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I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
From hospital halls to gallery walls,
Eddie Matsumoto's
journey is all about mentors,
risk-taking, and the
power of living authentically.
I'm your host, Hava Gurvitch,
and in this episode
of I Love Your Stories,
I'm joined by Japanese-born,
Carmel-based artist, Eddie Matsumoto.
After a 30-year career in medicine,
a series of chance events led
her to take a leap into art.
What started as a
bulk pivot has blossomed
into a thriving career as a painter,
gallery owner, mentor,
and now author of a
whimsical coffee table book
featuring her beloved
otters coming this fall.
Eddie and I talk about
the pivotal role of mentors,
why staying open to change and
opportunity is so important,
and her perspective on
what success really means.
She also shares her
advice for aspiring artists
and the wisdom she's found in discovering
her life's purpose through service
and in living as her authentic self.
Eddie, welcome to the show.
Now, quick word from our sponsor,
and then we'll get
right back to the show.
When I started selling my art,
I had absolutely no idea
how to actually turn it
into a business, a professional business.
And then I came across art storefronts,
and that was a game changer.
I've been a customer now for years,
and they've been
instrumental every step of the way
of helping me succeed.
I have a gorgeous,
powerful commerce website.
I have marketing tools and
a membership to a community
that is very supportive and teaches me
how to succeed as an artist.
Check them out, artstorefronts.com,
and tell them how I sent you.
Hello, and welcome to another episode
of I Love Your Stories.
My guest today is Eddie Matsumoto.
Did I say that properly?
Yes. Good.
Who is an artist and a
very successful artist
with a really interesting story,
so I'm very, very
excited to get to know you.
Why don't we get started with,
if you wanna just say a
little bit about yourself,
and then we'll get started.
Okay, yeah, thank you for having me.
So my name is Eddie Matsumoto.
I, well, I have a
transition story I'm going to share,
but quickly, I spent
30 years in healthcare,
mainly as a nurse practitioner.
But for the past three, four years,
I turned into a full-time artist.
I call myself accidental artist
because this was sort of by accident.
And I learned to run an art business,
and I ended up opening an art gallery
in Carmel Bida Sea in
California a year and a half ago.
And I have a really cool
niche that a lot of people love,
and so I'm happy running my gallery.
People love my art.
And yeah, I'm living my
dream in Carmel Bida Sea.
That sounds absolutely divine.
So you, I'd love to dig into this.
So you're a health professional,
and let's talk about
how did you accidentally
trip into becoming an artist?
So I am originally from Japan,
but I wanted to go overseas,
but the first trip was
actually I went to India.
Well, actually that was my second trip,
but I went to India
to meet Mother Teresa,
because I read about her
and I admired her work.
So I went to Calcutta, India to work at,
volunteer at, they call it
a home for dying destitute.
So anybody can volunteer.
So I went there and I met Mother Teresa,
talked to her, and I
volunteered at her place.
And that was sort of the
first encounter with healthcare,
because she is dealing with dying people.
And, but I felt pretty useless there,
because I didn't have any healthcare
background back then.
This is in my early 20th.
So I came to the US and I thought I
needed to study English.
My English wasn't that great.
And I studied, I entered nursing program.
So fast forward, I spent 30 years,
as I mentioned in
healthcare, as a nurse's aide,
LBN, RN, and a nurse practitioner,
family nurse practitioner,
did all kinds of healthcare,
anywhere from physical exam to, you know,
cough cold to everything, minor surgery.
So I, and so that was great.
I loved nursing and I thought that was
what I was going to do
until retirement, until something else.
And if I can go on, so
that's the big pivotal moment.
Well, there are a couple of things,
but one thing is I was
happily being a nurse practitioner,
specializing endocrinology,
a lot of diabetes patients,
taking care of diabetic patients.
My husband is a physician.
In one time, I was
cleaning out my drawers,
and I found this little piece of paper.
Well, before I show this to you,
I had no intention becoming an artist,
and art was not in my plan.
Although I loved art, I appreciate art,
and my family loves art,
so we went to museum a lot.
My sister is a big game cartoonist,
because this is a Japanese culture,
everybody loves manga.
So my sister ended up
becoming a cartoonist.
And my grandfather, my uncle, my mom,
they're all pretty clever.
They can draw, paint things, and crafts,
and do all kinds of things.
So that was normal for me.
So I drew this little
drawing when I was in Paris,
when I was in college,
and everything was closed.
I was going to different museums,
but everything was
closed on Easter weekend,
Easter Sunday, so I
couldn't go to museum parks,
or even go to a restaurant.
I got kind of bored, so I
got one blank sheet of paper.
I started drawing the
building across the street
from the hotel room,
and that's this drawing.
I know some people are
not gonna be seeing it,
but this is the
drawing of a Paris building,
and yeah, kind of five, six-story
building across the street.
So I found this from old sheet of paper,
or this was drawn in 86,
and we're talking in 2007.
I was talking to my
husband, and I told him the story,
and literally I tossed it in the garbage,
because it was just
an old piece of paper.
So I tossed in the
garbage, and my husband
literally rescued that from the garbage,
and what are you doing?
You cannot throw this away.
This is an amazing piece of art.
We're gonna frame it, and
put it in a dining room,
and I think you should take art classes,
and that was a major pivotal moment,
because I thought,
really, because my family
can draw that probably better than I can.
So it didn't occur to me that was an
amazing piece of art,
but my husband really pushed me,
so I entered a
community college art classes,
couple of classes, and
then teachers encouraged me
to move on, take advanced classes.
So I enrolled in
Academy of Art University
in San Francisco, and I live in Carmel,
and then San Francisco is two hours away.
So I ended up doing online class,
because I'm still working
full-time as a nurse practitioner,
so I just started taking art classes
as a personal
enrichment, just a week in Harvey.
During the week, I'm kind
of busy in the hospital,
so just do some fun thing on the weekend.
And then seven and a half years later,
I was just kind of
having fun on the weekend,
and I got a Master's in Fine Arts,
and I had my first solo show locally.
So that's sort of the
start of my art career,
just by accident by that piece of paper.
Wow, so a lot of that
credit goes to your husband
for recognizing your talents
and kind of pushing
you to pursue it, right?
Yeah, totally.
So now I have an art gallery.
It's filled with my art.
Everything here is mine, so
I blame him for everything.
Every single piece of art
I have here, merchandise.
I do wearable art fashion as well.
Everything, I blame it on him.
It's all his fault.
If we didn't insist
on making art classes,
none of this would have happened.
What got you to go
from just taking classes
and so starting being an artist to
becoming successful?
So about four years ago,
I don't get into detail,
but something happened.
So I decided to take an
early retirement from hospital.
That was kind of very unexpected
because I was going to
retire from the hospital
at age 65.
But so the retirement
came early, and what do I do?
The only thing I can think
of is I'm gonna do some art,
and hopefully I can start selling.
So I started to take
some business classes,
and I'm quite a spiritual person,
so I was taking a lot
of spiritual courses
and kind of taught some spiritual courses
for Japanese audience.
I was doing a lot of different things.
And so during that time,
actually I talked to Brandon from ASF
because I wasn't selling that much,
so I was trying to get some help,
and we had a couple of sessions.
And one of them in
particular was really pivotal.
So he asked, yeah, he helped
me with the various things.
So number one is
because I have a master's
in fine arts from
academy, my skill set was good,
but I wasn't too
confident, so he really assured me,
like, "Your skills are good.
You don't have to take any more classes
if you don't want to."
So he gave me the
confidence, and he said,
"Your skills set is 10 out of 10."
So that kind of
reassured me, so check that off.
And then he asked me that,
"What kind of artists do you want to be?"
So I was entering contest,
I was winning some awards,
but those award-winning
arts don't necessarily sell.
So I have like a very,
very realistic portraits
of healthcare professionals, physicians,
but they're admired, I get awards,
but they don't sell very well.
So I was kind of
struggling with my niche.
So he asked me, "Do you
want to sell your art,
or you want to be an award-winning,
amazing, admired artist?"
So I said, "I'd rather sell."
So I kind of gave up or
put aside the contest.
So it was kind of
distracting, tried to do both.
So that's another thing.
And then we talked about niche.
So I think that's the big thing.
So he asked me like, "Okay, so what kind
of thing do you have?
Among all the things you paint,
what have some kind of attraction?"
So I said, "Well, I paint
a little Monterey Camille.
We have lots of sea otters.
Everybody loves to see sea otters.
So I painted several sea
otters, they sell pretty well."
And I sell lots of copies of those.
So that has a little attraction.
And at that time, I just got a commission
by a local sea otter researcher,
I'm kind of looking for the image here,
to paint the famous monk, or munch,
however you call it,
the screen painting.
So this is the painting.
And because she is a
sea otter researcher,
she combined her fairy painting,
because he was going
through some of Tomoto's times
in her life.
So this painting resonated with her,
and she wanted me to put
otter instead of human.
So otters look like,
you know, he's screaming.
So--
Was that your first
time that you did an otter
in this kind of like--
Exactly, exactly.
So before that, I was just
painting swimming otters.
So that was the very first one
to anthropomorphized
otter being in my painting.
So I loved the idea.
And then I shared that with Brandon.
He was like, "I think that is it.
"That is your niche."
And we just had a great time thinking,
"Oh, we can do Mona
Lisa, we can do Vermeer,
"we can do Van Gogh, we
can do American Gothic,
"we had a great time, oh, we can do this,
"we can do this."
So that was really kind of a,
as an artist professional pivotal moment.
Learning point, yeah.
Yeah, so that was maybe about,
actually a year and a
half ago, not that long ago.
And then all the other otters that
followed in fine arts,
or I expanded into
celebrities, I have Steph Curry,
I have Clint Eastwood, I
have Gone With the Wind,
I have Princess Leia,
I have Audrey Hepburn.
So expanded into different celebrities.
And I have seasonal
pumpkin otters, Santa Claus,
I have cherry blossom, Japanese Chinese.
So it's just expanding,
so now I have 65 otters
in the past year and a half
I've been kind of painting.
I paint fast, and I have so many ideas,
and customers love them,
and customer gives me idea,
oh, you should do
Einstein, you oughta do Einstein,
you oughta do this and that.
So customers--
(mumbles)
I'm gonna make sure I'm writing a book,
because people come in,
I sell cards and coasters
and things like that in my gallery.
And people have trouble choosing,
because, oh, this one is so cute, oh,
that one is so cute.
So they have trouble choosing,
because they don't wanna
buy 10 coasters or anything,
but out of, say, 60,
they wanna buy a few.
But they have trouble choosing
which ones are the cutest otters.
So they've been asking me for a catalog
so they can see all the
otters at a glance or a book.
So I decided to write a
book called Otter Therapy,
I'll tell you more about
Otter Therapy, the title.
So Otter Therapy has 50 otters,
and a lot of people,
because they just come in laughing
at my screen otter, whatever otter,
some people cannot help
but tell me otter jokes,
are you otter do this, or
are you otterizing people,
or are you otterized to do that?
Or I'm otter here, and
I'm buying too many things,
or just lots of bad, dead
joke kind of otter jokes.
So I've been taking notes,
so the Otter Therapy
book has otter images
to make you smile, and
lots of otter jokes too,
make you chuckle.
Opening your own gallery,
that is, it's a big financial commitment,
it's a big step.
How did you get to the
point where you're like,
okay, I'm going to
invest my time, my efforts,
my resources into this, were you scared?
What went into that thinking?
Yeah, absolutely.
That was probably one of the most
scariest thing to do.
One was kind of resigning from hospital,
losing health insurance,
and all the security
of a regular paycheck.
And then, let's see,
I think there's maybe
two and a half years in between
from the time I resigned from hospital
and opened my gallery.
So I wasn't thinking
about opening a gallery,
but when I resigned from the hospital,
I joined the COP gallery.
So there are 26 local artists,
then we take turns, many in the place,
and sit, and then pretty
soon I was put on the board
of the gallery, and put
me as a marketing manager,
so publicity.
So I learned a lot for the
past two and a half years,
now with that gallery, I learned a lot,
I think I learned a lot
about gallery business that way.
But also, as I mentioned,
I've been studying business
through online, mostly
online, and I have some mentors,
but I also got a financial coach as well.
So I'm a big advocate
for getting a good mentor,
and multiple mentors,
business mentor, financial mentors,
artistic coach, and whatnot.
So, and a financial coach kind of
crunched the number,
and then so you're on
track, just don't screw up,
just you're on track,
so you will be able to be
financially independent soon
if you just stay the course.
And also, because of all the
different business courses,
it also gave me a
confidence that I can do this.
I have online business
coach, and I joined the SPDC,
Small Business Development Center,
it's everywhere in the
nation, and it's all free.
So I have a personal
business coach who will come
and personally advise me
about opening this gallery.
But when I wasn't even
thinking about opening a gallery,
one of my artist friends
said, hey, this gallery space
is open, would you be interested?
And first I was like, yeah, I go,
why would I wanna open a gallery?
I would rather be, you know, have
somebody else, you know,
show my things, and I
just concentrate on painting.
But then I thought about
it, it's a really nice space.
Maybe I can give you a tour later,
but it's a really nice
space, it's made for a gallery.
And it's been empty for six months,
and the landlord has
been rejecting other people
who wants to come in, like a
boutique or other business,
because this is made for a gallery,
so they'll be waiting
for somebody, artists,
to come in and run as a gallery.
And that's when I walked in.
I have no business experience, you know,
or running a gallery of my own,
but they kind of took a chance on me,
so they go, okay, well, we love artists,
we want you to be here.
So, and that's almost the exact same time
I got my scream order,
and then had a nice chat with a brando,
and so I got the momentum going,
so I got in here with my other,
you know, niche,
and I think maybe I can do
it, I think I'm getting it.
And then I was selling
some wearable artists' scarves
and things like that.
So I thought maybe I can make it work.
And then also I thought,
I'm not getting any younger,
so I think now or never.
So, you know, if I
don't grab this opportunity,
maybe I would never do
it, never do, you know,
even think of opening a gallery.
So I just took a chance
and got lots of advice,
took lots of business courses online,
and I just did it.
And from that moment,
you know, I opened it,
I have all the others
on my front windows,
and people just pass by and cracking up,
not laughing, they come
in laughing, and that.
So from the early part, you know,
if I'm making people
that happy, you know,
people come in happy
and live happy, you know,
I'm onto something.
So that's why it's nice
to call that auto therapy,
because it's so
therapeutic for people, you know,
even if they're having a bad time,
they just, you know, laugh
at the others and come in
and look at more others,
they're just cracking up
and giving me auto jokes.
Carmel is kind of a,
is it a touristy town?
I know there's a lot of art galleries,
it's sort of a really
beautiful little town by the sea,
right?
Yes, yeah.
So very touristy,
especially during the summertime,
because this is the middle of summer,
and the hottest day is like 72 degrees.
Oh my God, that sounds amazing.
Yes, yeah, I'm wearing cardigan,
and I want my heating pad.
So, but not--
It finally cooled off to 70 degrees.
That's our heat wave,
72 is our heat wave.
I use it more like a high
50s to, you know, high 60s.
So it's close to the city,
you know, Silicon Valley,
San Francisco, they come down to Carmel,
they trip Los
Angeles, Southern California,
or people who are cooking
in Arizona, Florida, Texas,
they love to come here.
But also all over the
world, it's now famous
as a kind of cute fairy
tale, cottage, storybook,
charm of Carmel, tiny little village,
but we have nature, we
have beautiful beach,
80 art galleries.
Talk about the tradition.
And 60 amazing restaurants,
it's just that
condensed in this tiny place,
just everywhere you
look, it's like a fairy tale,
good food, good art.
So it's a destination.
So it's a good environment.
And although a lot of competitions,
and when I was starting my gallery,
there were five galleries were closing.
It's so, you know, there was
kind of a generation change,
but also, you know, some
people were not selling,
so they closed the galleries.
So I know it was not gonna be easy,
but I'm just, you know,
having fun, people love my art,
and I'm just, you know,
try to have fun myself,
and I help people, I
help other younger artists
to have a show here.
I host a Bohemian club, I
have a whole bunch of people,
once a month at least,
20, 30 creative people
to come here, network,
exchange, show and tell.
So I do a lot of things, small events.
I just make this into not just a gallery,
but it's like an artist,
a creative people's hub.
So I do live music, I do arts festival
for high school kids.
So I do a lot of things.
So I think that's part of my success.
I'm just not only trying to sell my art,
but I want people to come
in and have a good time here
and use this as a, yeah, artist hub.
So you've kind of talked about it,
but I'm wondering if
you can actually really,
sum up, like not sum up,
but really kind of articulate
for you personally, what is success?
What is the success for you?
Is it the selling?
Is it the joy from creating?
I mean, because it feels like, you know,
you kind of fell into
everything at the right time.
Had the right people
around you at the right time
to help you and guide you.
And now you're kind of
being that mentor for others.
Would you say like, what would be,
what could happen now that would be like,
ah, this is now I
can, now I can, you know,
now I have it all.
Yeah, so joy is number one,
but no, as I mentor some other, you know,
more emerging artists,
I have like a workshop
and lecture sometimes.
The one thing I talk about is ikigai,
it's a Japanese word, and you know,
find something that you love to do,
and you are good at,
and then people need,
so you can sell, and then
yeah, you get paid for it.
So if you have a Venn
diagram of what you love,
what you're good at, people need,
or society needs, and
then you get paid for it,
and you can make a living.
So that the middle,
overlapping area is ikigai.
So that's what I have, I love painting,
I, you know, and I'm good at it,
and people love it, and
I make, you know, money,
I can make a living.
But also another part is,
and I'm just having the
greatest time of my life,
to doing everything I'm doing, it's joy.
But the really important
part is going back to mother,
Tricia, it's service serving.
I am helping people,
because if I'm selling painting,
but if I'm not
serving, I kind of feel empty,
because I come from the
healthcare background,
I was helping people every
day, all day, all day long.
So it was very tangible when I was in
hospital and clinics,
I was helping people all day, every day.
But when I transitioned
to artist for a while,
I wasn't feeling that I'm just painting,
I feel like an indulgence,
I'm just doing for the sake of art.
But when I started to have others,
and people just coming
happy, they'd be happy,
so I feel like I'm serving
the society or community,
making people happy.
And also I open my
gallery for other people
to have fun and network, so I'm serving.
So the Ikigai service, joy.
So that's, yeah, so that's my measurement
for success, how much fun I'm having,
without feeling guilty.
Or another thing I
learned in the business course,
when I learned business,
I learned from sort of a
spiritual business coaches.
So they talk about heart selling,
for yourself because it serve people,
not like a used car salesman,
maybe they're good used car salesman,
but it's not like trying to
sell for the sake of money.
But I want to serve you,
I want you to take
home what makes you smile.
So I'm serving, so I'm
meeting the needs of the person,
and in exchange, they will
give me the appreciation,
you know, the money as a token.
So the selling is not a bad thing,
it's not like a four little word,
but it's selling is service.
So I needed to overcome selling or
marketing or bad things.
Oh, God. And a business
is not a bad thing.
Business is, it can be spiritual.
So just, you know, from
your heart, from your spirit,
you can serve what gives you joy,
and that if that gives people joy,
you know, and it gives me joy.
So, you know, I tell people,
I'm just really living
the life of my dream,
and living in Carmel,
have art gallery in Carmel,
I have a great
community, people love my art,
so it's amazing.
I think the word for that sort of like,
where in that Venn diagram,
where all those things,
where they come together,
I think of it as life purpose.
Yes, uh-huh.
Yeah, that's what
it's usually translated,
ikigai, lives, you know,
something to live for,
life's purpose, yeah, exactly.
You mentioned something
that I wanna come back to,
because that is something that,
personally, I still struggle with,
and I think some of my
listeners might be as well.
And that has to do with, you know,
you do your art, you love your art,
you want to sell your art,
but there's still this
dissonance between asking for sale,
or, you know, asking for, like,
having it as, how do you,
what advice would you give
to overcome that feeling of,
you know, that unease of selling,
of being a self-promoter, or,
because it's a very
self-sabotaging kind of feeling,
but it's very real,
and I really feel like
you have transcended that,
and that you genuinely believe that,
no, not believe, you know,
that what you're doing is positive,
and that you are
bringing something positive
to anyone who buys art from you.
How, what kind of advice would you give
to help overcome that sense of?
So, two things comes to mind.
First one is Brandon, you know,
kind of giving me the stamp of approval,
like, you're 10 out of 10,
so gave me the
confidence, or maybe three things,
so that's one.
He's seen so many artists, so,
if he said so, it must
be so, that's number one.
And then, over the years,
I've experienced what
you're talking about exactly,
so I didn't have
confidence in myself, you know,
who's gonna buy my art, and, you know.
So, just, yeah, not to
compare yourself with others,
and especially if you see, hire
somebody's, you know,
always somebody's better than you,
doing a better business, now better art,
so, you know, don't compare yourself,
you are, you're so unique.
But also, I also have another coach,
different business coaches, she's also,
very spiritual, very
brain training oriented.
So, you have to work on
yourself, not to self-sabotage,
so whenever this negativity comes up,
there are different
technique, you can do EFT,
you know, tapping, or
you can use affirmations,
also, little by little, you know,
I needed to overcome that as well,
when like, oh, that
person won't like my art.
But also, this person also
told me about celebrity stance,
especially as an
artist, you are a celebrity,
better get used to it.
And that's about the time I also did a
public art in Carmel,
about five years ago,
and so I have my art
in the middle of Ocean
Avenue, the main street in Carmel,
and people started to recognize my name.
So, or if I happen to be by the art,
people wanna take picture
of me, or with me, you know,
as a picture, oh, you are the
artist of this art, amazing,
can I have your autograph?
So, little by little,
over the five years or so,
I'm really getting
used, I think as an artist,
you have to own your
talent, own your celebrity,
and you can fake it till you make it,
but little by little,
now I have more people
recognizing me, I have
no idea who they are,
but oh, you're 80, like,
oh, I bought your thing.
I don't remember, but
you know, some people,
oh, I have two of your
cars, or one of your paintings,
like, I don't know, but, well, thank you.
But, so it's a total mindset shift.
So, but it didn't happen overnight.
I've been walking on it,
I'm still kinda walking on it,
although I'm much, much, much better now.
But also, the other thing is
knowing your target audience,
80-20 rule, so this is where learning
business very helpful.
So, let's say there's 100 people,
80% people are not
interested in your art,
for whatever reason,
but 20% of the people
might be interested, but within the 20%,
they might be
interested, but not all the 20%
is gonna buy your
art, maybe within the 20%
of the 20% of the person might buy it.
So, don't waste your energy,
emotional energy on those 80%.
If somebody not interested
in, he, she is not your tribe.
He or she is not your fans.
But with my others, people self-select,
if they come in, they're the 20%.
So, and also, I don't,
you know, maybe I should,
but I don't focus so much on selling.
Again, it's sort of a service thing.
I try to-- It sells itself.
Yeah, they sell
itself, because they come in
and they just, you
know, they love scream out,
or they love them go
out, or they love, you know,
girl with a pearl earring.
And then we have a great time.
I have a great time talking
about art, not only my art,
but a lot of my art based on fine art.
I have cherubs, I have
Monadisa, I have Dali,
I have Magritte, I have Velaste.
So, people who love art
history, they go nuts.
Especially there's
something like a less known artist.
What John Singer Sargent is well known,
but some of his art that
I copied, it's not very,
that's well known.
So, people have a really good time.
So, my other appeals to,
I just fell into this amazing niche.
Everybody loves
artists, and other lovers,
fine art lovers, and I did a celebrity.
So, if they love Steph Curry,
of course they want Steph
Otter, or Clint Eastwood Otter.
So, anyway, so--
What's the name of the gallery?
I should have asked it.
Oh, Eddie Matsumoto Art and Design,
coming by the sea, Mission Street.
And my website is eddiematsumoto.com.
We will have information in the captions,
or whatever they're called.
Yeah, I think it's always,
kind of going back to your question,
it's always remember
to not go after the 80%,
who may not be interested in your art,
and don't worry about them.
Just, yeah, in the business,
a lot of times it's a numbers game.
Okay, well, he, she's
not interested next,
but there's no failure.
Something didn't work
out, you didn't sell next.
It's a numbers game, yeah.
Really excellent advice to just,
don't waste your time on those 80%.
Yeah, your job is not to
try and convert someone.
Right, there are people
out there who love your art,
your tribe, your
fans, just do your thing.
But finding those people is the,
you know, sometimes it's a challenge,
that's why you might do
Instagram or Facebook or email,
and I happen to have a gallery,
so people just come in,
my tribes will come in and talk to me.
So that's the amazing thing
about having this gallery,
or they somehow found me.
Or some people come in like,
oh, well, I'm not that interested,
my niece or my brother or my uncle,
they are nuts about others,
so I'm gonna refer them to you.
So they just, yeah, words spread.
This is my niche tribe.
I have a friend who
is, she's half Japanese,
and she spends a lot of time in Carmel,
because she works the Silicon Valley,
and she loves otters and she loves art,
and I think I'm Sandra Peer-Galley.
Sandra my way.
What was I gonna ask?
So you're coming out with a book?
Yes.
The book in the works, do
you wanna tell me about that?
How are you, how far along are you?
Is it, when is it gonna be available?
How can people find it?
So this is, manuscript is finished,
sorry, cannot really see too well.
It's called Other Therapy,
and the subtitle is 50 Whimsical Whisker
Moments for the Soul,
and I got a forward by Jack Canfield.
Jack Canfield is the co-author
of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
He sold like a 500 million bucks,
and I happened to see
him on virtual meeting,
and he fell in love with my otters,
and he's endorsing my other therapy book.
And so it's in production,
and being kind of layout
and final editing right now.
So it's supposed to come out mid-October.
It will be available on Amazon.
For holidays.
It's good Amazon, exactly, other therapy.
This is a perfect coffee table book,
soft cover, hardcover,
Kindle, well, ebook, I just say.
And I don't know the price yet,
but I'm gonna be doing a
virtual book launch party,
and then local,
I'm gonna be selling
it here at the gallery,
but I'm hoping that I
can get into bookstores,
and museums, and
aquariums, and this shop,
and places like that.
It's perfect for aquariums.
Let me ask you one final question,
although I feel like you've answered it,
but in case there was,
what are you most
passionate about right now?
Oh, having a good time.
(both laughing)
So that might sound superficial,
but really,
your,
what's a good way to say it's,
just living the life authentically,
so I'm not pretending to
be anything but myself.
I paint what I want,
and then that kind of comes from inside,
or from up above, from the universe,
and I'm being the
paintbrush that the user
universe holds, and I paint that,
and that happens to
appeal to a lot of people.
So it's, like, there's no conflict in me.
Like, you know, people
working for, you know,
big organizations,
there's always conflict,
the coworkers, and this and that.
But for me, I have
appreciated this freedom,
autonomy, creativity, the connections,
love, community,
just, I'm embracing everything,
and I think people can live
your life the way you like,
and manifest your deepest desire,
and that's what I'm trying
to convey to other people.
Actually, I do a lot of
the counseling here for,
I think this gallery also
attracted wannabe artists,
they gave up art when
his or her art teacher
gave them C or F or whatever,
oh, you don't have any talent.
So I try to bring artists
out of them, back out again.
Everybody's an artist,
you're good at something.
May not be drawing, painting,
you could be a
musician, gardener, dancer,
whatever, photographer,
so I try to get artists
out of them and encourage them,
and kind of give them,
I tell my transition
story to a lot of them too,
so a lot of them are encouraged,
wow, you made like 180
degree shift from healthcare
to kind of left brain to right brain,
so that's possible.
So I think give a lot of
people hope that that's possible,
and they're looking at the person
who's done it successfully,
and having a great time.
So a lot of people can go home,
oh, that was so good,
I'm gonna go home and
start painting again.
So I think those are
really rewarding for me.
Selling paintings are great,
but kind of changing somebody's life
or triggering something
in people, I love that.
Yeah, I feel like you really,
you talk the talk and walk the walk,
sort of that confluence
of everything just right
and that passion for living your most
authentic best life,
best version of you.
That's incredibly inspiring,
thank you so much for sharing, Louisa.
Yeah, thank you so much for
giving me the opportunity,
I just love sharing my
story to inspire other people.
The motto of my gallery,
it's up there on my gallery,
create to inspire, inspire to create.
Love it, love it. Love it, yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Welcome to the book.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thanks again for tuning in,
that's our episode, I
hope you enjoyed it.
And if you did, please help
us out by leaving a review,
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If you've been thinking
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I can't stress this enough,
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