Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Pond.
Hi Heather, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I stopped using drugs and alcohol completely when I was 26, and let me tell you, I thought my life was over. Surviving my addiction, as well as sex trafficking and prostitution, left me in a hollow space. All I seemed to have were a bunch of crazy stories and the inability to cope with basic everyday life. While other people my age were starting their first big jobs after college, or families, or seeing the world. I was suddenly terrified of everything and everyone, mostly myself. It dawned on me that I had never even grown into the ability to have interests. I was so desperate to escape and I had so much time on my hands, that I started painting tiny abstract canvases.
Actually, it went more like this – I spent an entire year trying to stop using. Over and over again, I would end up wasted despite wholeheartedly believing I could think my way out of it. Then I would beat myself up, hate myself even more, and try to stay clean again. At the end of one of the worst benders I’d had, I woke up on a floor, next to a box of paint, brushes and canvas boards. I started painting late at night after my waitressing shifts instead of having 12 drinks in a bar because it was the only way to calm down. With painting, I got to disassociate from the pain of my experiences, but when I returned, I had evidence of where I had been on the canvas. Painting has healed so much of my trauma because working with paint on canvas demanded that I stay present, make my own decisions, and deal with the outcome. That and learning to make something beautiful out of absolutely nothing.
Still, I never dared call myself an artist. I’m dyslexic, education was a nightmare for me, and art was just another class that I had to memorize things for. I didn’t know that art could be whatever I wanted it to be. That it’s about my ability to flow and accept. I only knew how to compare myself to the “real artists.” The ones with publicists and social media teams.
I stayed clean for ten years. I did a ton of work on myself in therapy, recovery, and practicing hot yoga daily. All I’ve ever wanted to do is write my memoir, because it haunts me that I didn’t have access to a story like mine before a story like mine became my life. In 2020, I attempted to start my book, but I wasn’t strong enough to relive my story. So I put my very first painting up for sale on social media, for $150. I imagined I’d have 40 comments under it of people asking incredulously where I went to art school, but no. The painting sold in 5 minutes.
Since then, I have sold well over 300 of my original paintings. My art is displayed on walls in homes across six continents. I did this without a gallery, agent, social media manager, publicist, or trust fund. I’ve been winging it as an artist in Southern California for five years, and the financial stress of that can get overwhelming. Regardless, I launched my website, learned how to market my art, pack my art, ship my art all around the world, and continue to grow in my ability to create frequency and connection through everything I put out into the world.
In January of 2025, I published my memoir, titled Moxy. It is my true story of resilience, transformation, reclaiming my body as my own, and making art. The layers of fear I walked through to get to the other side of this were all-consuming. On the other side of all of that fear I had made up, I’ve learned the powerful lesson that the fear was never real. None of the bad things that I thought would happen if I used my voice happened, not at all. Mostly everyone has been very supportive.
I also teach hot yoga at Island Yoga Coronado, San Diego Yoga Center, and Bikram Yoga San Clemente. Because standing up there and teaching a class is another thing I never thought I’d have the courage to do, so I teach as much as I can.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The struggles are very much me vs. me. I’ve struggled so much with burnout and self-doubt. I’ve had nothing but love and support from the people around me, the people who have read Moxy, and the people who collect my art. I think my biggest obstacle is in being confident and expansive. My whole life, I tried to stay small and quiet in order to manipulate a perception of safety and likability. Everything I do requires me to be confident and out there, like I know what I’m doing and I’m not afraid.
Success for me is how well I can walk through fear and failure with my self-worth intact and a willingness to try again.
I still cry every single time one of my paintings sells. Because all I’ve ever wanted was for people to feel what I feel, and to feel more connected to something good because of that.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I create abstract paintings that tell stories of frequency and connection. My work is bold, colorful, glittery, and deeply personal. Many pieces live as the centerpiece of my collector’s home, as a member of their family.
I specialize in custom commissions that tell the stories of their collector through metaphor, movement, and color. Because of my past, I have a talent for scanning the frequency and emotional makeup of any given person. This has served me powerfully in my art, as I can recreate that level of reading to a visual on canvas, and then write a story.
I’m known for the big bubblegum pink boxes I ship all of my paintings in. Shipping my art is a sacred aspect of what I do. I want everyone who receives one of my paintings to feel like it’s their 7th birthday, and great care was taken for everything to be special. My Grandfather always brought me donuts in a pink box growing up, so I wanted to recreate that wonder. I believe we are all still kind of children, looking for magic. It’s also one last way to honor and love my art before it moves on to its new life.
I am most proud of my paintings that are in the background of life being lived. The kids in Melbourne take their first and last day of school photos in front of the painting that lives in their kitchen. The young boys in Chattanooga are going through their Halloween candy with my art behind them in the photo, and the family in Houston is making videos of root beer floats with my art hanging behind them. Inclusion. I’m so proud of being included in all of these life moments and seeing it for myself. All I ever wanted was to have a voice, and now it’s everywhere.
What sets my art apart is my ability to find the good in people.. the highest frequencies. To find the light that’s so bright that it is their superpower, and bend that into a story and work of art that connects them to the good that is in the rest of the world. What sets my writing apart is my ability to tell a story using all of my senses. I taught myself to write by writing every single day for 25 years. And what sets my memoir apart is my courage and who I got to be on the other side of all of that damage.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I feel extremely lucky that people buy my art and care about what I write. Every time someone reading my book takes the time to share with me what it is like for them to read, my heart stops, and my mouth does that little ugly cry frown thing for a moment before I pull myself together. I’m so lucky. Lucky for all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly.
Luck might just be a more lighthearted form of gratitude. So far in my life, all of my dreams have come true, but I still feel like myself, if that makes any sense. Which I’m so grateful for, but also omg it’s been a lot. Luck keeps it light. “Hey! All of these great things have happened, it’s not that deep!” I need more of that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://heatherpondart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heather_pond_art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heather.corradin
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@heatherjamespond
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@heather_pond_art
Image Credits
Tianna Winters Media
