Meet Gaia Orion: A trained architect turned artist

For the first seven years of her life, Gaia Orion spent her time mostly barefoot in Africa, this provided the foundation for her love of nature and aspiration for living free. She studied and graduated in Paris as an architect before moving to Canada, becoming a self-made entrepreneur, and a mother of three. In just ten years she built a successful career as an artist — as well as a corporate creativity coach — and has exhibited in cities around the world, with her artwork featured in over 60 different publications. Featuring strong feminine images, she aims to use her art to invite women to embrace and reconnect to who they are in the full scope of their power and capacities.

My first job ever was… working for Zap Pizza in Paris, I wanted to practice riding a moped delivering pizzas before deciding if I should buy myself one!

I became an artist because… I never imagined myself being an artist, I am still getting used to the idea. For me, life has unfolded step by step and turned me into an artist!

My proudest accomplishment is… I moved from bustling Paris, France to a hermit life in the forest in Canada. After 20 years I still miss my family and friends, the French food and the European way of life although I know that being uprooted allowed me the freedom to take bold decisions and find my way to living a meaningful extraordinary life.

My boldest move to date was… Over 20 years ago, after my twin girls were born (and with a 14 month old boy) my husband and I decided to quit his job. We had no idea what we were going to do, we only had enough money to survive for 6 months. Necessity kicked our entrepreneurial spirit in gear and we have only worked for ourselves since then!

I surprise people when I tell them… I had three kids in 14 months! For my first son it was supposed to be twins and for the twins after, I had triplets at the beginning of the pregnancy! Imagine I could have had 5 kids in 14 months!!!

My best advice to people hoping to have a career in the arts is… just do it! The 21st century is the best time in the whole history of humanity to be an artist as there are countless resources available and many ways to bring income with our art. I run my international career from my little home by the river in the forest North of Toronto!

The key to creativity is… practice boredom, avoid distractions and find inner silence, this gives space for the Muse to show up. These skills are precious in our sensory overload world. Creativity is useful for anyone, not just artists, practicing these key skills would do good to everyone!

“The world would be so amazing if everyone followed their dreams and believed in themselves and if we all encouraged each other to do so.”

 

My biggest setback was… my self-esteem and confidence. I was very shy, I thought if people liked my work they would just buy it. I soon found out that I had to develop many social and personal skills if I wanted to be successful. It’s unfortunate that many artists (and people in general!) don’t believe in themselves.

I overcame it by… doing psychotherapy, meditation and many other healing modalities.

I wish everyone in the world knew… the potential available in all of us. The world would be so amazing if everyone followed their dreams and believed in themselves and if we all encouraged each other to do so.

If I had an extra hour in the day, I would… read more, there is never enough time to read all the existing amazing books I want to dive into!

If you googled me, you still wouldn’t know… I love cooking, I make all my meals from scratch and I always hold back from taking photos and sharing on social media my beautiful creative meals. If I didn’t restrain myself people would think I am a foodie and not a painter!

The one thing I wish I knew when starting out is… Our uniqueness and differences are our strengths. Because my art is so different than everything else I saw around me it was hard for me to find my place in the world or feel that I belonged to the art world. Now I realize that the original visual signature of my art is the most important asset I have.

I stay inspired by… the harmony, peace and beauty of nature

The future excites me because… I feel I have worked hard to build a strong foundation to my career. Now my motto is to work smart not hard and to simplify to amplify. I really like getting older: my body doesn’t have the same energy so I adapt by being wiser and softer in my approach to everything.

My next step is… doing more teaching of creative tools especially in the corporate world and do more public speaking because now that I am not so shy anymore I really love it!