Kristin Smith
@kristensmithdesign after teaching a 3 hour class
-Visual-
Kristen is an excellent listener. She is modest and kind and kept me sane all last summer as we both taught dozens of girls during what was supposed to be the middle of the global pandemic.
In this second year of the project, the questions are a little different but the answers, as Kristen shows, are still pretty much the same. What has changed however has been what creatives of all types are doing to just sort of get on with their lives, careers, and art.
I’m extremely grateful I get to be a part of that with her. Because if this project has taught me anything it is that we are still in this together.
Interviewed 2.11.21
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: So first and foremost, how are you doing?
Kristen: I feel like it should be the easy question, but it's probably the hardest question. I think I'm doing well. I think 2020 taught me to re-examine some of my coping mechanisms, but I think overall I'm very grateful to be where I am. I was worried that last year might throw me into a weird...I don't know.
Casey: Sounds like there was a lot of anxiety at the beginning...
Kristen: Yes, as someone who has an anxious personality, something like a pandemic can make or break you, and I think I was very nervous it was going to break me or bring out parts of my personality that I try to keep hidden and I wouldn’t be able to keep hidden very well. I think it actually helped me grow as a person and figure out what I need to do to maintain my own personal sanity, but also my professional sanity. Those two things don't always go hand in hand, but I think a year like last year really forces you to identify both singularly and together, if that makes sense.
Casey: Sure. What were some of your coping mechanisms that you had to reevaluate?
Kristen: So, this is going to sound really stupid, but cats. Pets in general.
Casey: How many pets do you have?
Kristen: I have five cats. If you didn't hear, that was five. Five cats. I think I wasn't really honest with myself originally when we started fostering (about) how much having the loving affection of a pet brings to you. I think I give affection out very easily but I don't necessarily ask for affection very often, and animals are amazing because they don't need your permission. You don't have to ask them or tell them you're having a bad day. They know. They are just intuitive that way.
Working from home can get really lonely and having another living organism there is a reminder that you're not alone and that you're somehow connected to a greater, bigger universe. So cats were a coping mechanism.
I think 2020 also taught me that even though I like working from home and being alone, I wasn't getting enough of the breaks that I was used to in previous years — getting to see people and just sort of fill that other side of my personality. I think that brought out some negative parts of myself that I wasn't really aware of, where I just turned even more inward. I think sometimes you need to see other people to bring out parts of you that you keep hidden, and if you're not around anyone else to do that, you neglect them entirely.
Casey: Totally. That's fascinating. What are parts of you that you wanted to keep hidden? As a person who's known you very in-depth, very quickly, I don't know what those things are.
Kristen: I think I'm very scared of people seeing me fail or be unsuccessful, and those things I try to keep very much hidden. I don't want anyone to know that I struggle and so I don't like asking for help very often. And last year was a year that you almost had to ask for help, no matter who you were. I don't care what year you had, you had to ask for help at some point, and I don't really like doing that.
Casey: So did you have to do that a lot in 2020?
Kristen: Yeah. I had to be honest with my husband about the days that were bad days and tell him. I think a lot of us probably had this where when you do struggle, you develop these sort of coping mechanisms and then you hit a year like 2020, and it feels like no matter what you're doing, your walls are just getting lower and lower and stuff is seeping in. I found days where I would just be sitting alone, crying, overwhelmed not only by the state of the world, but by politics, by Covid killing people I love, all that kind of stuff. It feels so overwhelming where you spent years building these walls to keep yourself safe and then they all come crumbling down and you're like, "What do I do now? All these emotions at once are exhausting." And so you're desperately trying to figure out, “How do I put the bricks back together and build the walls back up?” But there's there's just no way to do that.
Casey: And why bother at this point?
Kristen: Why bother?
Casey: How has creating changed for you? Because you had, in my opinion, an incredible level of success with your calligraphy and with your design with Minted.
Kristen: I feel like last year I had to push a little more to create out of spaces that I hadn't been creating in previous years. … I had to be smart about the channels I was using to make revenue.
Minted had been a really big one previously and their business — weddings dried up entirely for most people. So to go from what I was currently doing in weddings and seeing a 70 percent decrease in sales, then you have to pivot in other places.
I was lucky enough. I read this book about generating luck and I fully believe in this idea. Before I read it, I kind of couldn't put a finger on what it was I was doing that was like bringing people to me. The book basically suggested that if you have a naturally positive outlook on the relationships that you build with people, it generates luck. That luck is an intangible thing that you can't touch or quantify or see, but it does exist and it's something that you almost — like putting positive energy out into the world — it comes back to you. And it talks a lot about looking at certain relationships. Instead of saying to yourself, like, "It's not worth my time to talk to that person. What would ever come from it?" But instead saying "I have no idea what door this could open. I should at least give them ten minutes and see what happens."
I kind of had been planting these seeds with various vendors around the industry, and then last February, when things looked like they might be going in a different direction, I took that opportunity to re-establish connections with all of them. I actually had three new clients come on right at the start of Covid. Whether or not I knew what the rest of the year would look like, it almost felt like this is the moment to pursue channels that maybe you didn't think were useful previously. But you took the time to make those connections, so why not pursue them? And it worked out in ways that I'm extremely grateful for.
Casey: No, absolutely, I mean, that still sounds very revenue-driven. Have you thought anything about just the process of sitting down to create something?
Kristen: I think I thought more about things that were freeing and less about things that were for a specific purpose. I made more art last year for myself than I had in years previously, not only because we had so much time. There was a lot of time. There were definitely days where I didn't have deadlines or work demands and I could ask myself, "If I were to design something for myself, what would that look like?" That's the first time in years that I've really been able to do that. It's interesting because when you do that, sometimes you realize stuff about yourself.
Casey: Is it going to be worth doing that in the future? Are you going to be able to make time?
Kristen: I would hope so. It is hard running your own business and not constantly worrying about the bottom line, and I think that all of us that run small businesses are always sort of fighting that dilemma of “How much do I do the pieces that I love and how much do I do the pieces that generate revenue?” Because we never know where our next paycheck is coming from so there's a constant fight internally and externally to sort of feel safe, but also do the things that bring you joy and passion,
Casey: We're coming up on a year of Covid "quarantine." It feels like we're all just being incredibly flippant, especially with numbers higher than they ever have been in our area. So I feel like a lot of people have stopped missing things and just started going back to the things they miss. But is there anything that you do still miss?
Kristen: That's tricky because I feel like now, exactly what you're describing has actually become even more stressful — not necessarily the fear of catching Covid, but the fear of, "How do I navigate this without offending my family and my friends?" Everyone has a different set of parameters and rules they've established for their own household. That's not a fun feeling to have to interrogate everyone that you love. To be like, "Do I feel safe around you?" So safety, I feel is the one thing I probably miss the most, and that trust that the people you encounter on a day-to-day basis aren't going to do something that negatively impacts you.
So, yes, safety, sanity, and concerts. I really miss live performances, whether it be music, plays. One of the last things we did before Covid was see Dancing with the Stars: Live. I know, I know. But I am obsessed with Dancing with the Stars and it brought me so much joy. I really miss that feeling of going and seeing live entertainment and feeling the energy of the crowd, the loudness of the speakers. When you leave your ears hurt so badly you can't hear anything afterwards. I miss that so much and we can't do it.
Casey: As we approach a year, what do you want to keep from this time?
Kristen: It is weird to imagine a world outside of Covid now. … (Before the pandemic) when it came to germs, nothing scared me. People would tell me, "Oh, you're going to get sick." That did not seem like a reality to me at all. And something about this pandemic has caused this weird internal germaphobe to emerge.
Once upon a time, it was seen as heroic to have the flu and go to work, and you were applauded to be sick and go to work. Everybody was like, "Good for you! You're a trooper. Work through it!" And now we would be horrified if you had the flu and went to work like, "Get the fuck out of here." So I feel like this has been a nice reset for humanity to be like, "Yes, personal hygiene is still very fucking important. Please be mindful of how close you get to other people and the spaces that you touch around them."
I am proud of the year that my husband and I had. I think 2020 above all else made me feel eternally grateful that I'm with the person I'm meant to be with. I know a lot of people are not lucky enough to say that. So to have somebody — that's not only your supporter, your best friend, but also champions you on a regular basis — to battle last year with, I feel like that was everything. That made it for me.
