DreamChaser Victoria Villasana
Name: Victoria Villasana
Age: 38
Job Title/Company: Victoria Villasana,
Education Background: Integral Design at ITESO
Tell us a little about who you are.
I’m a mother - I have an eleven-year-old boy. I am a textile artist.
I feel like a very normal person, but throughout my life, I’ve done things my own way. I never conform to what people tell me. I wouldn’t say I’m a renegade or a rebel. But for example, here in Guadalajara (MX), where I was born, people are quite traditional. They’re more conservative. It’s expected for women to follow a certain path - going to university and getting married. I guess I did that, but in a different way. I moved to England, and I travel a lot. Before becoming a textile artist, I did fashion and floristry. My life has never been a straight line, you know, like a step one, step two. It’s been like a roller coaster. I’ve been in many different things, positive and negative, and just different things. I feel like I have already lived seven lives in this one. It’s like a collage, and it’s all translated into what I do now. And what I do now is what I feel is more me. It’s like this is what I came here to do.
2. What sparked your interest in starting your business(es)? What was your inspiration behind that?
It was a very organic experience. Since I was a kid, I had an entrepreneurial mindset because my grandma became a widow in her 30s. She had to set up her own business to support her kids. My mom also had businesses. When I was really young, I always had my t-shirt business or my jewelry business or something like that, and I would sell with my friends. I always wanted to be my own boss. Every time I started working for someone in a more traditional type of work, I would enjoy it for six months and then get really bored. I always wanted to have these freedoms. For many years, I wanted to set up my own business. When I was working in fashion, I was doing a lot of freelance work, so that would give me freedom around my time. Then, I started to feel in my soul something was missing. I started to feel like I really needed to set up a business. That was five years ago. I’m also thinking of setting up a social media business from my experience in fashion and photograph.
I was doing these collages with different techniques as a hobby. I started to incorporate the yarn. I remember one day when I was living in London, I went out and saw a guy put street art pieces on my road. They were miniature pieces. When I saw them, a light went off in my head. I have all of these collages that I’ve been doing at my desk. No one had seen them. I thought maybe I’d put it out there like this guy is doing. I never thought, “Oh my god, I’m going to make a business out of these,” or “I’m going to make it a career,” so I just did it. I didn’t know there was a street art community in London where bloggers and photographers check out all the newest street art. People started asking me for commissions, and I started collaborating with other artists. That’s how the ball started rolling. It wasn’t immediate, but it was very fast and very organic. I never forced anything. I was blown into that direction, and as things started to move in that direction for me to really do it. It was quite magical.
3. If applicable, tell us about your full-time job and/or any side hustles you might have.
This is my job a hundred percent.
“I always get fascinated by people who break the status quo, challenge society, or never conform because these people are the ones who change things for all of us.”
4. Who are you most influenced by?
I tend to do portraits of activists or musicians. I always get fascinated by people who break the status quo, challenge society, or never conform because these people are the ones who change things for all of us. No matter what people do or their background or careers or something, I always pick people following their own way and trying to follow their heart, even if it sounds cliché. People who do not conform to what other people expect from them are the kinds of characters I feel really attracted to. And artists in all areas. People who are really trying to transform the human experience through their art. It fascinates me when people share a little bit of themselves through something creative.
5. What was your first job and how long did you hold that position?
My first job was in a coffee shop here in Mexico. It was a part-time job while I was in university. I left not even six months in.
6. Can you share one of your proudest achievements with us?
There have been many cool things that have happened, like traveling and meeting different people, but what I really feel a lot of satisfaction with now is that people are really resonating with what I’m doing. For example, I have a lot of teachers from the United States telling me that they’re going to do a workshop inspired by my art. Afterward, they send me all the artwork from all the kids. For me, that’s amazing. To feel the people from different parts of the world connected with my art in that way. It’s really cool. Perhaps there are cooler things, but this one feels like a fuller achievement.
7. What were your initial goals with your work? How have they evolved?
The initial thing was very spontaneous. It was just curiosity. No matter my work, I was always doing something on the side, whether taking a course or making hats. Sometimes, I’d be painting on the side. That exploration and curiosity with a material was able to really connect. For example, I love painting, but I tend to be more strict with painting. In other mediums, I feel like I’m more critical of myself and want to be more controlling. For some reason, I can flow more with the embroidery and the photo. I’m able to let go of the control of, like, “All of this has to look like this,” and “it has to be perfect.” I never plan a piece. I obviously select the portraits and start to investigate. I research online what sort of photos I want to use for portraits. But in terms of the colors and the textiles and the portraits, it’s very much like I just take the needle and the yarn and go for it. The main thing for me with my art is to be able to communicate all the things that I’m interested in, to share and explore history and tradition, and to bring it to the present in a more contemporary way. Also, keep talking about relevant things that still need to change. Things that we’re still fighting for or still having issues with. I really like all the topics that talk about our humanity or our connection. I think when you do that, people feel it, and they transmit it back to you, and then you get more ideas, and you get in that flow.
”For me, creativity should be the way kids approach creativity. They take painting and crayons and they are not trying to think, “Is this correct?” They are just having fun. And they’re just enjoying.”
8. What do you think is the most important life skill you learned through your work?
To have fun and always do things that are very honest within yourself. Do not try to compromise, be liked by someone, or try to make things so people like you. I think, eventually, you’ll be liked if you do things that come from within yourself. People notice when you try to imitate or control too much. Things are way better when you really enjoy and let go a bit. For me, creativity should be the way kids approach creativity. They take painting and crayons and they are not trying to think, “Is this correct?.” They are just having fun. And they’re just enjoying. I think of creativity like that because throughout my life, there’s been a need to express. I think creativity is the most amazing gift that humans have. I think everybody has creativity. But we tend to be educated in a way that creativity is secondary. But I believe it should be primary. Any career is important, but creativity is so important to our well-being as humans. Without my creativity or art, I will be really sad. It gives me so much happiness.
9. Where do you hope to be in five years?
A part of me wants to continue going with the flow and see where things take me. But I would love to work more into the abstract – still with textiles but perhaps installations and sculptures. I like the idea of really big pieces. With abstract, there is not so much with the portrait and the yarn. I know people really liked that, and I want to continue it. But also create a body of work that is bigger in texture and color.
My work now can be more commercial, which is good financially. It lets me collaborate with a lot of brands. But I would like to create work that is just to be enjoyed and to be seen. Maybe performance? I would like it to combine different mediums. I don’t want to stop here. I would like to mix music or performance with drawings or lights. I hope life has something for me like that.
10. What is a typical day like for you?
They’re really different and I love that, because I hate routines. But I also have a routine, in the non-routine. It's something that for me is very important. Something that has has really helped to ground me is to wake up and do kind of like, you know, meditation or like have a little space for, you know, when I put in a candle or, um, I don’t know, something, a tiny ceremony, I guess, so a tiny moment, when I sit with my coffee and I really enjoy, and I think about my day or things or write down stuff, or yeah, just for me, it’s very important to have, I dunno, sometimes it could be from 15 minutes to one hour, you know, I could be just there, uh, thinking about different things and drink, enjoy my coffee, and I dunno for me that moment with myself I guess, is really good for, for my day, and then I could do yoga, exercise, I obviously reply my emails or start working on some big commissions that I have or working on some ideas on the internet or take my dog out, um, yeah, it’s just, um, like the day could change a lot depending on the day, if I have got calls with clients or something, but that moment with myself and I think is the key for me, early in the morning.
“Just fucking enjoy your day.”
11. What was the biggest obstacle you’ve faced so far in the process of pursuing your goals?
When I was younger, especially in my twenties, but as far back as I can remember, I felt a really strong need to work on something creative. I always felt like it was wrong to wait. It’s wrong to spend eight hours of your day working on something that you hate. I mean, I did it. I didn’t hate most of my jobs; they gave me something, even if it was just money or meeting people and making friends. But I still wanted to spend my days doing something that I really enjoyed. So, for a long time, I was obsessed with finding something I love and doing that for the rest of my life. I was quite obsessed with it in my twenties. I feel like I’m my biggest obstacle. I was really hard on myself, and I was not kind to myself. I was always criticizing myself. I was my biggest enemy for a long time. You know, you’re constantly putting yourself down and doubting yourself, but a part of me was like, “No, you can do it.” It was of these internal fights. And now, in my thirties, I am making more peace with myself.
I got fed up of being so horrible to myself. I was like, “I want to be happy. Just fucking enjoy your day. Just be happy.” I started to do that little by little. I started just to be really mindful. For example, before, I was just rushing when eating, but I started to enjoy the little pleasures in life. And things around me started to change when I started to do that. Like my mood started to change, I started to have more direction and I started to focus more on all the beauty of the everyday. I started being grateful and being mindful. That is how I started to heal a lot of the negative stuff within me, and then the opportunities started to come to me. If you want to change things outside, change yourself. I’m living proof of that. I believe in that because that was what happened to me. Before, I wanted to change everything outside of me and tried to control everything. I was trying to make things happen for me. But when you relax and you just enjoy life, and you start to be kind to yourself, things start to flow much better to you.
12. What is the best piece of advice you have received?
I had so many.
I think it’s not to conform. If you feel your life could be better, just go for it. Do not take life so seriously. It’s like a paradox. Do not take life too seriously, but if you feel like you have something to give or are in a situation where you are not a hundred percent happy, you need to move. You need to act. Because I think we came here to experience, learn, expand, and have fun. Life is too short to be stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. But also this idea of trying not to take it so seriously, it’s kind of like I’m contradicting myself. But life is full of contradictions, and you have to live with these paradoxes and find that balance. For me, the most important thing right now is to find that balance in everything – your private life, your career, politics, everything. Balance is the key to a good life.
13. When do you get your best ideas?
When I'm relaxed, when I'm living, and when I'm enjoying life. When I'm listening to music, and I'm calm. When I'm on the go, like when I'm walking, I get a lot of ideas. I think it has to do with the state of mind. When you are calm and relaxed, and you're not worrying about the past or the future, you're just in the moment and at peace with yourself. That's when you start to see something or start to explore. The thread of creativity starts to get longer and longer. But when I wasn't feeling very peaceful, I would also feel this need to create. It felt like too many emotions that I needed to put somewhere or create something to transform that emotion. You can create from different stages, but it feels much better right now. And I flow better when I'm calmer and when I'm walking.
“The good thing about failing is you get used to it, and then you are not scared.”
14. Can you share with us one time that you failed and what you learned from that failure?
Oh, I’ve failed so many times. The good thing about failing is you get used to it, and then you are not scared. So you try and try and try. When people don't take risks, it is because they're really scared. After all, they have never failed. The more you fail, even the younger you start, it gets easier. For example, when I was twenty-five and my son was six months old, my partner and I moved to Mexico. I tried to open a flower shop, and we lasted like seven months. We couldn't pay the bills, and we didn't have enough customers. But honestly, looking back, it was great because I learned no matter what it wasn’t failure because I learned so much. I have many, many things like this. Some of them worked for a little while others didn't.
15. How do you unwind?
In different ways. I love eating. I enjoy eating with my friends, like going to a restaurant or cooking something together. I love a nice conversation and eating and talking and eating. I love that. Yoga as well. I love buying flowers and lighting candles and all these little things. I like to have little rituals in my day. At lunchtime, I always prepare a nice coffee, light a candle and read something. These things really help to ground me, and then I'm ready to start working again. So I try to do these little mini breaks.
16. Can you share a sacrifice that you’ve made in the pursuit of your dreams?
Well, I divorced from my former partner. Last year (2019), I traveled a lot, so some days, my son was with his dad, and some, he was with my mom. But being far from him and unable to pick him up, even if I did pick him up every day from school, was hard. Usually the man is traveling and the mom stays. That's a very traditional role and more likely here in Mexico. But with me, it's the opposite. That feels like a sacrifice. But my son needed to see a mother that was happy and doing what she loved. So every time that I feel like, "Maybe I would like to be more involved," I remember that. I have a very close relationship with my son; he sees me happy and that I'm doing what I love. I think that's very positive example for him because I want him to do the same.
“When you let go and let the universe guide you a little bit more, the opportunities will present themselves somehow.”
17. What would you tell someone else who is interested in entering your field?
Be constant. Have the consistency to do it every day. When I started my technique, I wasn't an embroidery expert. I still don't feel that my thing is embroidery because my patterns are more geometrical. They're not like the typical embroidery style. But the more you do something, the better you get. You need to put in the hours to improve your technique and learn and explore the material. You really need to have this consistency and patience. But I think everybody can find a way to succeed. It's not the same for everybody, and it couldn't be the same. A girl living in New York, or a girl living in Italy, or the southern part of Mexico, it's going to be different. But they can still do it. They just need to find their niche according to their life experiences. Everything will be different for each because everybody has different life experiences. But regardless, you have to be constant, you have to have consistency, and to be open. Sometimes, we are very fixed on one idea of what we want to be. But maybe you'll meet someone else in a bar, and they ask you to decorate their house, and perhaps you end up more in decoration. We need to allow for that. When you let go and let the universe guide you a little bit more, the opportunities will present themselves somehow.
“We can learn from one another, share our stories, and do something positive to change the current situation.”
18. What do you hope people take away from your story? Anything we missed that you would like to share?
We all kind of work together. Our field doesn't matter, so if you know the industry you're already in, we can all do something to change the current situation in the world. We should use that to create change. It's very important that everybody has their own voice and shares what it's like to be them. And we start to work more together. We can learn from one another, share our stories, and do something positive to change the current situation. We keep going in cycles in history.