Meet Valerie Spina | Artist & Crypto/Blockchain Professional

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

Hi Valerie, how do you think about risk?
Risk has been everything to my career and life. I have this design innate in me where the things I fear typically motivate me towards an end. So, I’ve had to get very comfortable with risk, especially in a culture where, as an adult, failure sometimes feels unacceptable. But, I was trained to be comfortable with risk at an early age and I carry that in my core. My dad created a New Product Development Center when I was 8 or 9 as part of a PhD thesis. So, innovation, engineering, failure, learning, and growth were always around me. My dad built motorcycles (that sometimes wouldn’t start) and model rockets (that sometimes got stuck in trees). My dad was always creating, and in creating, there is risk! The risk that it might not work, or be as good as you thought, or just have more dependencies than you foresaw. Learning this at an early age was one of the greatest gifts I got from my parent, and it has set me up to be quite an experimental risk-taker in both my career and my art, and which today may have scared my parents, but they created this monster!

As I get older, I realize I’m not scared of the same things as my peers. To be a risk-taker means the questions like ‘am I worth it’ or ‘can I do it’ are not even in the room. Risk-taking requires that you know deeply that you’re worth it and you can do ANYTHING. This basic foundation has led me to take risks in my education, like moving from a double major in Painting and Sculpture to Political Science or in work from a Fortune 50 to the bewildering crypto industry. Today, I’m using that same risk appetite to re-explore my roots and follow my spirit back in the arts.

I love supporting people on their own risk taking as well. As a mechanism for growth, take the risk. You have to use your fear as a portal for change. The greatest changes in my life have come when I am the most scared, when other people are saying ‘don’t do it’. But part of this is learning not to give out your power. If you’re on a skateboard and at the top of a bowl and you want to drop in (for the record, I’ve never skateboarded, but I like this metaphor), you’re not going to listen to your mom who is screaming, “Don’t do it, you could break a leg!” (my mom would do this) or to that inner voice that says, “Well, we could just watch or do something else, or maybe we will break a leg…let’s sit down.” No. You go. Because maybe you drop in and you fall, but maybe you don’t, and either way, you’re a better, cooler, more exciting, and experienced version of yourself, and you lived. You self-initiated. You chose to do something you had not done before and you are a different person from that.

Now, art might not risk your body in the same way, but artists deal in the realm of emotional, spiritual and cultural risk – and that is a mind game of its own! And truly, artists get to be the risk-takers in society. Standing out from the crowd, pointing out shadows, taboos, fo pas. They get to show us that on the other side of the drop, there might even be something better. And look what you hadn’t considered. Look how you could think, feel, and act differently. They are the risk-takers that take the cultural steps before anyone else, find new places of being, and then show the world there’s a hand reaching out from the other side. Artists have been my greatest inspiration, a source of endless passion, and motivate me to be my most mature, integrated self.

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.
My art is ever-evolving. I’ve been on this journey since I was in grade school. Art always made sense to me and was an outlet during some challenging years in my childhood and adolescence. I applied to one college and one college only, and it was VCU Arts. I double majored in painting and sculpture for two years before finding myself frustrated with how the art world was working. I used to volunteer at art auctions and serve Costco amounts of wine. I found myself sick at this kind of stuff. I thought art was supposed to change the world! I took that frustration, which has always been my guide, as a reason to drop out of art school and pursue Political Science. I really wanted to understand the systems, power structures, and technology that were impacting people’s lives. In my study, I focused on policy for social and sustainable enterprise. I recognized business as a tool for change like a brush is a tool for making. Business just gets to do it at the systems level.

After school, I was led into the corporate world and later crypto/blockchain, but I have been continually called back to my art. It’s always been a source of energy and fulfillment, and there’s something about being an artist where you see everything as performance, installation, or image. You know you’re made a little different when you daydream about taking scenes from your professional job and putting them in a gallery! After some significant hurdles with crypto tech startups (which, if you watch the news, you might have seen what I was working with!), I returned to my practice full-time in June 2023.

Today, I’m making mixed-media work. I’m primarily working with acrylics, found paper, inkjet prints of my own film photography, and black glitter. I wanted to work with this idea of image-making in the same collage style as Mickalene Thomas. Collage also feels aligned with my style of working and the varied experience I have in business and life; the idea that I can bring it all together and what kind of image gets created when I combine past work, technology, and traditional painting. I’m excited to continue this process while bringing more of my spirituality into the image design itself. I was working with portrait photos as the base for these designs, but I’m moving into organic creation of form as spirit, character, and other religious iconography. I’ve been inspired lately by Naudline Cluvie Pierre and Cindy Bernhardt, or the detailed nature of Visionary Art. I have some landscape collages I am finishing before I really get to dive into this new idea I have brewing! Halloween is the approximate midway between the September equinox and the December solstice. So Halloween is one of the year’s four cross-quarter days, which I’m taking as a time to finish what I started before moving into something new.

When I look back on getting to this point, I’m so grateful to be making art whenever (mostly) I want. The time in a corporate career is neither lost nor unused. For a long time, I regretted not just going full force into art and through art school (shoutout to my art school dropouts), but instead I’m re-finding that core of how art can change the world. How can I take everything I’ve done thus far and find new answers to that question.

I’d love anyone reading this to know that art doesn’t judge where you’ve been or what you know. It just wants you to create, like a diary entry. If you have that bug, that gnawing feeling to make don’t shut it down. Keep that part of you alive and find ways to water it! In whatever way you can. There is a medium for every environment. Never stop making, even if it’s small, even if you go months without getting something out. And don’t be afraid to share it with the world.

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.
I love Chaffee County, west of Denver/Boulder. It’s got this feeling of coming home for me. If you have the time, check out one of the hot springs or a hike. Make sure to see the sunset, but don’t plan on finding a good meal. It’s not known for the food. I also love a good day in Boulder. I’m biased because I live here, but Boulder has everything. Try a day hike, see the Flatirons (maybe even water paint the Flatirons if you would enjoy that), go to the farmers market, or try one of the many local events. Boulder has ecstatic dance almost every night of the week, with the Sunday one hosted by B.E.D (Boulder Ecstatic Dance) being one of the larger ones. There’s an app called Actualize that hosts a lot of the events. Whether you’re just visiting or local, it’s an under-the-radar project that’s worth the download if you want to get involved with the conscious community in the front range.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I dedicate this shoutout to the community at Art Gym off Colfax! Over the last year, I’ve met only incredible artists and friends. The support I received through the Eric Porter Scholarship, really relaunched my practice and gave me the space and opportunity to just make. I have received mentorship, critique, and opportunities that I wouldn’t have without them.
As well, thank you to my roommate Luisa Elizondo, a fantastically skilled and brilliant student in transpersonal counseling that has amused and motivated me to create. She recognizes my talents and has been a well of support. I am lucky to learn and grow with her.

Website: https://www.valeriespina.org

Instagram: https://valerie.spina.art

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-spina

Twitter: https://www.x.com/valeriespina

Other: If you’re interested to reach me directly, feel free to email me at valerieaspina@gmail.com or you can reach out to me on Telegram at @valeriespina

Image Credits
all photos credit to me.

The one photo of me with a camera is credit to photographer Winston Macdonald of Gunnison, Colorado.