This is the story I wrote for Refresh Your Life Magazine, Issue 86 “The beauty of variety”, Published on Sep 8, 2022, Established and led by the chief editor @anima_mundi_ryl – Mia Medaković-Topalović.
When do you feel free to be truly yourself?
“Don’t be angry with your parents; life is not easy for them at all. When people don’t have a sense of peace in their heart, they don’t hear you or themselves.”
the painter Predrag told me when I asked him why he is always so happy while other adults are frowning and have too much work to do.
Of course, as a girl, I didn’t understand what “the poet wanted to say”, but it sounded very important to me. Whether it’s my hunger to explore the unknown, be different, and see beyond the obvious or the fact that he taught me that everything and everyone in the world has a unique beauty, the simple stories of the “crazy painter from the mountain” marked my life.
I couldn’t wait to finish primary school, be independent of my parents, move to another city, and wander as a painter. The final decision for my studies happened to me in the year of the bombing of Serbia. I can’t even imagine what the parents who survived in the Balkans in the eighties and nineties carried in their souls.
“To study art? Should people say that you are as crazy as Predrag?! To eat nettles and sleep under the open sky? You have to be responsible, to learn something that can be used for a living. You will draw when you have nothing to do anyway!”
I didn’t dare to say to anyone at the time that, oh yes, I really want that kind of crazy.
My interest in human nature has always been there. I studied organization, neuroscience, psychology, and art history; I enjoyed and supported other people’s beauty, stories, and potential. While I worked and lived in the “business world” for almost 20 years, for me, people were the center of every system.
“When do you feel free to be truly yourself?”
is the question I usually start a conversation with.
It took me 35 years to realize that we were wrongly taught what responsibility is. Now I will tell you the moment that turned on the light of change for me. That was seven years ago. I lived in New York and worked at Zara on Fifth Avenue. As an organizational engineer, I came to the “Center of the World” to improve my knowledge and corporate career. I moved to the USA by following my dreams with my heart and realized that I am surrounded by people with whom I have no common language, micromanagers that the board of the company calls leaders.
Of course, I got the answer as in any system before:
“You are an artistic soul. There is no emotion in business. The competition is great, and you have to grab it!”
In my map of life, competition does not exist, but that is already a topic for itself.
New York is a city full of highly talented people who have come from all over the world, eager to show their authenticity. Endless conversations with brilliant people with whom the lifepath connected me, who “responsibly” fulfill their obligations to provide for life, open up the question for me:
How can you succeed in the race to achieve an authentic dream or the peak of popularity if you follow the rules and walk the well-trodden paths of the average?
I was pregnant, and I prayed for a healthy child who dreams big dreams and realizes them with ease. Then a lightning moment struck me. How can I be a role model for him with a lifestyle where I don’t live my own but follow other people’s dreams?
Then I asked myself what I liked to do as a child. To talk with sunny people, to learn, to dance, to paint, and to wander! Can you make a living from it? I realized that my versatile interest and diverse experience, usually considered a weakness in the business world, are my asset.
“I allowed society to convince me to build a material burden that binds me to one place. Luxury for me is the freedom to be wherever I want anytime, to spend time with the people I love, and meet new ones wherever they are. I’m going to quit my job tomorrow and turn the game around. I combine all interests into one story, and it will be a healthy foundation to build a business that will follow my lifestyle.”
As I move forward, breaking the boundaries set by life’s circumstances, I learn to respect, nurture, and further challenge my own values, abilities, and desires. I finally found the courage to be completely honest and respectful with myself and changed the direction of my life from a corporate career to the art world.
“How is it possible that you are so pale?”
is the question other people usually start a conversation with me. So that’s how I chose my artistic signature. In Serbian, white or pale is said BelA.
Of course, supporting the system and other people is the most important thing for such a decision. It came to me as an overnight success because I have been building my wealth of diversity all my life. First of all, the people I met through the sports I played, apartments, homes, hotels, cities, and countries where I lived; different schools, studies, workshops, training, conferences, gatherings, meetings… companies for and with whom I worked, projects I led; organizations, events, teams I founded and led, or accompanied, strangers I met at the bar or on trips… All that together helped me to open a wide field of understanding of life through acceptance of differences. Every man, like every God’s creation, they are already perfect as they are, and nothing should be changed. The fruits that I raised while, as doctor Vladeta Jerotić would say, “I was running away from myself towards people”; being overwhelmed with obligations, jobs, moving… have brought me an abundance of wealth, experience, and exceptional people, who are healthy support for me to build a new lifestyle.
I exhibited in galleries in New York, Chicago, Detroit and gathered people from different professions who came to America from different parts of the world. I was invited to exhibit in Paris, Florence, and Belgrade, which are my next steps. The most beautiful business success was the exhibition I organized with my Brazilian Vivace Co. family in our friends’, Masserant family, a beautiful house on Cass Lake in Michigan. With delicious food, drinks, and music, we created an atmosphere that frees us from everyday life routines. The people we invited were so pleased that they wanted to take a piece of the atmosphere with them. Thus, all exhibited paintings were sold in one evening, which is a dream come true for most artists. That’s how I connected with the sunny people with whom my family is today, which is a dream come true for me.
I love large canvases because they give me the freedom to, as I dance, release the movement to intuitively represent the inimitable beauty of the people and their stories I think about as I paint. Blessed with the gift, I use colors to open a space on the canvas where people who spend time reflecting on the painting continue their story. I wish every person travels following the rhythm of the lines in the painting and finding hidden forms beyond the obvious in the painting, and doing the same within themselves. To look beyond the obvious in themselves, to recognize and fall in love with the authentic beauty they have. To illuminate and combine them all into the unique luxury of their life.
“When I sit in front of a painting, the people in the house know that they should leave me alone. It’s as if time stops for me to travel through these dancing lines. Every time I get lost in the painting, I see another shape. Not only do I rest sweetly, but a solution to a problem that has been bothering me and which I had forgotten comes to me of its own accord. As if everything opens up by itself. It’s even easier to connect my thoughts when I have to make an important decision.”
Estrella, my friend and my art collector told me one day.
I am delighted that people recognize that my painting is a wise investment. I continue to connect a variety of differences, and I stream towards the point where my art collectors can take the painting I signed off their wall, sell it and get the funding they need to start something new in their life wherever they want. I desire to inspire people to deal with what is a fundamental responsibility, the unique beauty with which they were born. So today, at least, we can make a great living from any path we choose for ourselves with an open heart.
