Mackenzie - MJC Artistry

But I think that just comes down to, you know, connections and working really hard and, you know, just having a dream and trying to make it come true.

So

at what point did you go from just you working events then to working with a team? Because you now run a team.

Yeah, so I

have a network of like face painters, balloon twisters, clowns, and that was probably around year two.

Honestly, one of the biggest things that changed my business was changing my mindset from everyone's competition to this is my community and this is who I collaborate with.

Like when I first started, I was like looking up everybody and I was like, okay, it's me against them.

But then, you know, when I changed that mindset, that's when things like really grew and it you know, then I had a community around me to share work with.

And, you know, we all work for each other.

I'll work for them.

They'll work for me.

And, you know, now we have monthly like face paint jams right now.

There's only four or five of us that go.

But, you know, having that community has been really special and it's really allowed all of us to take on bigger work than we normally would.

So, yeah, it was around year two that I started working with other people, but I didn't start doing larger events until probably, this year or like mid last year like the most people I would have at an event was like three or four but this year I had the opportunity to have 10 artists at one event and and actually I had two artists at a mall that day so I had 12 12 of us working that day two at a mall and 10 at a corporate event and so that was that was kind of mind-blowing.

So how much of it do you, do you just do the face painting yourself or do you do any of the entertainment, the balloon twisting or is that outsourced?

I do do balloon twisting.

I was very reluctant at first.

I actually hated how squeaky and dry balloons were.

So I was very reluctant to do it, but I got asked if I did it all the time for birthday parties and events.

And so my husband actually learned for me.

And so he was my balloon twister.

And then he decided to go back to university and learn science.

So I had to end up learning.

But I at first I didn't like it because, you know, it was squeaky.