“The moment that I started releasing those maker affirmations, it was almost like, my people found me! I didn’t know that they were looking for me, but they came and they found me.“
Our guest today is the awesome Maressa Fernandez, otherwise known as Maressa Made over on the gram. Maressa describes herself as “a knitter, a sewist, a lover of slow fashion journeys, and an accessible creative coach.”, and some of you might already have seen me highlight her in my monthly email newsletter’s Creator Spotlight section. In this episode, we go deep into her creative and professional journey, discuss how following her interests and showing up online as a whole person has helped Maressa finally find her “right people”, and how using Patreon fits in with Maressa’s business model. Maressa’s wisdom is a must-listen for anyone who struggles with creative confidence, is unsure what they should be sharing on their social media, or who struggles to sell their work online.
Things We Talk About In This Episode:
- The business idea that grew out of Maressa’s own creative slump
- How important it is to value creativity (Maressa says it’s the uniqueness that makes us human) even if the people around us – and society in general – don’t recognise the value
- The challenge of finding the balance on Instagram (and elsewhere) between “what I want to share” and “what people want”
- Developing an Instagram account that creates space for you to be a whole person, and that can evolve alongside your interests
- How talking to camera on video became a way for Maressa to make her content more accessible to people with visual and hearing disabilities
- The way in which Maressa uses her platform to talk about anti-racism, in a way that started out from a need to share and evolved into a process of very personal and vulnerable education
- Talking to our children about racism (“we need to see colour in order to see privilege”)
- Maressa’s Patreon space: why she started it, how she structures it, and how creating a paid space enabled Maressa to start valuing herself, and helped members of her community likewise value themselves
- The difference between consciously selling, versus sharing with genuine excitement about what we are doing
- Parenting and creativity, and how Maressa models the creative life to her children
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Maressa on Instagram: @maressamade
- Mareesa’s Patreon community
- Maressa’s Maker Affirmations series
- Some of Maressa’s Anti Racism videos: here, here and here
- Nova Reid’s HA podcast episode “Anti-Racism Work for Well-Meaning Liberals”
- Nova Reid’s Instagram
- The Insta Retreat
