Hi, wonderful humans. Welcome to another episode of the Curated Muse podcast. In this episode, we are going to talk about living like an artist, bringing creativity into everyday life. And this does not mean that you need to be an artist. I mean, if you are, that's great, but that is not what you have to be to live a creative life every single day. You don't even have to be creative to live a creative life every single day. When I've talked about this with other people, they automatically say to me, Well, I can't even draw a stick figure. So how could I do something creative in my everyday life? And it's funny because creativity is always kind of pigeonholed into if somebody is a painter, they can draw well with graphite, that they have some type of talent. When we are all actually born with creativity, we just don't lean into it as we get older, or we don't recognize that we are actually being creative. A good example of this is let's say we have a man or woman who loves to work on cars. They love to take old cars and completely refurbish them, repaint them, work on the different parts of it to then create a see, I use the word create, create a whole new version of that older car. And that is a form of creativity. Being in the garden and gardening is creativity. Moving furniture around is creativity. And we can go farther into this, that creativity really is our ability to look at the world around us and do something that we enjoy. Creativity could be writing, creativity could be crafting, the way that someone even likes to dress and how they choose their clothing. So when we look at everyday life, it's interesting to look at how people live. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this is because we are partnered with Hyperlux Living and Hyperlux magazine. And that's really the whole premise between this podcast and also the platform. All types of creativity and design and the way that we live a curated life. If you don't grow up in a home that has creativity, then it's hard, unless you're a natural-born artist, it's hard to really understand what that means. Because the majority of people are living in homes and environments that are fairly sterile. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being a minimalist or being very sterile. But is it a choice or is it how someone grew up and they didn't recognize that they could completely transform their living environment, how they are dressing, and how they are basically curating their life. And I feel growing up myself, I grew up in a pretty interesting household where my mom did like to do crafts and interesting things, but our environment wasn't really curated. It was very similar to our neighbors. We had the same kind of stuff hanging on our walls, we all had the same kind of couches. There wasn't really anything that I would say when you went into my house would really define my home being different than my neighbors, which is pretty common. And I never thought anything of it. So for me, one of my first experiences with seeing an interesting, and I do air quotes with my fingers, interesting curated home was one of my grandparents who were Polish, and they had a very interesting curated house. Like you walk in, and it was it was weird in a good way, in the best sense of weird that you could have. So I would disengage. However, I had a friend growing up who was also Polish who lived down the street from me. And they clearly were outside the norm. So all of our houses were built and had pretty neutral colors, you know, blues and browns and creams and beigas and all of that. And their house was yellow. And when I say yellow, I don't mean like it was like an eyesore yellow, like this looks stupid in the neighborhood. Like, why would anybody do that? Let's, you know, call the HOA. We didn't have one of those. But it was a really nice yellow, a more tone yellow, but it definitely stood out. And when I would go to her house, they had a lot of really interesting cultural things there as well. And it was a lot of fun. And her mom was not as protective of things. But anybody else's house that I had gone to over my childhood, nobody, like out of the numerous places that I had gone, whether or not it was a sleepover, family member, a neighbor, a friend, whatever the case may be, everybody else's house was very normal. And so for me, when I looked at my grandparents' home or I looked at my neighbor, I thought, oh, they are they're a little weird because culturally that's what I experienced as that is weird. But as I got older, I started recognizing that it wasn't that they were curating their life and that they were anything but boring. And there's nothing wrong with being basic. There's nothing wrong with liking neutrals and plain things and wanting to buy a piece of art from Target and put it up because you just don't care. You have other things in life you're more focused on. Some people don't care about their surroundings. They really don't. They have better things to do than pick out art for their walls. But there are a special group of people out there who don't actually even know that that's an option because they grew up a certain way and they've never actually seen something so unique to challenge them. And so if you're listening to this, whether or not you're an artist or you're not an artist, ask yourself: do you like to curate your life? When you look around your living room or your bedroom or just your closet, do you like to express yourself? Do you want to surround yourself with things that are interesting and beautiful? Maybe one of a kind, maybe they come from a thrift store. Found this wonderful oil lamp from the 70s, that kind of stuff. And recognize that you don't actually have to even be creative. You just start bringing interesting things in and slowly start integrating them into your environment. And for me, that started when I got really sick. So I was pretty basic. I wasn't really focused on home. I didn't really care. I was working, going to school, living life. And then when I got sick and I was stuck in my environment, my environment bored the crap out of me. I was like, this is boring to look at these walls all the time. So I slowly started integrating original art and things that I had thrifted. And that started changing things because so many things that I brought into my environment brought me joy. And so we've heard of that book where what is it, Marie, Marie, Marie Kondo, where she's like, you know, the minimalist, like, get rid of everything that doesn't spark joy. And it's funny because for me, I thought about that because I love to think opposite of what I know. Like if I think something and somebody tells me something opposite, I'm going to entertain it because I want to think like, well, maybe I am thinking about this differently. But when I thought about that and thought about minimalism and is that for me? And maybe I am somebody who hoards too many things. Maybe I have too many things in my house in my life that I'm surrounded by. And the more that I thought about it and asked the question that she asked, get rid of the things that don't bring you joy. Everything brings me joy. I walk around my house and I smile and I look at the art and I look at the interesting, weird things that I found. Like I have this chicken right now. I'm recording this in a room where I have this golden chicken that stands about 24 inches and it's got its wings out and it's just beautiful, but it's it's bizarre. And every time I walk past it, I just go like, oh my gosh. That is hilarious. And so I think if you enjoy the idea of a curated life, it doesn't always have to be what other people like because you're really the ones that are living in your home, in your bedroom. You're the ones that are cooking in your kitchen. Sure, you'll have people in and out of your house from time to time, but so many people are concerned with how their house is going to look to other people. And I was like that for a period of time where I would keep kind of the crazy curated stuff out of the main part of the house so that if I had other people over, they wouldn't be like, what is all this nonsense? And then later down the road, I matured and changed. And I was like, you know what, this is my home and this is my nonsense. I'm just going to live it out and put it out there, and here you go. And now when people come to our home, it's kind of funny because people will say, like, we just had somebody here last week who was like, Can I just walk around and look? I'm like, sure. And if you have questions about anything, let me know. Because so many things that we have have story. They have story, or I can share an artist in which who has created this work. There's so many interesting things and it creates a great conversation. So I wanted to share this because it is something that I was never taught. It wasn't something that was really put into my life for consideration until later. And then I still think to myself, like, why didn't I do it earlier? Why didn't I express myself earlier? Why did I shove all the unique stuff upstairs in my studio rather than putting it scattered through my home environment? Because I was so concerned that somebody might judge me for a golden chicken that I have hanging out on a table. Like, who cares? It's just a funny way to live life. And I kind of wonder, is there anybody out there listening to this who hasn't really thought about the curated life, who hasn't really thought about how to bring creativity into your world, how to be creative and all the things that you're doing and surround yourself with things that make you giggle, or they feel heartwarming. That's the other thing. You know, yes, a chicken makes me laugh. But I have this beautiful piece on the wall that I got from a friend who had gone to, I don't remember exactly where it was, but she did this like golden rub of some type of statue, and it's in this frame, and I just love it so much, and it's heartfelt because she was one of my favorite people, and she's passed away now. But I have this beautiful thing that was created by her, and she was not an artist at all, she was not a creative person, like even in the tip of her little pinky finger. So that was pretty remarkable. So, really, what about your life is creative? Are you an artist and you don't extend it out beyond your art? Are you a person who doesn't think you're creative? You probably are and you just don't know it yet. And to close this episode, I just want to say that it's interesting to live your life that if you pass on to the other side, that your home will be the most interesting, sought-after, eclectic, hilarious, and interesting estate sale that anybody has ever gone to, and that they will be talking about it for a very long time. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back again in the very near future. Don't forget to check out Hyperlux Living. We just released our first issue of Hyperluxe magazine. Head over to hyperluxliving.com and we'll see you again soon.