FEARLESS DUO
Harding students shine spotlight on local creators .......
A painter, an earring maker, a guitarist — creators come from all walks of life, but most everyone must overcome fear to produce something meaningful.
When Harding University students Ana Quintero and Macey Vaught launched the Fearless Creators project in January, they were seeking a tangible way to overcome their selfdoubts and pursue their respective dreams of being a blogger and a photographer. After interviewing several people for the project, they found that those creators had faced similar worries about their work.
“Experiencing fear was a common theme among those whom we interviewed,” Vaught said, “the difference being that those people did not let their fear extinguish their creative spirit.”
Vaught, who is majoring in communication sciences and disorders and plans to graduate next May, and Quintero, who recently graduated with a major in interior design, came up with the idea for Fearless Creators while visiting at a coffee shop around Christmastime. They were discussing a story from Love
Does, by Bob Goff, in which the author, a pilot, had to land a plane without all the landing-gear signal lights functioning. The moral of the story, Quintero said, is that sometimes, achieving one’s goals often requires a leap of faith.
“That story sparked a conversation where Macey and I shared some dreams that we had in our hearts,” she said. “For Macey, it was pursuing photography professionally. For me, it was starting a blog.”
Promising to hold each other accountable for pursuing those dreams, the pair started Fearless Creators. The project’s platform, the What If blog at whatifadventures.com, showcases stories and photos of local creators.
“We admire the creativity and courage those individuals possess and express in showing their talents to the world, and we wanted to put a spotlight on them for those reasons,” Vaught said. “Ana and I realized that through this project, we would both be able to further pursue our respective passions of writing and photography while encouraging and promoting those whom we feature.”
Vaught’s father, who took up photography as a hobby when she was a child, gave her a crash course in the pastime before she took a trip to Europe after graduating from high school, she said, and she has been honing her skills in the years since.
Although Vaught said she has been fascinated with photography for as long as she can remember, she never shared her photos publicly before starting this project.
“My fear of being thought of as mediocre or average kept me from showing my photography for quite some time,” she said. “I was afraid of being seen as just another college girl with a fancy camera who thinks she’s skilled but really is not, so I didn’t share much of my photography on social media at all.”
Vaught said she was blocked by the “what ifs”: “What if my work isn’t good enough? What if nobody likes it? What if I fail?” Then she realized she could turn those worries into positive questions.
“I began asking myself, ‘What if people love my photography? What if I’m able to bless someone through my work? What if I succeed?’” she said. “By doing that, I gained the courage to commit to being the photographer for this project, which meant finally sharing my work with the world.”
Quintero said she faced similar challenges when pursuing her passion for storytelling and the written word.
“I had always wanted to write a blog, but my perfectionism kept me from taking that initial step,” she said. “I had spent almost eight years researching and dreaming, but the ‘what ifs’ always kept me from actually doing it. It took God asking me to step out of my comfort zone the summer before my senior year to make me realize that.”
Last summer, Quintero was offered an internship in Portland, Maine. It was a great opportunity, she said, but she doubted whether she was qualified for the role. After praying about it, she decided to accept the internship.
“It was an amazing summer and an experience that made me ask, ‘What other things am I holding back on because I’m afraid? What other beautiful God things am I missing out on because of my fear? ‘Once I asked myself those questions, I knew that I couldn’t wait any longer to try writing a blog.”
So far, the pair have interviewed nine creators from the Harding community and hope to expand the blog to include creators from across the state and beyond. Quintero and Vaught also set up an Instagram account for the blog and are working to add a YouTube account.
“A long-term, the-sky-is-the-limit dream we have for this project is a creative conference that would allow people to gather, share their creativity and learn from one another,” Vaught added.
The two have other goals as well. Vaught plans to become a licensed speech-language pathologist. Although she said she is not considering photography as a full-time job, one of her dreams is to see her photos in National
Geographic.
Quintero said she hopes to become a licensed interior designer and start her own business. She urged those “sitting on a dream” to stand up and take the next step. Some failure is guaranteed, she added, but there is a lesson to be learned from failing.
“We have been taught that failure is a bad thing, so we’re afraid to fail. We compare ourselves to others and are afraid that we’ll never measure up. The funny thing is, if we don’t fail, we don’t learn,” Quintero said. “If we are able to sit down and create despite the fears, some beautiful and world-changing things can happen.”