welcome to the arts to hearts podcast a show where we take peek into the hearts and lives of our favorite artists from running a creative business and practice to mindset we talk about everything that goes behind into making a life and a career that you will adore as an artist think of this as your happy hour with your favorite artist in your studio hear them share the messy and the wonderful side of creating and living a creative heartfelt life within and outside our studios as you tune in be ready to be inspired and encouraged i’m your host charka rora an artist designer entrepreneur and founder of arts to hearts project thank you so much for being here let’s jump right in hey you guys welcome back to the arts to hearts podcast i’m your host tarka arora today i have one of my favorite guests i’ve seen her do multiple things beautifully and she always amazes me with how much she gets done and how beautifully she gets done today we have um a powerhouse of design and art with us uh shelby uh welcome to the podcast shelby hi thank you for having me i’m so excited to be here samia thank you so much for coming it’s it’s a pleasure to have you here before we get into the episode uh shelby can you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about yourself so that they can know you better sure so my name is shelby mcfadden and i guess i’m a bunch of different people uh different hats is what i wear during the day and at night um most of all i’m a mom i’m a full-time mom and i also run a publication or a publication and i have an etsy shop called fuckbee barbie that i design products for and i also have my side projects my little hobbies of illustration and artwork so i somehow get all of that done in 24 hours and um that’s really it that’s the secret or not secret love that i i think we all need to know how are you getting it all done because how are you doing it’s not only about doing it how are you even killing it you don’t really do it you do it so well that it just amazes all of us well i think the most important thing is um and i i always say this i get the asset actually the most it’s like how do you get all this stuff done which i’m like i still i have no really i don’t have like an exact formula or anything all i just say is that i schedule everything and whether it’s in my head or on my calendar i just know like okay well i start the day off i know i need to get x y and z done most importantly i have to take care of my kid soon to be another kid coming along the way so that’s more challenging um but i think as far as um like for each thing that i do um i have a vision for everything and i think as a designer um i pay attention to branding big time so that kind of helps to make sure that everything’s streamlined everything’s consistent um so when i do work it’s like like i said it’s a schedule and i just get things done so that it looks cohesive and um or whatever it is that i’m doing is informative and um presents well and has a goal so i always keep those things in mind while i’m doing anything because i don’t have that much time and like i said it just comes down to scheduling that’s that is literally it so we’ll keep your number one tip as scheduling yes but also keeping time for yourself is important too because if you’re starting to feel burnt out which i do i feel burnt out sometimes and i can feel it like it’s when i start losing the motivation the things just kind of feel rushed or they don’t look as cohesive and i’m like okay i need to step back tonight’s the night that i like binge watch a show or you know i have date nights on fridays with my husband i don’t work weekends anymore so i have to fit as much in as possible in a short amount of time but i also want to honor that you need a break you know you need some that self-care time so i think it’s just learning that balance that’s very true and and knowing when when to stop you know yeah absolutely i think i a lot of us struggle with actually knowing not knowing when to stop and even
when we know to stop we don’t want to stop yeah that’s we we get too hard on ourselves yeah i’m definitely a fault with that one we will get into all of this and so many more questions that i have for you but before we start i want to know who how were you as a kid um well where were you born were you a nazi child um so i was born in the middle of nowhere pennsylvania um pretty much in the mountain area uh i think it’s called northeast pa central pa bloomsburg is where it the name of the town is i think it was like the only town in pennsylvania and um i didn’t go to a huge school there weren’t a ton of opportunities for art you just took an art literally just an art class where i was from um i’ve had friends from school who’ve taken like huge classes where they’re like yeah i took graphic design in high school and i was like i took art which was like a study hall i just did whatever i wanted to do most times i’m not even sure if i did art i probably like caught up in homework um but as a kid as a young kid i had always been really into art um my i have an older sister i have three sisters the oldest one she’s always been um artistic and creative she’s kind of been my mentor in a way as far as like guiding me down the graphic design path and the art path and i always admired her and her talent and i think she it really influenced me to explore that side of myself as a young kid i have pictures of myself in my high chair painting like i was always doing stuff um art wise and my mom i think most importantly she raised my sisters and i um almost pretty much by herself my dad traveled a lot for work so it was really just her kind of taking the reins on our imagination and childhood and creativity and she she has such like a creative mind i mean she used to tell us the craziest stories we lived in like a wooded area and she would like tell us stories that like we had a wizard that lived in our woods and there was a witch and a princess that was stuck in a tree and she’d show us where everything was in the woods like we always had just a warped imagination and i i think that also influenced just who i am like that quirky side and i think imagination is so important so now i know where are those illustrations coming from
yeah that’s um definitely my mom to blame so um yeah i think if i didn’t have such a crazy weird mom who i love to pieces and i wouldn’t trade her for the world and i had friends that even knew that like my mom was like the coolest mom like everybody came to our house she would be like the type of person come grab a cup of coffee we’re going on the porch we’re gonna talk about your problems like she was just very she was like a best friend so she really influenced us as far as um being that creative and imaginative and not feeling like you’re weird for being different so i think i i embrace that even today and i’ll with my kids too with creativity that’s very heartwarming and very wonderful to hear because it’s our upbringing how we grow in the early years that really empowers um our imagination and once you set it loose the wonders it can do for us is just it’s just amazing you know every time i would see your illustrations it just transfers you into another world i have two prints of yours now and i just feel like you know every time i would look at one one the one that i have the first one that i bought from you it actually is hanged in my niece’s room and she’s really young and every time i look at it i feel like i i feel like transported into another world a positive powerful imaginative magical world and it’s it’s very empowering um not only that as a child that we all have imaginations but as we grow old somehow um that imagination like that child um gets too scared to even dream how how have you been able to keep your inner child and that imagination safe from the outside world and not lose it even when you’re growing well i think um i could probably answer a few ways uh now as a mom it’s a little different because you’re you know now it’s like definitely the time to not hold
back on that kind of creativity and imagination um because i want that for my kids i want them to be able to look at something differently and that’s also just a great way to to problem solve also which is useful when you’re older but i think um the one thing that um and it was kind of more of a struggle maybe when i was younger because you know you want to fit in you don’t want to be like the weird i don’t say i’m it’s not weird like i just i didn’t want to be like you just kind of want to be type a you kind of just want to fit in with everybody else um being different is not a good thing to answer that question um short answer is you know when when you’re younger like you don’t want to be different you don’t want to think differently you want to kind of be like everybody else um so it was harder to deal with um wanting to be myself and knowing that i have an imagination that i want to that i think differently and i like you know and i would always have like i would always draw comics and things like that or i would draw whatever like i never had that side um i think in my early 20s once i got to school i just really embraced it and i said i really don’t care i don’t care what people think of me and i think um i love all those things i love i don’t hide that i’m i love like david bowie and i love like 80s stuff like i love my old child classic 80s movies because they’re full of adventure and i love that like it takes you to places or like even the books i read like i read a lot of fantasy and things like that and like it’s just it is who i am and um and so you know even when i met my husband like i think that was one of the things he loved most was just that i was so different you know than anybody he had met and i have introduced him to things like even music from back in like the 70s and things like that and my mom always like had said like no what was the thing jesus said she used to say why be normal when you can be abnormal like it’s literally like one of those and i’m like you’re right like why would you want to be normal like being abnormal is so different you’re unique and so anyway as an adult i i really embrace that and maybe some people think i’m weird um when i have conversations with them i think a majority of them like that i’m genuine and this is literally who i am i’m not some like perfect person and um and i think as far as like being a mom goes just having that influence on my son is gonna be such a great thing um and and keeping that childhood like nostalgia and fantasy and adventure and stuff like that like that’s i mean adults are just big kids that’s it i love that i love that and that’s that’s so inspiring and true i mean not a lot of us are able to do that to ourselves um we become too hard we become too judgmental of our own self it’s like it’s not only about others it’s also about us we we get to judge mental we put too much pressure on ourselves we we want to grow up more than anyone else so it’s very refreshing and i would say um you we love you for everything that you do and everything you’ve created because of all of that you love i mean every time i see a new product um a new illustration let’s say even at fugly barbie i think i did not grow up in the us but ever since you’ve launched fugly barbie i’m like i’m obsessed i’m literally obsessed with everything that you put out because um i love the aesthetic i love the vibe i may not relate to all of the content because i i did not grow up into it i have not seen all of those movies but um honestly for me it feels like it transports me into a place that i would i would really love to be in so i mean it’s it’s you have please know the wonderful viewer itself that you are because uh we are more weird people like myself feel more belong than anything else
perfect okay uh you run multiple businesses and i’m sure it’s not not easy being being a maker yourself and then also running businesses i mean they’re two very very different skill sets and
uh very diff definite job roles and you don’t run one two three if i can count i think you run four businesses right now i may be wrong but that’s um
i think it’s pretty close yeah i actually tried to scale it down and um consolidate yeah but um [Music] i think it’s no maybe it is four yeah maybe this four we have to figure it out let’s figure it out [Laughter] you do more more wonderful things but let’s let’s get back to how you started and what was it the most difficult thing is to take that first step what how was that for you what was your first step sure so um i think um great grandfather was a huge entrepreneur um he owned several businesses very successful businesses self-made he was very well off um and then on top of that his daughter was my grandmother and i saw her do the same thing she owned a business with my grandfather and then my dad had always had these like inspiring um side things that he always wanted to do he never got to the point where he would do them like opening up a pizza shop or an ice cream stand or whatever um but he he always wanted to do that and i think somewhere in my bloodline i think there’s just like this entrepreneur side and i think i really feel like i’ve i’ve never i’ve never just wanted to sit behind a desk i’ve never wanted to just sit behind a desk and just design and work with someone else and that goes back to even school i knew that um and i always wanted to do something else and luckily with the talent of graphic design you can do that um you can brand anything you can run any kind of business yeah so i really had the skill set to like get myself off the ground and at least have a great appearance whether or not my business model was good that was something i had to work on you know i can certainly do that yeah exactly i’m like i my business i mean i’ve learned a lot now but when i started i i i didn’t know anything i still don’t even know if i know anything but um and you know more than i guess what i started out so um when i was working full-time as a designer um i started making macaroons because i really loved them and then that was kind of like my first real like side gig and then i realized i like i don’t even know if i liked baking them i think i just like taking the pictures and like selling them and i was like you know what maybe this isn’t wow this is an unknown fact for us yeah it was i like boxed them up by um my husband and i would wake up at like six eight well he wasn’t my husband at the time but we were dating you know we’d wake up at six a.m and we’d box them and i’d cook them the night before a couple you know couple nights before froze them it was a it was crazy and but i loved that i loved what i think what i loved the most was when someone got the box of macaroons they shared it with me they shared that experience that i gave them because that’s what i wanted i wanted like this you know they open the box and there’s color and then there’s the macaroons and it’s just this beautiful thing and i i love making people feel a certain way like um that kind of experience and so um i think like what was it 2016 i made this decision to like work for myself i was done working for the man i was done working with people that were toxic and my husband was like you know what why don’t you start working for yourself you know you’re very talented you’ve got you know i guess i have some pretty good people skills and i always wanted to work like with the client like i didn’t want to be the the middleman you know and i i just wanted to work one-on-one and um and build those client relationships so i started with graphic design had some clients did some freelance and then um little by little i met um i reconnected with claudia i knew her in school and um her and i kind of had this great relationship going with create magazines she asked me if i would design for her and i was like yes like it’s like an amazing opportunity and at that time i actually wasn’t even in the art world but i loved art and i think a lot
of us graphic designers like we love art but we’re just i look good no you’re so like busy with the other side yes like you know it it’s like one of those like forgotten things like that you love and then all of a sudden you’re like re you know submitted into the art world and then you know you yourself start getting back into art because you’re so like influenced by inspired by everybody around you and talking to people so that’s kind of how it all transitioned from me working like nine to five to working for myself starting things taking that leap of faith and it was it was scary but i think now since i’ve been doing it for so long um it’s not and in fact like i i really enjoy making people feel great um whether that’s with ugly barbie um or candy floss and people i just want to help people and i think claudia really like showed me that that that forget the competition you know there’s no competition you just build each other up and when she builds me up i built her up and i think having that kind of mentality and then applying that to other people like you’re new into the art world let’s get you like out there let me you know get you in front of other people you know i love your stuff let’s communicate let’s do an interview like now i’m like following people in their personal lives and i like i love it it’s like it’s like a bunch of friends and it’s a huge community that i’m a part of it’s it’s great so it’s been very rewarding so far you know um the first time um i i got to know about you was of course why i create and how you were designing i always loved uh the work that you were doing today but i i never knew it was you when i saw that i of course talked to you and i i saw everything that everything else that you do and it was very inspiring for me to even see of course cat has been a very big catalyst for myself and so many of us uh sometimes it it’s it’s how you lead by example she’s been extremely um supportive without saying it but actually doing it um the first time when i saw your work and i figured that you were also running your own art publication which was picture and uh candy floss and it was for from the place that i come from i had never never seen that i’d be really honest i have never seen someone who who’s like you know you’re you’re doing the create edit you’re designing the magazine for create and everything for create and you’re also independently running another publication for yourself which is of course a contemporary art publication and it felt honestly to me as a viewer i felt it opened up so much so much of space that it doesn’t have to be toxic it doesn’t have to be extremely competitive you could do the same work for someone and the same person and i’ve seen i’ve seen cat uplifting you cheering for you rooting for you always putting you out like oh she’s a she’s the best like it it really was she changed she really changed my life wow that’s so wonderful because that was really really empowering and refreshing to see refreshing to see cat supporting someone who does like you do brilliant work there’s no second thought about that but um she’s like you’re also doing the same work for someone else you know for for create and um it was very uplifting to see two of you together and empowering each other instead of you know instead of feeling insecure there could be so many other things yeah people sabotage and um i mean even just um in the design world i noticed that a lot that’s one of the things i i actually don’t really like about the design world is the competitiveness yeah and i saw that a lot with um two places i worked with actually my first job was amazing i have to say i loved my team um but the next two jobs after that um it was i had well there was so much competition and um toxicity that i i had i quit one of them moved to a different one and then it was just as bad and then i was like i’m out of this and um i think with fugly barbie especially um i had the opportunity to to mentor a designer and um her and i went to school together long story short and she really loved what i was doing and she had you know the anxieties of you know being a designer and i don’t even think she had a design
job she just worked at a bank and i was like you have so much talent like you could do this you know you can have you know you don’t have to go anywhere you can sit behind a computer and you can design and and still be creative and make money and so i mentored her and her and i you know will find things out different you know different um you know things because we’re on the same platform which is etsy and we’re constantly going back and forth even i sent her illustrations i’m like what do you think of this and she’ll send me some and i think being a mentor instead of sabotaging someone is the best thing you can like you only have one life first of all and i’m a true believer that when i die when i’m like i’m hopefully going to be like in my late 80s on my deathbed i would hate to have sabotaged somebody’s yeah you know life that way like i i would want to look like look at all the people i helped you know this was such like a rewarding life you know for everything i could use my talent for and build people up and i think um it’s hard to get out of that mindset when you were in the design world for so long um but it was really cat that showed me that you know that build people up and it it’s it’s such a great thing and it really is it’s like that’s probably why i don’t feel like i work because that’s true that’s true i think um i i love like how i’ve done i don’t know maybe 15 episodes so far and that’s not there’s not one conversation that we’ve not had before without mentioning her because it’s just been like it’s like it’s like a domino effect like you know she started one and it’s just it’s just multiplying and it’s it’s extremely empowering because you know if had you had she not been there for you um you would have not seen that said there’s a better way i would have not seen there’s a better way there would not be there would not be a candy floss a picture of ugly barbie or there would not be an arts to hearts or there’s so many things i mean how one positive action can trigger so many more positive actions that can actually help so many more of us yeah absolutely i love that you know and that’s just you know that’s what you have to keep in mind for everything you do so you don’t know how you impact like i don’t even feel like i impact people until they come to me and they tell me you know even with your the conversation i’m having with you you know that’s i just feel like i’m like you know a mom who’s trying to get stuff done and i’m not even aware of what i’m doing you know hoping that i make an impact with people’s lives but you know when you hear it it’s one of those things it’s just it’s just great it’s it’s rewarding sometimes we don’t realize but you know i now that you’re saying um consuming your work like since you put so many other i think i’ve consumed a lot of your work someone myself who’s also into branding i always look out for what you do and it always inspires me and i’m like oh my god how did she think that oh my god how did she do that oh my god i’m going to try this it just feels so positive and encouraging to see like like to have someone with a similar mindset and you get obsessed with that person’s work and you’re like oh my god sometimes it comes to my mind okay let me check out how shelby does that like a lot of times and you know your your illustration or for that matter is like fugly barbie i’m obsessed i’m really really obsessed so it’s just that when you love someone and like us creators when you put something out there you don’t and like we often underestimate our own values but let’s say i am a consumer today for everything that you’re doing and i can tell you how much positivity uh it brings to me and how much how much i love uh consuming different things that you do in different places oh thank you that’s awesome to hear it you don’t i don’t know i i i don’t feel like i’m doing that much but i guess i guess like you just should keep going and stop second guessing yes now that you were in design um you met cat you were doing the design work for create and everything how did um your first art publication come to life how did you decide that okay now that you’re here you also want to
venture into something like this running an art publication is also a lot of business work it’s also a lot of content work um and it’s not all creative so how did that pan out for you um that’s a really good question so um i remember having a conversation with kat about it and um i loved when i was designing create especially in the beginning there were pieces that really stuck out to me i can’t remember all of them off the top of my head but um i remember when i would like design and i you know there’d be certain artists that i’m like oh i really love this person’s stuff like this is really neat and most of it was kind of the more um eclectic kind of art and so i was like you know and on top of that i always had this idea um of kind of marrying fine art with um illustration and design and maybe 2d work like just different kind of mediums um and like is that possible to come together because i’m like well this could be really bad because now your demographic’s just all over the place and maybe nobody wants to be a part of it um and i was like or it could be a really great marriage between these kind of worlds um that i don’t normally see together and so that was kind of how picture came about and i really liked i wanted to focus more on maybe like this like low brow kind of weird side of i guess it would be more on my like quirky side like my fugly barbie kind of side like it had like a specific kind of look to it um an appearance and almost like an underground kind of magazine and um and i loved it like and and it was you know i have like a small team as far as like the business side it was really like me just figuring it out um cadia also mentored me which was great so um it was kind of just like figuring things out and what worked best for myself and for the publication and then um it spiraled into me wanting to try a different demographic but still keeping that same um idea of like the illustration side and then like the fine arts side and the design side and when i started candy floss i was like it kind of like how you were saying with wanting to know more about the artists i was like i don’t really want to know so much like you know the bio artist statement like you know i could read that on their website like i want to know more i want like a theme you know and but still marrying these two people because that are two people these like different kind of backgrounds because we’re all creative yeah that’s there’s denominators that we all like to create we just create differently yeah and so and actually as i’m building candy floss even for this new issue it’s less like bio it’s me less like the bio and artist statement it’s going to be more about the artist their work that they submitted like i want to know more i want to know like as you know my husband proofreads for me i proofread you know so we catch little things um and even he said he’s like i always read about the artist he’s like you know not that i don’t care that where they graduated or what degrees they have but i i’m not hiring them i just want to know more about them with like what makes them tick you know and like why is it that they submitted this kind of work and so we’re you know that’s kind of the direction where it’s going and as i have more kids my time kind of gets a little bit harder to manage everything um and i think just like on top of it a lot of the people from picture were coming to candy floss and i was like well we have like a similar audience why don’t we just combine the two yeah it seems like a lot of people are just kind of bouncing between the two locations and they’re very i don’t want to say similar but they’re structured similar and so that’s why we made the decision you know let’s just do candy floss like that’s what we’re doing and my small team would be easier to manage that way too and that’s kind of where we’re going right now i’m excited about it i’m super pumped awesome love that i think uh i love the young aesthetic and you know the past like the wipe the electric like the white candy floss has and also like um how it bridges the gap between um arts craft design um illustration all of it together and places everyone uh you know in a level of creator more than any like anything
else and i just love love i i think the yeah i love the issue that i was in the magical one especially the cover i absolutely love the one that you recently put out and i think all these all these issues have been just really really amazing okay let’s go to another kind of your business oh thank you let’s go to another kind of your business which is how did you then um after running these publications and you were still doing um create and other publications for that i believe um then what happened uh how did rest of these come to life
so um that’s a fun one um well i realized that um one was that right before my um son henry was born i was starting to kind of um not want to do client services anymore as far as graphic design goes and i think i even had a conversation with kat to let her know like i’m gonna give this a shot like i i just kind of stepped away from maple projects because i have a baby and now i’m trying to figure out being a mother and on top of everything i still had picture and i think i just launched candy floss i can’t remember and um i was like i’m gonna give this a shot you know and and really try to manage everything um and i think once i became pregnant and everything was great up until i got pregnant again and realizing okay wait a minute i i have another kid coming i don’t really know if i can handle this huge responsibility and to work with a client on top of it you you really have to work on their deadlines and i just was like at this point where i was like i i want to do my personal stuff i think um claudia her and i had a great community you know great conversation about it she’s been super supportive she knew you know she she knew like that was a great idea for me um and respected that and um so um i pretty much and i think when what was at the start of the pandemic was the start of fugly barbie which came on by accident that wasn’t really i never thought it would be like where it is right now um but it’s been doing awesome it’s been such a blessing and it’s and just like a wild ride on top of it that i kind of just i did that i was like you know what i’m gonna make my own schedules anything i do has to be like on my own terms you know and my team’s really great which is awesome um so it’s it’s just been that’s been my focus so really when i started fugly barbie and just doing illustration on the side i really only do it when like my kid’s napping or um at night because i really want to be present in his life like i don’t want him seeing his mom on the computer all the time there’s times where i am on the computer and i have to be if i’ve just got too much stuff but most of the time i just focus on him um and uh so that’s kind of just how things have been playing out and i’m just really seeing how it goes once kid number two comes we’ll see what happens but um i’ve just been kind of you know going taking on as much as i can chew yeah and knowing my limits and knowing when and everything so that’s kind of how i think i answered the question right i did you did um yeah that’s kind of happens that sounds fantastic another thing that that comes to my mind and actually i was like every time you would run like start a project and i would see not only like you know what what i really really like is um sometimes you find like someone who’s a great business person um marketer or like a entrepreneur or someone who would be like an amazing um amazing creative or an artist or a designer uh i think in the past one two years um i found like i’ve met so many of you who are not only amazing uh entrepreneurs but amazing artists or amazing artists but great entrepreneurs yourself my biggest question to you is that you’ve not only launched multiple businesses of course these are multiple revenue sources um you what you create is fantastic right but the difficult part is also um making it successful financially making sense of the numbers um you know let’s say when you launch the art publication uh there was a lot of business side to it you you candy floss i believe of course is
doing great um uh it saw so many other artists it’s it’s been there and um a lot of us love it with with etsy i think you launched etsy i think it i don’t know has it even been in here
uh the you’re fugly it has it just it just in here awesome so you you yep just here and wow so you launched it in a year ago um you have a super successful etsy shop uh you were running to art publications then you were also working with client servicing how has marketing or marketing especially because again it’s all a game of marketing has that been something that you’ve been good with in the beginning or what do you feel uh has been one of the pivotal reasons for you to have successful businesses not one not two but three let’s say
um so as far as marketing goes um you know my husband he studied marketing um as far as like when you want to talk about like logistics and roi and stuff like that what you put in what you’re investing like all of that stuff like he he knew inside and out and kind of taught me yes honestly i don’t even really use that that much um when it comes to marketing and when it comes to marketing and um and advertising my only thing that i keep like that’s consistent is having um the a consistent voice but not only that but having um like interactions with people who are supporting you and communication is like really like my word of mouth is my best advertising and marketing scheme like i don’t even say scheme it’s just if people love your stuff they’re going to talk about it and if they love you and they love who you are they’re going to want to support you and on top of it like i i just want to get to know people who are supporting me and whether that’s with ugly barbie with customers my little niches that i have and um or candy floss with artists you know reaching out to people and talking to them and supporting them and i think like that’s how i’ve just been doing it i don’t have even like a formula for that either it’s just you know you have a brand who who are you marketing to what’s your story why do people want to value you because you are in a competitive market what makes you different and all i know is that i just love talking to people and i love making people feel great and if that’s through communication support networking whatever that’s just how i’ve been doing things i think and so far it’s been working i guess but um that’s that’s really how i’m doing it like i don’t pay for advertising um i you know i i have posts that i love to interact with people um especially with ugly barbie i’m like you know what do you guys want to see in my shop you know comment below put him an emoji for horror or you know romance novel or whatever because i genuinely care i’m like what who’s coming to my shop what do these people want am i giving them what they want is my product like you know good like i don’t know you know it’s just it’s like all these questions i have and the people who are answering them are the people who are coming to my shop so it makes sense so i think the the short answer for that too is just when you want to market your your brand or your artwork or whatever interact with the people your community interact with the people who are coming to visit you who want to support you they’re the ones that are going to be talking about you to their friends and that’s clearly what’s i guess been happening yeah and i and i love that and um so that’s word of mouth has just been the the best thing and so as far as marketing goes you just gotta get to know your audience and like have great customer service and care about people i think caring about people is the number one thing i love that i absolutely love that and i think that’s my secret i would so agree with everything that you’re saying and that’s that’s i think it’s just to it’s just amazing with um seeing you do all of these things with so much of love because at the end of the day all of that like
that’s all that matters like um how much how much um it is how much happiness does it bring to you and it how much happiness it brings to other people
okay my my last question to you yeah i mean it does my last question to you before we get on to the best part of the podcast uh is which i generally asked all my guests um and it truly like it’s one of my favorite questions actually
my question is if what really puts let’s say what what really puts you off bed like if there was no fluff around it like you know of course um we do what we do for several reasons it’s never one linear thing but let’s say if there was there was no fluff around your work that you’re doing let’s say um no popularity no revenue nothing like if you were creating for the sole reason of creating why would you be doing what you’re doing today like why would you still choose to do what you’re doing today even then i think about this one a lot because i always tell my husband if we won the lottery i’d still work like i don’t know what else first of all i don’t know what else i would do i can’t stop no i can’t i it’s either if i’m creating for myself or for other people or if it’s a publication or if it’s just my art i think the short the small answer the one word answer is passion yeah that’s it you know like if you’re not passionate about something you’re not gonna do it you know and um so if i if i didn’t like what i was doing or if i just like liked it i would also be watching like binge watching movies in my free time instead of creating and what i want to do with my free time is creating drawing and you know helping people or designing magazines like it’s a passion and i think it’s something that i don’t know if everyone’s born with that but i think that that is that’s my short answer yes love that thank you so much shelby i think i had a great time i have a lot more questions but i think we’ll have to do another one with you to answer all of those but thank you so much thank you so much for being so good thank you so much for being so honest and so wonderful and so wrong okay now comes the rapid fire i have already briefed you about it but i’m going to just put it again it’s a fun little rapid fire the idea is to get to know you a little bit more it has to be quick and fast i’ll ask you questions you have to tell me what comes to your mind in the first instant and that’s it so there’s no right and wrong we just want to know you better okay are you ready okay let’s do this i’m ready perfect let’s do this one thing you want to convey through your work in the arts inspiration oh uh what’s the one word that describes you the best unique love that okay if you could have a physical studio anywhere in the world where would it be oh i know i would have wait is this a one word answer because i’ll try to keep it short but um if i could be anywhere in the world it would be in a small cottage with you know like a little like log not log cabin but some kind of cottagey thing in scotland in the highlands surrounded by probably sheep and i would paint in front of or draw in front of like a wood stove like and have teeth and scones like that’s that’s what i would do sounds so beautiful i don’t know how beautiful it would feel please in my invite me whenever this is happening
okay um yeah i’ll have to manifest that one i’m putting that in the world for you so that even i get to come in thank you okay awesome your biggest done your biggest source of inspiration music wow that’s new i listen to music all the time yeah i honestly even when i was designing especially if i’m like designing something that’s like maybe like a period reference like um 20s ish or something that’s maybe more 80s ish i always listen like i i have such a huge range of music that i love and um i i cannot do what i’m doing at all without music and so music said it
gets me into like a weird spot where i can start you know thinking and whether i’m creating or just thinking it’s yeah i can’t even imagine a world without music so that would definitely be it perfect okay i asked this question because you know i just want to normalize the fact that we’re all born creative and that you know no matter what age you start or what age um like you know i i’ll ask the question let me not read your first mute your age when you visited a museum or a gallery for the first time oh okay um let me think i think it was because i lived in the middle of nowhere and i rarely traveled outside of bloomsburg at the time so probably wasn’t until until i was in college so i had to have been i think like 18 or 19 my sister took me to philly it was either philly new york i can’t remember and it was an exhibition for um who was it oh my gosh he did where the wild things are um marie sendak i think goes to the yeah yeah marie sendak so it was like his exhibition and then i loved it and then i saw like when we were in scotland my friends and i my one friend was an art major at the time we went to see a goya exhibition and that was like the coolest thing but those were probably like my first real experience i really always want to ask this question more and more to people because i feel like since i was living in india we never had like a gallery or like a museum culture and i did not visit mine until i actually um traveled outside of india and i felt like okay oh yeah this is something i could go and look at and you’re still there you’re doing some amazing things but you you know just normalizing the fact that we’ve all grown in different places our our our skill sets and where we can go has nothing to do with where we started and how we started and at what point we started so here we go okay thank you next question absolutely who is your favorite women artist from any any point of time you could mention oh my gosh this one’s so hard okay this has to be quick one person that comes to your mind who is your favorite women artist um i i’m going to see claudia right now because i can’t really think but she’s one of my favorites i would i’m going with karya because i love that that’s a great answer actually she is my favorite she’s the biggest
okay um who is your go-to person when you’re in trouble or you need advice um my go-to person is probably my husband yeah definitely he’s like holder love that okay this this is okay it’s a tricky question but let’s let’s see what has been your favorite moment as an artist can you pinpoint one moment one moment out of many that you have i’m sure um that you feel like okay something happened and you felt like oh my god you feel great to be an artist like you feel like any experience any incident that you would like to share with us um it’s probably more illustration side because it’s fugly barbie but i think um the best thing ever was just hearing people how much like my products have brought them so much joy and even um my anxiety shirt that i have on there someone wore it to like a meeting wow they had to give a speech and they’re like you have no idea how much this helped me i was like that’s crazy like that i that that happened that you really had that kind of i have that kind of impact and uh so i’d say like literally reading my reviews on etsy are like it you know just verifying that i’m like okay i’m doing something great and i’m really impacting people with that my skills and illustrations yes you are yes you are so that’s probably one of the bigger ones you are okay if you were to meet younger shelby today what advice would you give her oh gosh um how old would i be because i feel like there’s so many times i could have said something um i would say overall younger shelby i would say um don’t care as much about what people think about you love that my last question to you shout out to an artist or to whatever who’s currently on your heart list slash you’re loving um mindy carpenter oh yes i love her work mindy carpenter has been i love seeing her like i
love seeing everything that she’s doing and i i follow her too on her instagram and her every time i go i’m like i always feel like i don’t know it’s like a peaceful place to go and i’d say um alan howard is probably the other one i’m like these everything that they create it just brings me to this like really peaceful playful like carefree space and um that’s that’s those are probably my i mean it’s hard because it’s like i follow so many people but those two um i follow on the daily and i love to see their stuff so that’s that’s good i think i absolutely love her work um myself it just it’s very refreshing and it’s like it’s it’s very candy flossy i would say
it’s a perfect it is it really that’s probably why i’m like bring me into the mood perfect this has been so much fun shall we thank you so much i really i really am grateful for you agree for agreeing to come here and then being so so honest and so warm but before i let you go i have just one last question and that is do you have something coming up that you would like to share that you would like to share with the listeners that they can support you follow you or you would like to like all of us to know about and where can we find you and follow you um so fugly barbie’s obviously easy one to follow i mean i don’t you could google fugly barbie and i think i’m the only one that pops up but as far as things that i’m working on um i’m just i think my illustrations i’ve been trying to dabble a little bit more into that and finding that like peaceful spot at night after my when my kids going to bed um so i’m going to be creating some more kind of like playful child-like illustrations um that do incorporate that kind of like imaginative space um so you can see a lot of that um mostly my instagram which i think might see shops on there too my instagram shelby underscore mcfadden so you can find personal artwork there and then we have a call for art currently open for candy floss and it’s free submission um all you do is just add a hashtag so those are the big things yes okay so everything that you’ve mentioned shall we and everyone who’s listening i will link all the links and everything that we’ve also talked about in this episode on the show notes so you can go to our website www and you can find all the links to shelby’s projects to [ __ ] barbie to candy floss and all the artists that she’s mentioned and you can find all the goodness there okay thank you so much shelby i i can’t wait to uh catch up with you again and uh i’m here rooting for you always always inspired of you everything that you do and always obsessed with ugly barbie and candy floss actually
okay thank you so much thank you so much bye bye
thank you so much for listening to this episode you can find all the details and links mentioned in the show notes of this episode available on www.arts2heartsproject.com and if you like this episode please don’t forget to tag us in your stories and leave us a review here on itunes or any of your favorite platforms it really helps us to keep the show going thank you so much i’m sending you lots of love and i can’t wait to be back here soon again [Music] bye yo