How Marilena Madio Built Her 20+ Year Mural Business to 300K Followers While Raising Three Kids

Brush & Banter | A Zibra Podcast

Marilena Madio shares her twenty-year journey of building WallWear from a personal passion project into a thriving mural and community busin

Key takeaways

• Marilena Madio's Facebook following exploded from 1,000 to 75,000 followers recently after 22 years of consistent posting.
• Her mural career was sparked by painting her daughter's nursery while eight months pregnant.

Main topics

• Entrepreneurship and parenting
• Social media growth strategies

Notable quotes

If you do something that you really love, it doesn't even feel like work.

Conclusion

A testament to the power of persistence, showing that long-term dedica

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Something blew up on Facebook and I now have 75,000 followers. That's wild. But I've been posting for 22 years. Speaker 3 (0:08) I mean, the Property Brothers thing is just wild. It's like, who just gets a phone call one Speaker 2 (0:12) day? It's like, is this spam? That one episode we did the first time in 2014 was their most watched episode. I showed my kids your message and they're Speaker 1 (0:22) like, ooh, mom's getting piano bugs now. Speaker 2 (0:25) If you do something that you really love, it doesn't even feel like work. I'm not going to tell you how much storage I have on my phone. Just start painting and see if it works for you. Speaker 1 (0:39) Welcome to Brush and Banter. the podcast for creativity meets real-life hustle. Brought to you by Zebra, we go beyond perfect brushstrokes to explore the messy, magical, and meaningful side of being an artist. Speaker 1 (0:52) I'm Bree Hansen, crafter at heart, creative cheerleader, and president of Zebra. I'm Annie Boulding, muralist, designer, lover of all things that sparkle, and founder of It's a Disco Day Designs. And I'm Lauren Cooper, muralist, designer, creative mama, and founder of Rosemont Lane Design Studio. We're here to bring you conversations with working artists, practical tips to grow your creative business, and a built-in painting companion for your next project. So grab your favorite Zebra brush, pop in your headphones, and let the banter begin. Speaker 3 (1:27) Hey friends, welcome back to Brush & Banter. I'm Brie, and today's episode is one I've really been looking forward to. My guest is someone who is not only incredibly talented, but someone who has been part of the Zebra family in a really special way. I'm joined today by Marilena Maddio, the muralist and founder behind Wallware. She's based in Toronto, Canada, and she has spent over 20 years transforming walls, residential, commercial, large scale. Everything she touches, she turns into a work of art. She graduated from the University of Toronto, and she's been a member of the Wallware Foundation for over 20 years. from OCAD, one of Canada's most prestigious art and design universities, and has built wallware into so much more than a mural business. She runs a mural community for muralists, hosts live painting masterclasses, and offers one-on-one consultations for artists who want to grow their own creative careers. And if the name wallware doesn't sound familiar to you, it should. Marilena previously collaborated with us on our first muralist brush kit, which introduced a very special brush to the world. the one inch angled brush. That brush has become one of the most requested products we have ever made since it sold out a couple years ago. And today, I am thrilled to tell you that the One-Inch Angle is officially back on our website, ready for purchase, and Marilena is here to talk about it with us today. We're covering her career as an artist, how she built wallware into what it is today, and of course, how this collab came to life. Marilena, welcome to Brush & Banter. Thank Speaker 2 (2:58) you, and hello to everyone. I'm really excited to be here today. Speaker 3 (3:03) Let's start at the beginning. You graduated OCAD in Toronto. What did your path look like right after school? Did you always know you wanted to work as a professional artist or did that take time to figure out? Speaker 2 (3:16) Not really. I actually fought the fact that I was artistic and never really wanted to get into that field. To be honest with you, I thought I would go to university and become a teacher. And I thought, well, maybe I could teach art. That's about the most artistic I'm going to be. However, every single path I took kept leading me back into the art. I even applied for art school here in Toronto and didn't care much whether I got in or not. But when I did get in, once again... Everyone around me was like, are you kidding me? Like, you got into this school, you need to go. So no, I didn't have any intentions of building an art business, but I ended up following the path that led me there. I actually took jewelry design in art school and absolutely loved it. I did it for about five years after I graduated. And it was a really fun career. That's so fun. But it turned, my path turned around. But I'm super happy to be where I am today, painting murals. Speaker 3 (4:33) That's awesome. So how did you go from jewelry to murals? Speaker 2 (4:37) So I think a lot of people know my story, but my daughter's now 27. And she was... when she was born, I encountered someone who had gotten a mural done in their nursery and Speaker 2 (4:52) quickly went home and for a couple weeks kept thinking about this story of this woman telling me that she'd gotten a mural done in her nursery. I then, at around eight months pregnant, told my husband that I was going to be painting the nursery. And he was like, I don't think that's going to happen. And I'm like, no, no, I'll be fine. I could climb a ladder. I'm only eight months pregnant. Anyways, lo and behold, I painted this nursery. It was really cute and it was a lot of fun to do and still never thought anything of it. Just like had the baby and, you know, a couple months went by. Back then, maternity leave here in Canada was six months. So after six months, decided to go back to work. And then it wasn't until that year that, you know, every time someone would come visit us and they would see the mural that, you know, I started getting people asking like, when did you paint? when did you start painting? And I was like, no, no, no. Like I just painted her room. And then I had someone ask me if I would paint their home. And I was like, well, I don't really think so. Cause I wouldn't even know what to Speaker 1 (6:00) charge you. Speaker 2 (6:02) And they insisted and I painted their room and then things really turned around after that. That's awesome. I love that story. of this crazy journey. Speaker 3 (6:15) So how did you know when it was time to kind of start your business and when did you go from, okay, this could be something to becoming your full on business in your career that you have done for the past 20 years? Speaker 2 (6:30) I mean, I don't, I, it took me literally years. I raised a family while growing my business. It was my number one concern was that the more kids I had, I ended up having three children. So every year that I had another child, it made me realize that I wanted to run the business more on my own. It gave me the freedom to watch my children and still work one or two days a week back then so that I could contribute to the family. So I really, when I think about it, I was so lucky to be able to raise my family while growing my business. And as time went on and the kids got older and needed me less to be with them 24-7, then the business started growing more and more. And I would say 10 years in that I really started realizing I could turn this into a really... big successful business. And I just went with it. I really did. I did it just slowly. I wasn't one of those businesses that was like, I'm going to start a business. Let me get my name, register everything and get going. That wasn't the case for me. It was really something slow and steady. I just thought this is a great way to make a little bit of money and still take care of my kids. And then things Speaker 3 (7:54) grew. That's awesome. And impressive that you did that while raising kids because it's hard enough to start your own business. But to do it while you're raising kids, I mean, it's exhausting. Speaker 2 (8:06) Yeah, it is. It's not easy. It's definitely not easy, but it's possible. Yeah, that's great. It's just it made me realize more and more that I really love to do it. So that's why it grew, Speaker 3 (8:17) right? Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:18) Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:20) How did you get the name Wallware? Where did that come from? Speaker 2 (8:23) So actually, my business wasn't called Wallware. It was I didn't have a name. And like I said, because I didn't have any intentions of, oh, let me register a business and I'm going to grow this business. This was 27 years ago. I was like bombarded by little babies around me like that was what. So when I remember making my first business card for five years in. And it said hand-painted murals. That was my business. Hand-painted murals by Marilena. I love it. So that was, that's what everybody knew me by. I remember seven, eight years in, I got one of those decals put on the back of my car, hand-painted murals with my phone number. So it wasn't really like, like I said, it wasn't something that I had like intention, intentionally like, oh, let me start this business. It wasn't like that at all. And then I would say about, 12 years ago so halfway through my my business like you know about 13 14 years ago I started realizing that the demand got more for my murals and more people uh were requesting them and I started getting all these messages from people all around the world saying oh I want you to paint a mural for me so my thought back then was instead of me going to paint I'm gonna create decals that are hand-painted murals. So I kind of went into like this business of like printing decals and selling them and I actually was selling them on Amazon. So it was a great little business but that's when I got the name Wallware. So I ended up coming up with the name because I felt like I was dressing the walls with my work and so it actually had started as a decal part of my mural business. And then, yeah. And then when I did it for like three or four years, the problem was, is I got so busy with my murals that I couldn't keep up with the back end of the decals. It was a lot of work. It was like, you know, printing and redesigning constantly and that sort of stuff. So I ended up deciding, do I go full force into like the mural or do I? Like, you know, do I leave behind the decals for now for a little bit? So I had decided that. But then I really liked the name. So I said, OK, you