Hello, Steemit!!! I'm Yuri a classically trained set/costume designer and creative entrepreneur living in Boston, MA. I am excited to be part of this amazing community and help out as many artists as I can make a living from their art. My journey is one that has ups and down, battles with depression, divorce, and anger. I made it through the difficult times because of amazing people in my life. If anything in my intro resonates with you and you need help please let me know.

I found Steemit through a mastermind group I'm in. Two weeks ago, Steemit's cofounder, @ned , gave a fascinating talk to my group. Ned turned my vague understanding of cryptocurrencies into a serious interest and I signed up immediately after his talk. Its taken me two weeks to post, but that is another story.

After his talk I was even more fortunate to have @anwenbaumeister and @neilstrauss speak about how excited they were for the platfrom and what they were doing on it which got me even more excited to join this community. I don't really see myself as a writer but here goes:

IN THE BEGINNING:

I was born in the small industrial town of Elkhart, Indiana. Unless you are into RV's and travel trailers most people drive on by. My parents are European so I didn' thave the typical Indiana experience. My Russian mother met my Italian father at a disco dance party and the rest is history. Add in a shy kid with a stuttering problem who was still always smiling and you have my childhood in Indiana.

I am the little coffee bean on the right

I would spend hours watching my grandfather, Tomas, as he designed and build furniture. My mother signed me up fo piano lessons and ballet classes when I was 3. I think she was hoping to funnel my energy, curiosity, and get me out of the house. Even though the dance lessons never stuck, they did fuel my love of the arts. I learned how to play the violin, guitar, bass guitar, piano, accordion, and triangle. I did this because I wanted to be in a band and meet girls. My talent landed me in different roles within a couple different bands but I was never the one who got the girls.

at 17 I thought big tshirts made me look cool, I was wrong

Part 1 - DESIGN:

My love of design landed me in the Mechanical Engineering program at Purdue. I had just been on the team that designed the first mini-van taxi cab for NYC, Chicago, and Detroit. At that time I thought that what I was doing was mechanical engineering. Boy was I wrong and didn't figure out until taking a lot of math classes. I dropped out during my sophomore year, switched schools, and jumped into a brand new major. As you can guess my Dad was less than thrilled to see his son leave engineering and jump into theater design. Theatre, to me, meant I could be interested in everything. I took every class that interested me from all over the college and traveled as much as I could. After undergrad, I got into a specialized program at The Juilliard school. It was a great way to get to know NYC and meet people. The program allowed me to work with world renown designers in the drama, opera, and dance world. I also got to spend a lot of time with the 4th year acting class which included Rutina Wesley and Oscar Isaac.

2005 was the year I tried to grow out my hair

After a year I was accepted into the design program at Yale School of Drama as a costume designer. It was the best and worst place for me to be in my mid-20’s. For the first time, I was surrounded by nerds like me who were overachievers and way into history and art.

one of my favorite costume designs

my favorite set design for a dance

Being in that competitive environment also brought out my deep seeded insecurities and depression. My first year was plagued by severe migraines, time at Yale’s mental health center, and almost being kicked out. Knowing I had to make changes or get kicked out I spent the summer working my ass off. My first movie gig, which I found on craigslist, was a film written, starring, and directed by Al Pacino. That lead to a job designing a showgirl review for Foxwoods Casino. The rest of the summer I worked in Santa Fe, NM working as a set/costume design assistant at the Santa Fe Oprea. The change in pace helped me refocus my life and stop trying to compete with my classmates. That and just turn out focused work.

I spent a lot of time at this bar in New Haven trying to find creative ideas

After graduation, I landed a few design jobs as well as being an assistant on broadway shows. I then worked as an assistant on a Disney movie while working with a museum curator on a new exhibition. All those positions lead me to an introduction and job with a broadway/movie producer. My professional life in the arts was taking off and then 2009 happened…

Part 2 – REDESIGN

In 2009 my life changed.
My New York economy in the arts fell apart quickly. There were no jobs anywhere, not even for the broadway designers and I went through a messy divorce. My wife was the main bread winner and had a nice job on wall street which I helped her get. One cold and gray morning in February she casually told me, before going to work, that she no longer wanted to be married. She never came home. If I close my eyes I can picture that day vividly and how for the first time in my life I felt alone. The next couple of years blurs together fueled by hate and alcohol. I could ‘t afford NYC so I took my two dogs and we moved back to Indiana to live with my parents. I worked jobs I hated and would spend my evenings at bars being a complete asshole to everyone around me. I developed a following of bros would buy me drinks and encourage me to insult them and their friends. Everything was in my name so the divorce left me with lots of bills and a condo that was underwater. On the eve of my 30th birthday, I realized that I needed to make a change and get on with my life.

my best friend helped me get out of my rut

A few months later I talked my way into a sales job at a TV station. By day I would sell advertising and by night I would work on ideas and research for a company. On December 22, 2011, I would stumble upon a situation that would change the direction of my life. I was on vacation in Flordia with my parents and went for a run on the beach. I was deep in thought and didn’t see the hole in the sand and twisted my ankle. Injuring yourself on day one is not a great way to start a vacation. I hobbled down the street to a used bookstore and found a copy of “The Four Hour WorkWeek “ by Tim Ferris. That book was the key I was looking for as it explained in a step by step process HOW to start a company. I finished the book in a day. Once I got back I launched right into bootstrapping a bottled water company.

my first water photoshoot, I only had 1 label and photoshopped the rest

PART 3 – ENTREPRENEUR

I get asked all the time how someone who studied theater and art suddenly starts a bottled water company. To me, it’s obvious designing a show or starting a company are the exact same process.
In January 2012 I mocked up a finished product and we presold cases of water on a website to see if there was any interest. In the first 3 weeks, we had 15 large orders which meant it was time to pull the trigger and get this company going. From 2012 – 2015 IndigoH2O was the premium alkaline mineral water on the market. I was able to get distribution all over the world, with WholeFoods and other nice places in the midwest. We have been featured in over 60 articles as well as in the gift bags at the Oscars, Emmy’s, Golden Globes, and MTV video music awards. IndigoH2O won 3 international awards, including the 2015 best tasting purified water brand in the world.

I got special permission to do interviews for the Oscars at WholeFoods

Then in March of 2015, a wrench was thrown into the mix at the height of our business success. I received an email from the state department of health saying they needed to speak with me. As my lawyer later explained, my little company pissed someone off and they were determined to make my life difficult. With limited funds available to fight back I reluctantly decided to stop selling water in 2015. While the company is currently not selling water I am working with a few other people to get it up and running again. If anyone is in the water biz and would like to talk please let me know.

IndigoH2O

PART 4 – From Artist to Creative Entrepreneur

While I built my bottled water company I was a set design professor at Indiana University. At my first faculty meeting, the professors took turns complaining about their former art students. They were emailing them about wasting their time and money on a worthless degree and being broke. It was at that moment that a realized that I use to be in that same boat. had figured out how to create a company and it felt as natural to me as designing a show did. In my design classes, I started giving weekly lectures about how to use design skills in real life to find solutions to problems. Later I found out that the process I was using was close to DesignThinking. These lectures starting getting popular. Soon enough I was able to talk my way into teaching a class dedicated to helping artist turn their art into a business. I gave a similar lecture at Princeton, Stanford, Notre Dame, Valparaiso, and many other conferences. At the same time that IndigoH2O was put on hold, I found a job post from Emerson College in Boston. They were trying to launch a new program and looking for someone to get it off the ground. In August of 2015, I moved to Boston to build the program I wish I had in school. From Aug 2015 – Sept 2016 I took the basic idea they had for a major called The Business of Creative Enterprises and turned it into a program.

Boston Globe Article about the Program

I fleshed out the curriculum and spoke with potential incoming students about why this program was important. I created partnerships with MIT, Harvard, Berklee, and Olin college to get our students together to work on projects. In the end, we had over 400 applicants for 45 spots and a few weeks ago the program launched. Academia is a strange place, it's just like Game of Thrones sometimes. Once a new person comes in sometimes they clean house. A new Dean and Chair were hired in the last year. While they liked what I had done to build the program they wanted to run it themselves so I finished out my contract two weeks ago.

I am no longer building a program to help artist creative companies but I am still focused on that idea. In June I launched a podcast called ADVANCE YOUR ART. Every week I interview successful artist on how they are making a living from their art. I also started working with a former student to build an online platform that gives artist specific training on how to make a living in their niche.

this summer I climbed the Mendenhall Glacier

Thank you for taking the time to read my mini story. I have gone through a few up's and down's in the last few years but in the end thanks to good friends and great mentors my life has gotten richer and richer.
I am excited to be part of this community and start writing out all the ideas I was only lecturing about. I have figured out that I am good at taking an idea and launching a business or product from it. If you're stuck on an idea and need help moving forward or getting press please let me know.

thanks
Yuri

ps. I am still trying to figure out which topics are most useful to start with. If you have any specific request please let me know.

My first Boston winter with my dogs Abby and Eliot