Meet Lydia Martin | Creative Director of Spare Room Studio

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lydia Martin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lydia, what role has risk played in your life or career?

Risk has played a huge role in my life and my career. I don’t think you can get very far in a creative industry without being willing to take risks because you are continually trying to grow and explore your own creative process. Getting too comfortable is usually an indicator that I’m becoming apathetic in my work and I’ve grown to really love a challenge because I get to see myself rise to the occasion and do things I never thought I was capable of. When I dropped out of art school to pursue my own path with my studio I risked so much because I had been told most of my life that I needed a traditional education to succeed. I knew by dropping out I was challenging the norm and that was terrifying. Taking that first huge risk and seeing that I was able to adapt and grow made so many other risks feel doable and necessary.

Risks are inevitable in a creative field and you have to really work on how you respond to risk. You can choose to accept and embrace it or run from it and that will make a huge impact on your life and work.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I’ve worked so many part time jobs for small businesses while building my studio and every single one of them taught me valuable lessons on how I want to run and manage my business.

Embracing that college wasn’t for me and diving in to learning all that I could from anyone who would teach me has really set me apart as an artist and entrepreneur because I learned on the job instead of in the classroom. It made me a very action driven person and has allowed me to be incredibly innovative because I got to work under other entrepreneurs who were going against the grain and saw the way that gave them an edge.

I found that working in the service industry alongside the creative industry gave me a leg up in public relations, customer service and salesmanship. I love people and getting to work as a waitress and then a bartender while balancing my design load was very hard but they played into each other more than you might expect.

I also met some of the most hard-working, talented, driven individuals I’ve ever known while working in restaurants that gave me a lot of motivation.

Working in the service industry brought me so much joy while building my studio that I recently helped develop the restaurant inside the co-working space where my studio is located.

I’ve learned the importance of really trusting my own creative voice and embracing that letting my journey and experiences as a human are what make my creative voice mine. For me to make work that connects to the people around me I also have to actively be working on accepting my own story and sharing it. Sharing the messy parts along with the pretty parts because that is part of the process.

Right now I’m really excited about the work I’m doing to connect local creatives to resources they need to market themselves. Creatives have such a hard time promoting themselves and I’m teaching him how to view marketing as a storytelling tool that can enhance their process instead of being a massive headache

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

So I just realized that this entire publication is focused on the Dallas area and I am based in Jackson Mississippi so I’m going to just roll with this even though I’m guessing you want Dallas Answers.

In Jackson I would make sure we ate at Elvie’s Restaurant and do the tasting menu that is entirely inspired by Mississippi ingredients and connects local growers to the community in a really creative way.

I would get a cocktail at The Apothecary in Fondren. It’s a tiny speakeasy inspired bar in the back of a diner that has some of the tastiest drinks in town.

I would visit the MS Civil Rights and History Museum and the Art Museum Downtown

I would give them a tour of the Ecoshed where my studio is located. It’s my favorite place in Jackson because it brings together artists, entrepreneurs and agriculture and shows the importance of working together and collaborating.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

Grace Bonney and her work with Design Sponge heavily influenced the way I intentionally seek out to learn from and celebrate other creatives. Reading her book “In The Company Of Women” was incredibly empowering and showed me how it felt to see other creative women talk about their journey in a real way. Since day one I’ve always spoken openly about my creative process and the realities of working in a creative industry.

This career path is not for the faint of heart and taking care of your own mental health and finding a supportive community can really make or break you.

Justina Blakeney from The Jungalow who wrote “The New Bohemian” and Fiona Humberstone’s “How To Style Your Brand” were also very influential in how I view visual storytelling

Website: spareroom.studio

Instagram: spareroom_studio

Image Credits
Drew Dempsey Exposure Creative