Anar Joshi: Taking Your Passions Seriously

How did motherhood change your creative practice? 

I haven’t always considered myself to be a creative person. I studied engineering in school and spent most of my career in tech and retail startups building websites, mobile apps, and stores. The common thread in my career has been my love for storytelling with an eye for design. 

After becoming a mother, I relished the moments of exploring the world through my kids' eyes, especially their magical way of seeing the most mundane things as extraordinary. It reminded me of the power of art and design, inspiring me to shift my career towards a more creative path. 

I recently started my own platform, LOTA, where I curate emerging artists across art, fashion, and design and share their stories. This is a whole new professional world for me, but one that has felt most natural. My time is even precious now so spending it on doing work that feeds my soul has been a gift. This is a long way of saying, becoming a mother made me take my passions seriously and has unlocked my creative practice.

How can we support and encourage each other more?

My sister-in-law, Rupa, shifted her career from working in education to starting her own career coaching and consulting practice around the same time as I started LOTA. Rupa leads with positivity and empathy. Her disarming nature always makes me feel at ease and she is full of endless support. I feel lucky to be on this journey of shifting our careers towards more “creative” work together because finding people who understand where you are, are fully vulnerable in the process, and listen/advise/cheerlead along the way is rare. I’m grateful to have her and a growing community of incredible mothers who inspire me and give me the pushes I need to keep going. Expressing yourself through your work, art, or any other way is scary so it’s special when you can find people on the way who you can be fully yourself with. 

What do you hope your kids will learn about creativity from you?

I hope my kids hold on to the feeling of curiosity and wonderment throughout their lives, especially as their childhood innocence starts to fade. I hope they feed their creative fires, whatever version of it they have and can unleash its potential. In the Indian immigrant community, taking the “creative” path is often frowned upon - our parents were just trying to survive in a new country and wanted to ensure our success by guiding us toward a safer path. My kids’ reality is different and I hope they explore whatever that means for them. 

I hope that through the little things we do, they lean into their curiosity and sense of wonderment that will later blossom into feeding their own passions. I hope they are inspired by what I’m building with LOTA.  The creatives I feature on LOTA are from underrepresented communities and their art serves as a reminder of how connected we all are because of the very differences that define each of us. I hope these artists inspire my kids to find their own voice too. 

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Anar Joshi

lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son (5), and daughter (2). She is an entrepreneur currently building a LOTA, a platform for emerging art across art, design, and fashion featuring underrepresented artists. 

Subscribe to her Substack to for your source for emerging art from around the world. 

Website // Substack // Instagram 

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Hi! I’m Heidi. Writer. Editor. Mother. I’m interviewing 100 creative mothers, because I believe the more we see other mothers making beauty and meaning in small moments, the more we will be inspired to make our own kind of art, whatever that may look like during this intense season of life. Support the project by sharing with a friend.