Dear friends, supporters, listeners, and fellow travellers,

I want to take a moment to say thank you, truly, deeply to every one of you who has followed, supported, listened to, shared, or believed in The Artful Exchange.

It feels almost incredible to write this.

People have told me I must be crazy for starting this podcast. And maybe I was. I started it entirely in my free time, voluntarily, with no funding, no backing and during one of the hardest periods of my life.

At that time, I had lost almost all confidence in myself and in my own achievements. One failure after another had worn me down. I shut down. I lost my voice. I felt struck down and, for a while, almost hated, without ever fully understanding why. There was no single clear reason. Just the heavy, brutal feeling of being unwanted, misunderstood, and exposed.

The last few years have brought enormous change emotionally, financially, and professionally. My work direction shifted. My sense of self shifted. And in the middle of all of that, this podcast quietly became both my escape and my exposure therapy.

It helped me start believing in myself again.
It helped me slowly give my voice a voice if that makes sense.

Through The Artful Exchange, I got to do what I love most: meet people, listen deeply, and learn from their journeys from their failures as much as their achievements. From their different ways of approaching life, hope, dreams, and career choices.

I am endlessly inspired by people who do not give up. And I truly believe that is exactly what this podcast has done for me over the past two years: it gave me hope. It gave me my voice back. And it gave me the quiet confidence to step forward again and to finally stop giving a fuck about what others think.

To every single one of my guests: thank you.
Your generosity, honesty, time, and conversations have helped me more than you could ever imagine. You didn’t just share your stories you helped rebuild mine.

I am carrying all of your voices with me into 2026. And we’ll see how many more wish to join along the way. If not, then I am already profoundly grateful for these two extraordinary years and for the privilege of having walked part of the road with you.

I wish you all a blessed, gentle, and magical start to 2026.

There is an Italian saying that has stayed with me since I was a young girl. I have actually written down this saying on every piece of assignment I handed in to my teachers and proffessors over the years.

“It is better to live one day as a lion than one hundred years as a sheep.”
— Benito Mussolini

In Italian, it reads:
“Meglio vivere un giorno da leone che cent’anni da pecora.”

For me, this has never been about power or domination, but about courage. About choosing to live truthfully, even briefly, rather than safely and silently for a lifetime.

Please don’t give up on yourselves.
Keep going.
We are all good.

So much of life comes down to timing, to owning your voice, and to stopping the habit of apologising for being who you are.

So let’s stop doing that.

Welcome 2026 with courage, curiosity, and heart.

With gratitude and love,
The Poetic Designer
The Artful Exchange

In this episode I am speaking with Czech poet and multilingual Marcela Kvello. We talk about writing between languages, carrying one's homeland in words, and what happens to identity when life unfolds far from where it began.

Belonging, displacement, and the quiet strength of creating a creative life.

This episode is for anyone who has felt from somewhere and elsewhere at the same time. How adapting to a new langauge and a new culture becomes your new identity .

Tune in with us today!

@marcelakvello both on instagram and facebook

What if art wasn’t just something you looked at but something you traveled through? What if a painting could take you on a journey just as vividly as a plane ticket?” Welcome to The Artful Exchange, the podcast where we explore the power of art to connect, inspire, and tell stories across cultures.

Today, we’re taking a journey, quite literally through the world of art. My guest is Alisa, the founder of The Art Trotter, a platform dedicated to making art education accessible, engaging, and enriching for everyone.

Instagram: @the_art_trotter

Website: Learn about art online | The Art Trotter

Thank you to Next Flow Studio for help with filming and editing this episode.