Voyage Dallas Feature

Throughout my Alana Kay Art journey I have received so many questions. Why fashion? Why art? Where do you want this to go? Well, in a recent piece by Voyage Dallas, many of these questions were answered. The writers there had such great questions and touched on all of the right subjects! If you recall, I posted in May about my resin story  and not too long after, I wrote down my dreams behind #ArtasFashion . Both of these worked to capture my goals, dreams and my why, but Voyage Dallas also captured how I got here and now I am so glad to be able to share that with you as well. I really appreciated how they asked about the challenges, because sometimes it’s just so easy to see all of the great wins from the outside. I have been blessed in my business so far but here is a peek at how it all started … “I left my career to travel around for my husband’s job and to raise our family. Those things are important but definitely not the way I saw my work/life balance playing out when I graduated college. I needed to be right where I was for my family but I constantly had this burning desire to do more. I knew I was capable but I also needed to be flexible for the changes we were all going through. I stayed plugged in through volunteering, leadership training, and any side hustle I could add to my plate and do from home. I was often defeated by where I was professionally but I kept finding ways to stay relevant and push forward any small way I could. Looking back, I see the importance of each difficult step along my journey. I do not believe I would have been set up to see the opportunity that was falling into place with AlanaKayART had I not been through some of the really difficult and dark places I had journeyed through to get there.” She also asked the question I’ve been dying to answer! “What do you feel are the biggest barriers today to female leadership, in your industry or generally?” This question is huge. It is huge for me and my life, but more importantly it’s huge for every woman wanting to make her own life and happiness. Here is a little peek of what I said: “Women today are thinking outside of the box, really trying to go for the do-it-all lifestyle but with that comes many sideways looks or people not taking you seriously…” but, “There is a magic in the air for women right now, can you feel it? The conversations are happening around unequal pay, sexual abuse, glass ceilings, our voice, etc., and it is up to us to keep it going, keep moving forward, take chances, and be bold.” I don’t want to give the whole piece away. It was definitely worth the read and put together so well! Thank you Voyage Dallas  for featuring me and giving me great questions to work through. Click HERE to read the entire story.