. Don't be like oh, yeah, I mean, this is one thing my dad taught me. It's like if you can do something today, start it, or do it today. Don't push it off to tomorrow. So that is something, yeah, I would want people to do is to not push anything off for tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I love that. It's beautiful well said amber very well said thank you yeah, where.
Speaker 3:Where is one place where our listeners can go and find out more about what you're up to?
Speaker 1:well, I have my website. It it's ambergoodwinartcom. I post everything that's going on there. You can also see like my bio and like my CV and stuff, and I'm very active on social media, so you can find me under Amber Goodwin Art on Instagram, youtube, facebook, art on Instagram, youtube, facebook. Um, yeah, so those major platforms I don't do TikTok, but, um, it was just a little overwhelming for me, so I'm just on those three. But yeah, you can. Anyone can email me um Amber Goodwin. Are you know, at hotmailcom?
Speaker 2:it's on my website and yeah, I'm always here to answer any questions or inspire someone with their journey and we'll be sure that that link is in the show notes so it's easy for the audience to find them awesome.
Speaker 3:This was like so much fun yeah, we're so glad you could do this thank you, so glad that you're here.