OMG Newsletter #1 is here!

Hey!

First off, I want to thank you for being a part of my Art Collectors Newsletter. It’s been a wild few years, and I’m really excited to have a space where I can share more about my work (and some of my life) in a meaningful and direct way. I’m not the best at social media, and the thought of having to capture everything on camera for Instagram isn’t appealing, so here we are! I’ll still be posting on IG, of course.

In this newsletter, I’ll be sending out updates on upcoming shows, deeper dives into my work and past experiences, and offering exclusive promos for you. These will probably be monthly or bimonthly depending on how much I have to say and what I got going on to share with you. No spam, ever. I promise.

Here we go :3

How It All Started

This past August, I celebrated three years of being a full-time artist. It’s been such a journey to get to this point, so here’s a little storytime on how I got here (it's kind of long).

When I started painting, I was 18 years old and working as a cashier at Fatburger in my hometown (shout out to Redmond, WA). This was 2013, and I wasn’t attending college because I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do with my life. Having a creative outlet was the only sense of direction I had. I wasn’t very good at painting, but I found a lot of joy in the process. I had an obsession with palm trees, so that’s what I painted.

This was my very first painting. I thought I was gonna be SO GOOD. Shocked and upset that I had a lot to learn lmao.

As time went on, I started sharing my not-so-impressive paintings on Facebook. People were encouraging, and I was slowly getting better. In early 2015, I opened an Etsy shop to sell those palm tree paintings. Sadly, I don’t remember the exact moment the lightbulb went off telling me to try selling them, but I only ever made one sale—and it was to my cousin (I LOVE YOU, EUNICE!). She still has it displayed in her house. <3

My first bit of exposure came in 2015. My friend Erika, who works at SeaMar (a local community health org), told me about an art exhibition they were organizing to go alongside their annual Fiestas Patrias festival held at Seattle Center. I was eager to show my work but wasn’t sure I’d be accepted since I was such a newbie with a lot to learn. But I got in, and that was the first show I ever participated in. It was a phenomenal experience, and I met a lot of local Latino artists—some of whom I still consider friends and have collaborated with in various art shows since then. I continued exhibiting my work there every year and was able to make genuine connections with artists and collectors through that yearly exhibition.

This is me at the 2015 Fiestas Patrias art show. I was 20 years old at the time. I still have the bottom painting in my house and I believe te skull and palm tree were sold at some point. IDK where the cherry painting is and I’m sad about that.

This is an agave I painted early on. My aunt commissioned me to create 3 of these for her. I still had a lot to learn about shading.

Oh, and I started Instagram that same year, so I just kept sharing works in progress and finished artwork. Before then, I held back from sharing my work because I felt I needed a full body of 10–20 paintings before doing so. I quickly realized that there are no rules to social media and that I could do whatever I wanted. So what if my work wasn’t as good as everyone else’s? I had to start somewhere. Plus, I discovered that people love seeing the process of creating artwork, so I got creative with how I shared it.

By the summer of 2015, I had gotten a job as a barista at Starbucks and continued painting. My work at the time was mostly small portraits, desert landscapes, and cacti. I had just watched the movie *Frida* and was inspired to create art that reflected my own experiences and Mexican roots, like many Mexican artists starting their journey now.

By that year, I had a burning desire to focus solely on my art. The thought of doing anything else for the rest of my life was depressing. I wanted to be free, not having to wake up and be somewhere at a specific time every day. I wanted to take ferry rides during the week, go on long hikes, be creative, and only worry about my next artwork. The question was, how was I going to get there? Although I enjoyed being a barista, it wasn’t my passion. I was 20 years old, living with my parents in Redmond. Even with minimal expenses, my art wasn’t making enough money to cover my gas. I didn’t know how to reach my goals, but I knew I just needed to keep painting and sharing my work. I also created a website around this time to give my name more legitimacy.

My barista gig was part-time, and I wasn’t getting paid enough to justify staying. I was broke. I only stayed there for a little under a year before getting a job at an immigrant rights nonprofit I had been volunteering with since high school. Shout out to my dear friend, soon-to-be coworker, and roommate Samara, for encouraging me to apply for that job. Her encouragement and my decision to take the job changed my life.

This was the summer of 2016. I worked in the department that helped people eligible to apply for citizenship. It was a cool job—Samara worked there too, so we got to know each other better. I was earning enough money to do what I wanted and get the things I desired, but it wasn’t enough to live on my own. That didn’t matter at the time. The job demanded a lot of my time, but I still managed to create new art and exhibit it around Seattle. By then, I was posting more frequently on Instagram and slowly gaining a humble following. I posted time-lapses, close-ups—anything I thought would be fun and interesting to look at.

One of the biggest steps I took with my art was participating in pop-up markets to sell prints of my work. A collective of Latino artists and creatives organized markets around the Seattle area—Collectiva Noroeste. In 2018, I decided to participate in one. I hadn’t attended any of those markets before, even as a shopper, so I didn’t know what to expect, let alone how to be a vendor. I did my research (Instagram stalking), looking at how other artists set up their booths, and made it my own. Finding a print shop was a challenge, but I found one that did a good job printing my paintings. The market went really well. I don’t remember how much I sold, but I remember feeling super satisfied by the end of the day.

From then on, I kept selling prints at events and on my website, becoming part of a community of artists while continuing to post as consistently as possible on Instagram.

In September 2020, I decided to move out of my parents’ house. The pandemic was in full swing, and living with my parents and four siblings in a small home was starting to feel overwhelming. I took Samara’s offer to move into the soon-to-be available room at her place in Seattle’s Central District. Living with her was fun. By then, we had already become close friends. We’d go out for dinners and drinks, chat about everything late into the night, host friends, and just have a great time. Those two and a half years were such a memorable way to get to know the city and be out on my own for the first time. It also made it a lot easier to break into the art scene in Seattle.

This is Samara and I when we first started living together. We both were in transitioning periods in our lives. It felt good to have a close friend to take on the city with <3

Fast forward to summer 2021, and I was so over my nonprofit job. I was feeling burnt out and constantly stressed. It got so bad that I was crying almost every Sunday night, dreading a week full of endless Zoom meetings and the usual bullshit that comes with working at a nonprofit that doesn’t prioritize its employees or community. The breaking point came when I was threatened to be replaced if I wasn’t open to taking on more responsibilities (I wanted to discuss proper compensation before accepting additional work). I broke down and cried to Samara in the kitchen after that Zoom meeting. While venting about how much I loathed the job, she said something that took me aback: “...So just quit. You’ve been talking about doing art full-time forever. Just do it. Now is the time.” I was taken back by her raw honesty and the fact that she was right…it was now or never.

Luckily, I had some scheduled time off, so I left for Mexico City to get away and reflect on what Samara had said. I absolutely love Mexico City. It’s vibrant, buzzing with energy, excitement, and mystery. The city feels like it’s breathing, and I feel most at peace and inspired when I’m there. I spent about four days there, and during that trip, it became clear to me that life was too short to be unhappy. So, I put in my notice to leave my job once I returned. Luckily, I had been saving up, and I had a few art projects lined up that would carry me through the fall, so I had a safety net. Either way, I knew I had to hit the ground running if I was going to survive.

This is me on that trip to Mexico City. My friend Jonathan came through with some homemade tamales and coffee for breakfast and we ate them on my balcony. Pretty sure I was feeling daunted by the decision I was going to make when this photo was taken lmaooo

I’ve never looked back since, and work has been coming in consistently, either through word of mouth or by me seeking out opportunities. I’m so much happier now, and having the freedom I’ve wanted for so long is an absolute blessing and a long time coming. That’s not to say that being a full-time artist is easy—it’s actually the hardest job I’ve ever had, and it’s scary at times not knowing what the future holds. But that’s also the exciting part!

That was a lot longer than I expected, and I left out some details, but these were the major plot points.”

I Purged a Lot of My Prints (sort of)

A few weeks ago I took down a lot of my prints from my online store. I did this so I could make room for more creativity and break up the feeling of repetitiveness that I’ve been dealing with these last few months. I’ll dive into this more in the next newsletter. For now, I want YOU to know that as a member of the Art Collectors newsletter, you get access to these archived prints! The majority of these were very popular and some still hold a special place in my heart so it feels wrong getting completely rid of them without giving them a chance to have a home. Some might make appearances in upcoming pop up markets but I definitely won't be promoting or reprinting them once they are all sold.

I’ve created a secret page where I’ll be listing prints that I’ve taken off my main shop. Go to carlosmartinezart.com/archive and use password Odyssey.