How Artists Can Build a Career Through Connection and IG Live: Michele Muska’s Creative Journey

Lyric Kinard (00:02.328) Hello friends, I am here with my good friend Michele Muska, who we are so lucky right now to have her here actually in my studio. It's kind of a fluke. You'll hear this later on, but there was a big snowstorm in the Northeast. She was here for QuiltCon and kind of got stuck. Yeah. But how lucky am I? How lucky am I? Michele Muska Are you kidding me? Everyone's like, you can't, can you get a hotel? I was like, yeah, I'm stuck. Lyric's house. isn't that terrible? But I might be going home tonight. We'll see. If not, I'll be here for a few days. Lyric Kinard We're hoping. Yeah. It'll be history by the time you'll hear this. Michele. Yes. I have known you for a long time in the quilt world. Yeah. And recently, I see you at all the shows working with Aliso, which is an iron company. But why don't you give me a little bit of history about your art, your business, tell our listeners who you are. Michele Muska Well, my mom recently, my mom's 95 and she recently told me a story about when she used to, every morning, like I wouldn't be out of my room and she'd be like, is she still sleeping? And she'd go in, I was like four, she'd already be up making something in my bed. And that has always, I've always created. And my parents, it was so wonderful, because they always gave me the tools to do that. Even as a teenager, I was allowed to paint on all my walls, whatever I wanted. did album covers on my wall and fluorescent and had a black light. was like really... How cool, how fun is that? And I went to started school at Southern Connecticut State University, then switched to UMass Boston because I met my husband at a wild house on Cape Cod. And I have a degree in fine arts, concentrating in painting and photography. And then I went to work for, you know, back then it was really hard to kind of find a job. Michele Muska I did go into working with the elderly and then I worked for a little bit of time at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard. And I was just telling the story, I was offered a really wonderful position to be a curator for the print department, which is photography. But I had a baby and we were moving from my husband's job, know, all that kind of thing. So off I went down to Connecticut, living with my parents. And then I became the recreation therapist, but the art therapist in geriatrics for like a good 10 years. So, and I really, really enjoyed it because I was the person that they put the people with that didn't want to go to bingo or, you know, things like that. So I would do poetry and painting and... All the fun things? Yeah, we would have like, and we had a showing, we had an art show, an opening, know, like a gallery and stuff like that. So then I went to work after that. A friend brought me into Writes, which was the package tape people, know, Rick Rack, buys tape. And it was also all the brands, Boy Needle, Easy Quilting and I also, so I became the person that designed all their projects, wrote all the instructions for using home deck decor and things like that. Interesting. Yeah. But I also did also a postry and slip covering and drapery on the side. A multi craft tool. Yeah. so many of us are. Yeah. I felt in the past that if I didn't make something every day or, or of something every day, I felt kind of a failure. It was really something inside me that was very driven to touch something that I was making every single day. it was kind of a lot of pressure in a way to feel that way, you know? So that luckily kind of faded away, but I always had a side business. So for quite a long time when I lived in Boston, when my Devon, my oldest was a baby, Michele Muska I had a wedding business. I would... Lyric No pressure there. Michele Muska had... It was accessories. And I sold at a very, a couple of very high end stationery stores and I did hand painted wedding and bought mitzvah invitations. I made guest books. Everything was vintage or hand painted and things like that. So I did that for quite a long time. So I always had like a kind of a little side hustle in a way that was always kind of crafty. Even when my kids were little, my sister-in-law and I, we'd need Christmas money. We'd be like, okay, what could we make? So we'd think of something and they were really actually pretty kind of cool things. know, things that we foraged in the forest and made little houses and gnomes and things like that. And we pick out a couple of craft shows and we go and make our Christmas money. but it was just like always kind of that little hustle, you know. I worked for Simplicity Rights for for almost 16 years as the exhibits director, product development. Lyric This is feeling like a whole lot of things to cram into the vessel of one life. Michele Muska Yeah, is it really? yeah. Well, I'm kind of like that, you know, normally. just do all the things. I do really like to do all the things. I have this motto, and it's been my motto for probably 25 years, is I never met a craft I didn't like except plastic canvas. And then I met someone that changed my mind. Lyric And then you liked it. Yeah. Michele Muska Give it a try. I didn't really try it, but I respected it after that. know what mean? So I met this woman who had the most beautiful silk embroidery, silk bracelets. I was, you know, we were at a craft event. So we were talking about that. And she was like, it's made on plastic canvas. I was like, what? You know, so I was like, okay, yeah. So while I was working for them, I also worked for with and for Joe Packham with Where Women Create. Yes. So I, yeah. So I curated a lot of artists features. So I would find artists in the... Lyric Is that magazine still going? Michele Muska It is, but it's owned by somebody else. as has happened to most of the publishing industry. It has quite an unfortunate history, you know? Yeah. Yeah, so we won't talk about that right now. But Joe and I are still very good friends, and we're working on a little different project right now. But I did a few different things. I wrote a column for their business magazine for a year. And it was about connections, making connections in the business world. And I think that's kind of what I'm mostly known for in a way. Connective. Lyric With your finger and all these pies. That's perfect setup. Michele Muska connections, doesn't necessarily mean connections for me, although those connections have helped me. It's really, my life, feel like my career has been about connecting makers and artists to each other or businesses or companies that could help them as well. Right. It just... feels like a really natural thing for me to do. Like, doesn't everybody do that? But not really. So, you know. Lyric It's one of the things I love about the industry that we work in, the crafts, soft crafts, especially, is that it feels very collaborative. You know, it's not cutthroat competition. And the collaboration is all about making connections when we go together. Now you've done so many things. And one of the reasons I want to chat with you here is because for years you have done Facebook lives. Michele Muska Yeah, they're on Instagram. With my dear friend, Leslie Tucker, Jenison. I love her so much. And, you know, we met on the quilt Alliance board many years ago and we became really good friends. then for the past, six years now we've been doing this live. And I have to say from when we started, it was the August of the first year of the pandemic, so 2020. Lyric So that launched a lot of us. Yeah. Did you have an Instagram presence before that? Michele Muska Small, very small. And I still have a small Instagram presence. It's like under 5,000. It's like maybe close to 5,000. Those numbers used to really matter to me. It doesn't matter to me anymore because I realize it's more about who you're engaging with online and who you're talking to. That's the part that's really important. For my business, though, work, you know, I work for Aliso, it's much more important being a larger presence, of course, because not only connecting with our customers, you know, you also have to... make money, you know, kind of thing. And I don't, I don't make, I don't monetize my social media or anything like that. Lyric So do you run, do you do things for ALisa's brand account as well? Michele Muska yeah. Like I'm, I do. We're the thing. I'm it. Yeah. So we're very, very small family owned company. there's seven of us, including our owner in the United States. And then we have distributors like all for international. but I do all the social media. I'm called the director of content and community. I'm kind of the face of Aliso, which I think is really wonderful because I'm older and have white hair. And when I worked at Simplicity, it was kind of ageist in a way, you know, like I never felt comfortable. had white hair since I was 30. So I was doing it more for fun, but as I got older, I felt like I had to hide it, you know? So, ALisa was not like that. So it's really great. But I also am part of product development. I'm the person that finds and brings the licensees in. get to kind of like, they're like, okay, Michelle, who's next? What do you think? So those parts are really fun. know, trudging to the shows, set up and breakdown is a little hard, but just this week being at Quilcon was amazing. It surprises me that I meet that many more people that are new to me. And I think that's really lovely. Lyric You've known them all because you've been around to so many things. But there's always fresh bases. Yeah. And it's like, think teaching is like this for me. The setup, the packing, all of that stuff is just so much. the minute you get there, it's like, can't believe this is my job. This is so much fun. Michele Muska Leslie and I have been teaching together at Sisters. for about three years now. So this summer we have four four-day workshops. Yeah, so we're so excited. Two hand stitching workshops, two jelly plate print workshops. One that will focus on fabric, one on paper. And we just on our little chat, which is still going, we just had four teachers on every week. to help everybody promote their classes. And not that we have a huge reach, but I've had people come up to me and go, well, we watch you and Leslie. We're like, you do? We just laugh. But so how it started, we were like, oh, we really should do something. Let's do it on Instagram. I can't remember who thought of it or whatever. And we decided we'd do like a little quilt along. And so we decided to do Jen Carlton Bailey's little curb leg. Betty Crocker ass is she's known as her on Instagram in her website So she has these little templates and it makes a little tiny like for a drunkards path Okay, decided to do the 1.5 inch Wow. Okay, so obviously by hand And we decided we did it on Monday. We said don't Monday afternoon and we called it little drunk Monday And because it was fun. Yeah. We even had a mixologist on and Leslie and I would give gifts to people every week, you know, in the cell along the quilt along. And like I finished mine, I made a pillow and that was part of the presence. And Leslie would always have beautiful fat, you know, just whatever. And it was really fun. We had Jen on and, you know, and then I don't know how long we were doing that. It was quite a while because they're so tiny. you know, to make something. And so we were going to stop and people were like, don't stop. And we were like, really? You know, and so, you know, we're talking very low tech. It's just her and I on live. That's the end of it. We never saved them or anything. Lyric So you have your phones. Michele Muska Yeah, just our phones. Hold your phone. Something to hold your phone. Click the buttons and chat on two of us. And in the beginning, you could only have two people on. Then they. went to like three, then four, you can have four people on. So then we started to have guests, know, if we were working on something or just someone was doing something we wanted to help promote. So we decided to switch to Thursday and we called it Tipsy T Thursday because we were still doing the drunkard's path. Love the alliteration. Yeah. And we we had a tea magazine that sponsored us, you know, and we gave away subscriptions to the tea magazine. My husband's a huge tea person. He doesn't drink coffee. So we had all kinds of different teas. We had a local tea company that I think was like Five Guys Tea or something up. Lyricso much fun when you bring things, mix things up outside of the industry. So, and we were still giving presents, you know, away and things like that. And then we were going to stop. And then, and then people said, don't stop because we were still going through the pandemic. I mean, we were still all, you know, cooped up and not traveling everything. So we decided, I don't know why we switched to Wednesday. it was a better day, probably, I think it was a better day for me for some reason, whatever was going around, going on. and we just called it Wednesday afternoon chats. And then we just started to have a lot of guests and we've had a lot of fancy people as we call them. like you. Fancy people. fancy person. No, but it was so much fun. Yeah, but you're known in our circle and industry. I think people look to you for inspiration. And so I think to me, that's what I still silly call fancy people. You know what I mean. Yes, I know. But we have any we have all kinds of people. And this is when we talk to someone and we ask if they want to come on. And people have asked us to come on, which is really kind of funny. But You know, we said you can talk about your journey or your creative journey. You can talk about your new pattern You can talk about if you have a new book coming out or you can talk about your hair color We really don't care, you know, it's just us chatting up And talking about you know, whatever we feel like. Yeah. Lyric So what do you think the core benefit for your audiences? For you putting this content out there Michele Muska It's kind of funny because the benefit is mostly for Leslie and I to see each other every week. But people have told us they find us entertaining for some reason. They find us entertaining and welcoming. often, you know, we have guests on that tell their stories that they're interested in that tell us about techniques. So sometimes we talk about techniques and different things. And we have people that write books, you know, doesn't necessarily authors. that isn't always people that make things, you know, but celebrate people that make things. I think, and then we'll say we're gonna stop. you know, I have a friend Ingrid that I met through Quilt Guild. And so she just moved to Idaho and she was like, don't stop, don't stop. You know, you're our little friends. know, we're like this little circle of friends. so that's when we started saving. saving them, just save them as a post. We take turns every week. She takes a turn, I take a turn. If I'm traveling for work, I still try to do it, but sometimes I can't. Leslie will sometimes pop on herself. But she goes to the crow barn a couple times a year, and so then I usually have a co-host. So yeah, most of the time it's Mark Lepinski. Oh fun. So, Mark Lepinski, you never know what he's going to come out with. You know, so that's been really kind of fun. And then every, every holiday, every Christmas we have a Christmas cocktail party. three of us this year, Denise Schmidt came on with us. And so you, this year, cause Mark had been ill, we didn't do it as elaborate, but we like when we first started, you know, Mark's Polish on Czechoslovakian. So we have a very similar kind of holiday, vibe. Yeah. Like celebration with food and things like that. So the. first year we all had to buy pickled herring. dear. And then we all had to come up with a cocktail that we made, whether it was to go with pickled herring, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, whatever you prefer. And then I always do a Yankee swap. So I have three bags and I had four bags this year and I forgot to give Leslie's her. So it's a, it's a Yankee swap and we Everybody picks the prize, gets to see it, but I never send them out. I never send them to them. It's like a and they really laugh at me. So this year, this year I was going to send them. So I brought Denise hers and I had Leslie's and I forgot to give it to her. So I guess I'm not sending it out. But anyways, I just, you know, I'm not quite sure. I find my friendships with my friends. It's so important. I was just telling you a few minutes ago that I have these, there's four of us, our kids named us Core Four. We've known each other since we were children and we're all gonna be 70 this year. Since we were 40, we go away every year together. Sometimes we fly across the country to all meet. We're all on the East Coast now again. makes it easier. And in that two of us, two of us was in California for a while. So we're all in the East Coast. And sometimes I even make them craft and they love to craft. Lyric even though, I mean, social media has changed so much over the last little while, but you are still using it for community building. Yes. And for connection and you can still use it that way and your audience has a relationship with you. Yes. Like you were saying, people who I listened to you you're like, really? was just us chatting together, right? Pretty much. So, but how do you think it has helped your businesses? I mean, at the Academy, we try to be a little, you know, use it purposefully, bring people to your email list, do these things, but. It can also be this beautiful, joyful connection. Michele Muska Yeah. Well, you know, I do also do hand-stitched jeans for people, custom and things like that. So sometimes I'll talk about that and people will DM me and ask for things or I make some other fiber art that that's happened. I think for Leslie and I, for us personally, Lyric Kinard (20:29.42) It's not really about promoting our businesses. It's our guests have been more about the promotion. They're usually, our guests are usually folks that have a business. in a way it's almost like what we were saying early talking before we started earlier is that, you know, offering people a platform to share what they're doing and get the word out because we all know it's a, it's a crowded world on social media. if it, if it helps them. so for the last four weeks, Leslie and I co-teach together, this is our third year, maybe fourth year at sisters, a quilters affair. And, you know, Lyric you were saying you were having the other teachers. Michele Muska had four teachers on the last four weeks. and then we'll have a few more, you know, help fill everybody's classes, help Val, you know, make quilters of fear. I mean, we have a small community, but other, some people will watch and they'll think, maybe I'll. Lyric go do that. I think the point of it is, mean, you said social media is crowded and creative, but yes, but the world of the audience is abundant. Right. Right. And I have found every single time that collaborating and lifting somebody else's business is always beneficial to everybody. Michele Muska And yeah, and including yourself. Yeah, exactly. Because I also think that people will then come to you and look look to you for who she talking to. What does she do? Because we we talk about our own work we do and we show our own work. We also really talk a lot about health. I you know, people have always I did a it's quite a few years ago. It was a lightning round questioning. I was teaching on Creative Bug and they're like we asked this to everybody. What's your favorite tool or notion in your studio? And I was like, my hands. First of all, cause I'm a hand stitcher, but think about everything that you do, no matter it's on the machine or anything, it is your hands. If you do not take care of your hands, your hands, your wrists, your elbow, your shoulders, you're not going to be able to work for as long as you might want to. So sometimes we do, we show everybody these exercises. We've had a few people on to help us with that. Lyric Kinard (22:50.858) I love that you do that. In my hand work classes, we set the timer and do chair yoga and stretches. Michele Muska get a little weird with it, just to be fun. But you take care of this and it will take care of you. Yeah, you need to stand up and take a breath. And we do that when we're teaching together too in Sisters. It's like, And Leslie has this really funny thing. can't remember. like we do this crazy yell or something like that too. But I have to say teaching for me, I don't get to do it a lot. It was such an honor that Val even asked me to teach because, know, I'm known more, I feel like I'm known more for my corporate world and being an artist, such an internal struggle for me. mean, I will still do everything I do, especially with through work at least. So, you know, try to find people to help promote our audience, but it's mostly, especially to help them as well. know, cause like it doesn't, people are like, well, they'll come up to me and we'll talk and they'll say, well, I only have 2000 followers, only have 1200 followers. I said, yeah, but look what you do. Look what you make. Your people are talking to you more than someone with a big audience. Lyric this is so important. We talk about this with emails in the business builder and the academy and so many other places that your email list is. the most essential asset that your business has. Absolutely. And it is so much better to have a small group of dedicated and loyal fans than thousands of It's really good for your business. Michele Muska We have a really good open rate on our email. I feel like it's connected to, I only send one newsletter a month. Lyric You don't overload them. Michele Muska I mean, maybe I could do two. But I have friends and I do not unsubscribe because they're my friends, but I'm like not another one. It's like too much. So if you're running a business, you want to sell things, you know, and which oLiso does too, but I mean, maybe once a month is not enough. But I also give a lot of educational content. I, I, know, and I link out. I'm not afraid to share or link out from my newsletter. Lyric Kinard (25:13.878) because I want people to think about, that's oliso's newsletter. Maybe I'll open that up to see what Michelle put in this month. Right. You know, did she put something interesting in that I don't know about? There's I do books, nonprofits, designers. We love books. We love blogs. We love eating and I do newsletters we love, you know, that there's might be a newsletter that I get that I adore. Like I love Kristen Nichols newsletter. She's a knitter. She doesn't use our iron, but you know, most most quilters knit and crochet. And maybe not the opposite. Most knitters aren't quilters because they can take their stuff on the go, know, but quilters in the past couldn't, but that's a commitment. Yeah. But that also has changed because now you have EPP. paper piecing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Which is one of my favorites, you know, because it's hand stitching or you have your, know, you can take your little bag of embroidery and Like one of our classes has the last three years was a traveling scroll, but I've turned it into a book, a little traveling book. I mean, you can take that with you. And like I opened it up the other day and I had this beautiful piece of hand dyed fabric, eco dyed fabric that one of my students had given me and I wrote both. because I was in BoF. BoF. Because I stayed with my friend Ursula in BoF after FOQ Festival Quilts in Birmingham last year. like Leslie says, remembers, like she'll remember I was in Germany at the show she was in and she had stitched while she was there. I don't know, it's... Lyric I've spent countless… hours in airports. Yeah, right. All the places with the little baggie full of hand stitching embroidery, beading. Some years that was the only artwork I created. Yeah, well you can. Michele Muska Yeah, but you can do that. And I always come back to thread and cloth since I was little. My first project that I remember making this, I did a lot of collage, paper mache and collage and tempera paint, tissue paper. My mom was so great about, and we had a little Ben Franklin down the street, you know, that I would ride my little bike too and bring it home in my basket.My first project was my cave like... dress for my troll doll. So I found my troll doll and I made a dress that I, to reminisce of the first dress I made. Yeah, it was pretty funny. But, you know, I think that for Leslie and I, just, we just crack up that we're still doing it, you know. We're like, I'm sure no one ever watches the whole thing, but you never know they might. So we save them. You don't even track your stats. No, we don't. You don't care. That's fine. It's absolutely fine not to care. I think it would be interesting because I hear people say they watch us and you can't really, it says 10 people, 10 eyes, but then like I'll hear 20 people watched it. like what I, you know, I never really, I was like, okay. You know, And it also depends what we have on for a guest. Right. We get who they bring with them. Yeah. And the people they bring with them. Lyric Well, Michelle, this has been just an absolute delight to hear all the things in your story, all the all the amazing things you put in your container of your life. Michele Muska I just got a request yesterday from a friend I'm really excited about because I don't know where it will go. But Roderick Kirchhoff, do know Roderick? Nope. Historic, wonderful book collector. yeah. Amazing. You know, he's done two books. I'm conventional and unexpected. huh. Yeah. And he has a second edition out. Lyric Kinard (29:26.446) but I made two pairs of jeans for him, quilted jeans for him. And one of them he's donating to the International Quilt Museum. I have to, so I think that's hysterical. So I have to, he sent me a note this morning, could you please write a little, you know, bio, a little note about it? And I'm like, okay. But I used to do that kind of stuff when I was in high school. And it's just so funny that here I am at 70 and I'm doing this and it's going to a museum. It's kind of fun. Lyric You never you never know no where life is going to take you no Michele Muska no you don't and I always say yes and figure it out after that's what we all all kind of need to do you know new experiences and you never know what that is I did New York Fashion Week last September I had my flowers and my silk flowers that I mold with fusible webbing on gowns and they were you know cuffs collars belts and I was like I didn't really have time, but I was like, I can't pass this up. Who knows where it will lead? And it might not lead anywhere, but I got to put them on models and send them down the runway and see my name up on a big thing. know, it was like, Lyric you know what the business model of just whatever comes by, let's give it a try. Michele Muska It's probably not the best to monetize your work, but it's kind of my personality. for you. Lyric That's the thing is there is a business model and a way to exist in work that is individual to every single creative. Yeah, they're all different and they're all valid and they all work. Michele Muska It's a joy to spend time with you and thank you for it's like an honor for you to ask me about what I do. So I really appreciate that. Lyric Likewise, I've looked up to you and your work for ages. Thank you. you. Thank you. So one last question that we always ask is what's the last thing that you made? Michele Muska last, I'm working on Kristen from Little House Cottons is the most amazing designer. Have you seen her work? Lyric Probably, but I see so many things I don't remember the names. Michele Muska So amazing. Her stuff is very kind of folky folklore like, and we were talking and she knows I'm. a stitcher and she has, I picked the peacock panel and I am, stick, you know, stitching on that. And I brought it with me and I've been working. She hung it in her booth and she didn't want to give it back. I said, it is not done. It's going to be, maybe it'll be done in the fall for Houston, but it won't be done. that's what I'm working on. So, yeah. Lyric So much fun. Well, again, thank you so much for spending time. You're so welcome. Where can people find you? is your Instagram handle? Michele Muska Okay. It's Michele Muska. with Michelle with one L M I C H E L E M U S K A. I have a little website that shows some of the things I do. I don't always update that, but that's there too. Um, you know, I don't do Tik Tok. I do for work, but I do, um, I do add a lot of my things to Facebook. Okay. Yeah. Lyric Well, we'll have those links in the show. Thank you. Michele Muska Thank you very much. Thank you, my friend. This is what I never get to do when we're not. When you're not in person with others, so it's kind of fun. great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Lyric All right, friends, always keep creating. Always put your work out there. Always ask yourself what if and just give it a go. You never know what's going to happen. Thank you. We'll hear you. We'll talk to you. We'll see you. Well, something with you next time. care.