Ever since I can remember, I’ve been driven to make something of myself. Not out of ambition alone, but out of necessity. I learned to hustle at a young age, always figuring things out on my own before asking for help. I knew my parents struggled financially. I saw it first-hand, growing up in their sign shop, a small mom-and-pop business where every job mattered.
From the outside, we might have looked successful, but the reality was different. We lived paycheck to paycheck, using job deposits to pay off overdue bills before utilities got cut off. I remember the gas being shut off for a year, the stress of keeping the lights on, driving without car insurance or tags on a crumbling car, and questioning if we’d have enough money for food that day. It wasn’t just financial hardship, it was survival mode, a mindset my family carried through generations.
Learning to Hustle at 10 Years Old
That pressure weighed on me from an early age. By the time I was ten years old, I was already helping my parents with design work, permitting, and vinyl application at their shop. As I got older, I started selling my own jobs, small projects that helped me afford school dances, events, and after-school activities. Balancing school, work, and being a good student was exhausting. Sometimes, I skipped class just to help get a job out the door so we could make rent that week.
At seventeen, I moved out to pursue college, leaving with no money in my pocket but a determination to figure things out on my own. While some of my college dorm mates told me to “enjoy my youth,” I couldn’t understand what that meant. I was too busy working, studying, and just trying to survive. Socializing wasn’t a priority. I was simply doing what I had to do to keep going.
Carrying the Weight of First-Generation Expectations
I majored in graphic design because it was what I knew best. I wasn’t particularly passionate about it at the time, but I carried the dream of being a first-generation college graduate on my shoulders. My mother secretly supported my education, even when my father didn’t. I wanted to make her proud.
After college, I moved to San Diego, started a new relationship, and sold the mobile home I had invested in at twenty. I had spent years working as a graphic designer at an agency, and now I was ready to build something of my own. My husband and I started a design and production agency, and we became successful. Successful enough to buy our first home in Chula Vista.
But despite everything I had accomplished, something still felt missing.
Realizing I Wasn't Happy
I worked night and day, building a business I wasn’t even sure I loved. I felt frustrated and lost. Therapy made me realize that my work had never been about passion. It had been about survival.
And then it hit me, I hadn’t touched a paintbrush in a very long time.
Discovering My Ancestral Connection to Art
It was during my travels that I began to reconnect with my roots. In Spain, I visited Vilanova i la Geltrú, the birthplace of my great-grandfather, and learned that my family comes from a long line of resilient individuals. They fought not only for their independence but also to preserve their native tongue of Catalan in the face of Spanish colonial pressures. I discovered that I come from a lineage of passionate painters, a family who loved art yet had to set aside their creative dreams for more “practical” careers to survive.
But my grandfather, my father’s father, was the first to take the leap as an artist. In the 1930s, he became a sign painter to make a living. My father followed in his footsteps, painting signs by hand until technology disrupted the industry. When vinyl and digital design replaced traditional sign painting, my father struggled to adapt. He turned to blowing neon glass while I was just a child. I began helping with digital designs and learned to use an old program called Paint because my parents couldn’t afford a designer.
Breaking Cycles Through Art
Through therapy, I realized that my grandfather’s leap into art wasn’t just for him. It was for me. He unknowingly paved the way for me to become a full-time artist. My struggles, my survival, my path, they all led me here.
At twenty-eight, I went on a trip to Oaxaca for my birthday. That trip changed everything.
I started a 21-day abundance meditation and met incredible people, including a healer who told me I had been carrying weight on my shoulders for years and helped me release some of those emotions. I met another woman, also named Patty, who struggled with emotions and later discovered she had colon cancer. Her story shook me. It made me realize how much I had neglected myself, carrying my family’s burdens as if they were my own, and that I, too, could be in her position. I realized I needed to make some changes in my life.
When I returned home, I knew I had to create something meaningful, something bigger than just design work. That’s when Amarte was born.
Learning to Love Myself Through Amarte
I was later diagnosed with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), which explained so much. Why my emotions often felt overwhelming, why I carried so much anger, and why I struggled with relationships. It wasn’t an easy truth to accept, but it was the beginning of my true healing.
I started gardening, learning how to ground myself, and slowly picking up my paintbrush again. I realized that the best way to love myself was to create, not for money, not for survival, but for the love of art itself.
Returning to My Roots to Find Happiness
I finally understand that to build something meaningful, to make a difference, we have to know ourselves first. I had lost myself in the chase for success, in survival mode, in expectations. When I finally reached my “dream” of buying a home, I still wasn’t happy. Because I had been doing it all for the wrong reasons.
Now, I am getting to know myself again.
Five-year-old Patty is back: curious, playful, and full of sunshine.
What Amarte Means to Me
Through Amarte, I am reconnecting with everything that makes me feel alive:
- Learning sign painting, like my grandfather and father.
- Cooking Mexican meals, like my mother and grandmother.
- Understanding my indigenous roots, honoring the resilience of my ancestors.
- Gardening, painting, creating.
Amarte is about choosing to love yourself, through art, through ritual, through remembering where you came from. Because when we feel lost, the best way to find ourselves again is by returning to our roots.
This is just the beginning of my journey with Amarte, and I want to share it with you. If my story resonates with you, if you’ve ever felt lost or like you’re still figuring out what self-love means, let’s go on this journey together. Sign up for exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes looks, and the first look at Amarte’s official launch.
