BTB Episode 19: Making a Living as an Artist

On today’s episode we welcome artist Blakely Little of Blakely Made. Blakely is the first artist that we’ve had on the show.

We have known Blakely since she was in high school and it’s been amazing to watch her career evolve, especially recently. If you were to walk into an Anthropologie store today, you would find a line of dishware with Blakely’s art on it.

Blakely is inspired by the low country sky, winding waterways, and colorful marshland. Her artwork is the way she expresses the joy she has bundled up inside of her. She likes to paint the way she sees the world: full of color in unlikely places.

Today we’re chatting to Blakely about making a living as an artist and her recent collaboration with Anthropologie. She is giving us her insights into creative work, staying inspired, to creating when you don’t feel like it, and much more!

The transcript…

“[0:00:05.9] BL: I really struggled with selling my paintings just like emotionally, because I felt really guilty making people pay money for something I really like doing.

I remember this person saying, “They are not only paying for the canvas with the paint on it. They are paying for the number of years that you’ve done training. They’re paying for your studio space, and they are paying for like you to be alive and healthy and well enough to be inspired to create things basically.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:47.2] DJ: Welcome to the Brands that Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I’m your host, Davey Jones.

Today’s guest is artist Blakely Little of Blakely Made, and I’m really excited about this episode, because Blakely is the first artist that we’ve had on the show. Krista actually has one of her paintings hanging right next to our desk. We’ve known Blakely since she was in high school, and it’s been really fun watching her career evolve, especially recently.

If you were to walk into an anthropologist store today, you would find a line of dishware with Blakely’s art on it.  So in this episode we chat about making a living as an artist and her recent collaboration with anthropology. But even if you’re not an artist, there is so much great insight from Blakely in this episode about creative work from staying inspired, to creating even when you don’t feel like it and more.

Before we get to the interview, I want to mention that Blakely is trying to get a picture of someone holding something from her collaboration product line with anthropology in every store across the U.S. So if you have an anthropology near you, head on over there, take a picture with something from the line and be sure to tag @blakelymade in that picture. If you don’t have an anthropology store near you, you can find a link to those anthropology products in the show notes so that you can check them out. Be sure to check out the show notes at daveyandkrista.com for the resources that we mentioned during this episode, and I’d like to hear from you about what kind of content you’d like to see on the Brands that Book podcast as we move forward. I’d also like to know what episodes you’ve enjoyed so far and why. So to leave your feedback, head on over to the Davey and Krista Facebook page and send us a message.

Now, on to the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:43.7] DJ:  All right, Blakely. Thank you so much for joining me on this show this morning. I’m so glad that we are finally able to make this work.

[0:02:50.4] BL: I know. I know. I’m happy to be here. We’ve got lots of fun things to talk about.

[0:02:54.2] DJ: I know you had a busy May-June. We also had a busy May-June. This is my first –

[0:02:58.4] BL: Yeah, different reasons.

[0:02:59.9] DJ: Yeah, of different reasons. This is my first episode back post-baby.

[0:03:05.2] BL: Well, congratulations to you and Krista.

[0:03:07.4] DJ: Yeah, thank you.

[0:03:08.5] BL: Baby Zach is adorable.

[0:03:10.5] DJ: Thank you. We think so too, but we keep on asking ourselves, “Are we just biased? We’re probably a little bit biased, but we think he’s pretty darn cute.”

[0:03:18.6] BL: Maybe a little, but he is really cute.

[0:03:21.7] DJ: Well, I’ve been really excited for this interview for a number of reasons. One, because we’ve known each other for a long time; and two, because you are the first artist that we’ve had on the show and when I came up with an original list of people that I wanted to reach out to, Krista was actually, “You got to reach out to Blakely,” and I thought that would be a great idea.

[0:03:42.1] BL: That’s sweet.

[0:03:43.2] DJ: I’m glad that we finally got you out here. Then also, going back to I think we met for the first time, you were either in high school or just graduated from high school, right?

[0:03:53.5] BL: Yeah. I think I was in high school still. Yeah. Something like that.

[0:03:57.7] DJ: Yeah. So we both have a background in young life, and I helped out. So we both are from the same area. I think you were a junior leader and I was a leader and we shared good mutual friends. So that was the first time. I don’t remember – And this is a perfect way to kind of kick off. We have so much stuff to talk about. For those of you who don’t know Blakely, you can actually see her art in anthropology, and we’re going to get to that. But just as a little teaser there. But this is a good segue to talk about how did you get into art? Because I don’t remember back when you were in high school. I don’t remember that coming up necessarily, but I assume that it was something you’re interested in.

[0:04:33.7] BL: Yeah. I basically started taking painting class when I was at high school. I’ve always kind of crafty growing up, but never would say that translated into like a major passion for art. Then in high school, started taking painting classes, really loved it. Going into college, I was thinking I was going to do business and marketing stuff. I really liked leadership, entrepreneurial stuff. Then found out when I got into College of Charleston, that they had an arts management program, which basically means you learn the business side of the arts. So you take economics, you take business law. So you take half of your classes in the business school, and then you’re also taking art classes, like gallery fundamentals, grant writing. All kinds of like nonprofit classes, and then also for profit classes, like marketing stuff.

My favorite class in college was called understanding creativity. So it had a lot to do with understanding the mind and how to kind of turn this into a job and how you become creative even when you’re feeling uninspired or things like that. 

[0:05:48.3] DJ: Yeah, that sounds really interesting. So when you took on that major, did you think that you were going to go into art as a career as an artist, or did you think you were going to work in like a museum? I’m sure there’re other things you could probably do with art than work in a museum.

[0:06:05.5] BL: Right.

[0:06:06.9] DJ: What did you think you were going to be doing when you got out of school?

[0:06:10.1] BL: Yeah. So I took on that major and then I had a minor in studio art. My minor in studio art was all your typical drawing, painting classes. That was just kind of for fun, because I love that outlet. So I did not think I was going to be an artist. I thought I would manage an artist or a few artists or work for a gallery. I never was super interested in doing a museum just because I’m terrible with memorizing history and all that stuff, but gallery was kind of the direction I think I was probably headed in. Then that all kind of changed my junior year.

[0:06:49.2] DJ: So what happened your junior year that put you on this different trajectory towards being an artist yourself?

[0:06:55.9] BL: I never really got to spend an entire semester or entire batch of classes working on my style, my art. Then I kind of randomly ended up in this really intense but amazing art program, like study abroad program in Florence, Italy. I don’t know what reason I had for wanting to go to this really intense school, but I got in kind of on a whim. I guess they saw something in portfolio that I did not see. But I got to spend the semester taking all art classes.

So I was in a marble sculpting class, an advanced painting class and a photography class. I was surrounded by these people that were in art school back in the U.S. So they just had this kind of crazy about them that their brain was so focused on their style and their art and everything they did kind of fed into that, and I loved it.

I had this painting professor named Lorenzo –

[0:08:03.0] DJ: A super Italian name I feel like.

[0:08:04.6] BL: Oh, yeah. He was so Italian.

[0:08:04.5] DJ: It’s a solid art Italian name.

[0:08:07.1] BL: Yeah.

[0:08:08.0] DJ: So Italian he wore these circle red glasses. He was the best. But at the beginning of the semester he was like super confused by me, because I was this cheery little blonde girl in a bright pink coat that was playing James Taylor in like this intense art school. He was like, “Who is this girl?” But he kept telling me that he saw a lot of like joy in my personality and he just kept saying, “I want to see your personality come out in your artwork.” I was like, “Okay.”

So I just kind of let loose and painted things that I was seeing in Italy, and about halfway through the semester he said, “Every time I talk to you, all you talk about is your family back home and how much you love them, and growing up and how awesome that was.” He was like, “I think you should start to paint memories.”

So I started painting these memories I had from growing up just being on my family’s back porch and going sailing with my dad and –

[0:09:06.2] DJ: I should mention here too, your family’s back porch. I mean, it overlooks the Severn.

[0:09:13.6] BL: Right.

[0:09:14.5] DJ: I mean, it overlooks the Severn River. It’s beautiful. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that people have that context.

[0:09:19.5] BL: Yes. Yes. So that kind of sparked this new style of mind that was really impressionistic, had a ton of colors. I like to use a lot of shades of one color and kind of build up into a bigger color. That’s kind of where it all started. When I was leaving Italy, Lorenzo said to me, “You are my star of this semester because you’ve grown so much.” That just like changed everything for me, because I felt like all of a sudden my work had a purpose and it felt like me and it felt that joy that I kind of have was coming out into my work and people were seeing that. So that’s when I started to think, “Okay, maybe I could do this for real.”

[0:10:07.2] DJ: Yeah, that’s incredible. I mean, it’s just so great too that you have somebody like Lorenzo that could speak so positively in your life and really change things from there. Real quick, I have to ask, because that wasn’t the only class you took. Did you say marble sculpting?

[0:10:22.1] BL: Yes, I took marble sculpting.

[0:10:23.9] DJ: How did that turn out?

[0:10:25.2] BL: Oh my gosh! That was like one of my favorite classes. We actually got to go to the marble quarries in Carrera. I don’t know if I’m saying that right. I lost my Italian accent, but it’s where Michelangelo would go to pick up his marble. It’s a beautiful white marble for all of his sculptures. The funny thing was is we’re like walking up this gravel road, and then I realized, “This road isn’t gravel. It is just tiny chunks of marble.

[0:10:53.0] DJ: I feel like that’s the most expensive place in the world.

[0:10:55.0] BL: Exactly.

[0:10:56.7] DJ: And also the most expensive class.

[0:10:58.6] BL: Yeah. The cool thing was we got to pick little pieces of marble that were kind of these left over pieces and take them back to the studio and we hand-carved marble, and of course, made a little sailboat. I carved the bottom so that it rocks. So when you like push it, it doesn’t tip over, but it rocks back and forth.

[0:11:19.5] DJ: Do you still have that?

[0:11:21.0] BL: Oh, yeah. I love that thing.

[0:11:22.4] DJ: Have you been back to Italy since this trip?

[0:11:26.4] BL: I have not. Curtis, my husband, spent a summer there. So we’ve been traveling like to other places and we keep saying we need to go back, because I’ve never – He was a lifeguard in [inaudible 0:11:39.8] for a summer. So he wants to show me that area. I obviously want to show Florence to him. So we definitely have the trip in our mind, but we just haven’t booked the tickets yet. .

[0:11:53.3] DJ: Yeah, for sure. So getting back to this transition, so you get back home or back to Charleston rather, and was it really what Lorenzo said that made you think, “Okay. I can do this as a living. I can make a living being an artist,” or are there other things that contributed to that transition?

[0:12:12.5] BL: I would say that when I got back, I was kind of going back forth. Then Lulie Wallace, who is an incredible artist, and then Teil Duncan dunk, another incredible artist, the two of them are my friends, because we went to the same church. They were a couple years ahead of me, and I came into their studio and was showing them my work, and I’d worked for Lulie while I was in college and was helping Teil out with a show she was doing. They were complementing on my work, and it was really sweet.

Then the next day I came back, Teil said to me, “Lulie and I were talking and we really think that you could do this.” I was like, “What do you to mean?” She was like, “We’ve seen your work and we really think that if you pushed it, that you could be an artist.”

So that was kind of – They had the business side down and the art side, and Lorenzo really encouraged my art side, and the business side is something I already kind of enjoyed. So their words to me of encouragement kind of were the ones that basically gave me the gut to just go for it. They said, “Just paint 15 to 20 paintings of one thing that you love and see what happens.”

So that’s what I did all my last year of college, was just I painted a lot of pieces that’s kind of odd, but of the Port here in Charleston. I really like the industrial lines of the port against the really organic lines of the water. So I painted a lot of that and then kind of moved into, “Okay. Well, inspires me the most?” and I feel most at home by the water. So I was painting sailboats and all kinds of harbor scenes. So I just kind of pushed that and pushed that and pushed that until I thought I could never paint a boat again. Then they came and looked at it on, kind of help me critique what they thought was great and what was not so great. That really was the first step I took towards becoming a real artist.

[0:14:21.0] DJ: Is that something you still practice today? So like when you decided, “I could be an artist.” I mean, how many painting do you produce that nobody ever sees?

[0:14:31.7] BL: Yeah. That’s the funny part, is everyone thinks that I just crank out a ton of pieces and sell them all. I’m like, “Well, there’s usually –” I would say there’s usually maybe like five or so that never end up anywhere per series.

[0:14:45.7] DJ: For everyone that you create.

[0:14:48.1] BL: Per series.

[0:14:48.6] DJ: Per series. Per series.

[0:14:49.9] BL: Basically, the way I work is I’ll come up with an idea for a new series. I’ll do probably like five to eight and then hate some of them and love some of them. The ones that I love, I’ll then push in that direction and do 10 more, 20 more. But the ones that I hate, I drove away or paint over basically.

[0:15:12.3] DJ: Sure. I mean, that’s time-consuming. So five sounds like maybe a small number, but I assume that it doesn’t take you 10 minutes to crank out a painting.

[0:15:22.0] BL: Yeah. That’s a day’s worth of work, which that’s one of the frustrating parts, is on a day where you feel like you didn’t accomplish anything because you don’t love what you produced at the end of it. But then days come along where you can produce two or three smaller pieces on one day and you love all of them. So it kind of fluctuates.

[0:15:44.0] DJ: But I also think that there’s a valuable lesson in there just about creating, creating all the stuff that doesn’t work so that you can get to the stuff that does work. I think I struggle with this, where I will sometimes sit and wait to create the perfect piece of content, but really what I need to do is maybe just start writing so that I can get to it even though I’m going to trash most of it and I’m going to go back and revise a dozen times.

[0:16:11.2] BL: That’s what I kind of always tell people. I’m like, “You need to mess up five times before you get to something good.”

[0:16:16.9] DJ: Yeah.

[0:16:17.3] BL: And that’s the cool thing. In my studio right now, I watch Lulie and Teil and – I’m in the studio also with Raven Roxanne and Jane Pope Jewelry, but all of them are older than I am and they still do the same thing. We may start on a series, and by the end the first piece looks totally different than last piece. Sometimes they pitch the first piece or paint over it. To some people it might seem like it’s a great painting, but to us it doesn’t. The way our mind works we’re like, “No. This is not good.”

[0:16:52.2] DJ: Sure. Tell me about the business side of things and where you started. Other than pricing, where do you start in terms of deciding, “Okay. I’m going to make this – I’m going to make a business out of my art.”

[0:17:06.9] BL: Yeah. So that was kind of more the arts management side. I learned so much about marketing. I remember in one class, an artist came in and spoke, and I really struggled with selling my paintings just like emotionally, because I felt really guilty making people pay money for something I really like doing.

I remember this person saying, “They are not only paying for the canvas with the paint on it. They are paying for the number of years that you’ve done training. They’re paying for your studio space, and they are paying for like you to be alive and healthy and well enough to be inspired to create things basically.”

So it just made me realize how much bigger this was than just a piece of canvas with some paint on it. So that’s when I started to realize like, “Okay. If I can’t make a living off of this, then it’s not going to go anywhere. Then my art will kind of just end. It just is going to stay something fun that I do, rather than like anything bigger than myself.”

So I would say that was kind of the first thing that pushed me in the direction of like pricing things and just learning how to do that so that I wasn’t – I also never want to demean someone else’s art. So I think when it’s your own, you’re like, “It’s not worth that much.”

But one of my favorite things to spend money on is art, because I love it. The pieces I have in my home, I’d see different things in it every day and I adore it. So I have to understand that other people think that way about my work and that was just like a slow process for me, because I’m like, “Surely not.”

[0:19:01.4] DJ: So at what point did someone buy – Or do you remember selling your first piece of artwork?

[0:19:06.4] BL: Yes.

[0:19:06.6] DJ: Or first piece of art?

[0:19:08.5] BL: Yeah. I have two stories. So I would say that summer after I went to Italy, I tried to sell a couple pieces. My kindergarten teacher from growing up, she bought my first piece of artwork that I sold. It was kind of this flower painting and it was just really sweet. She came to my house and she’d seen it online or whatever and she loved it. She bought that, and that was really cool.

Then that summer I sold a couple of smaller pieces, but didn’t really have any direction with it. Then in terms of after graduating, and I had done all of those harbor pieces that I talked about earlier and I put them up on a website that Krista made actually. Shout out to Krista. I put them up there and I think Teil Instagramed about me or something, and I woke up one morning and two pieces had sold to this woman in Michigan. I lost my [inaudible 0:20:12.2]. I was so excited. It was like two pieces. I’m sure they were like 50 bucks each, and I was like, “$100? Here we come. We’re doing it baby.”

[0:20:24.5] DJ: So how did you transitioned to – I mean, so how did you start pricing your work? Because I think maybe there’s stuff on your website now that’s a little bit closer to $50, but there’s also stuff that’s well over a thousand dollars on your website now. So how did you go about figuring out what to price your work at?

[0:20:45.6] BL: Yeah. So I basically priced it all at size, because some people price it by the amount of time that they spend on art work, on a certain piece. But for me, some pieces finish in hours. Sometimes it takes days. So I kind of – I sort of paint and then get frustrated and move on to another piece. Then sometimes I can step back and I feel like I hit the sweet spot where I’m like, “I know what this painting is going to look like.” Then I just kind of can crank it out really quickly, because I can see it and it makes sense and the light is going in the right direction and the colors are starting to work.

So if I bid it by time, it just like wouldn’t really make sense, because sometimes you hit that sweet spot really early and sometimes it takes forever. So I do it all by size and I can paint generally pretty quickly. If I’m doing similar pieces that are like 5×5, I can probably do three or four of those in a day and I work on them at all once.

So those – I like to price things almost just at a lower price point because – Or not a lower price point, but just a reasonable price point, because I can paint quickly and I am not working through a gallery for my main income. So I sell on my website or through my studio, and that means I don’t have to split commission with anybody. That’s kind of the way it works though, by size.

[0:22:18.2] DJ: Do you also take commissions as well? I don’t even know if I’m phrasing this right, but basically can somebody hire you to create a custom piece?

[0:22:27.9] BL: yeah.

[0:22:28.4] DJ: How does that work?

[0:22:29.7] BL: I only do commissions that are larger or you have multiple small pieces, just because it’s a little bit more time consuming. But basically if you have a scene that you love, then you can email me and I send you this commission guidelines and pricing and then we decide on a size and a photo, or if you don’t want me to work from a photo and you’ve just seen a piece of mine that you love, then we work through colors. Then I’ll do a sketch and then paint it, paint the piece and then send the client an image of that. Then have the client approve it or they get two rounds of changes. Then once we get that final approval, I have people pay half upfront and then once I get that final approval, they pay the second half and then ship it to them.

[0:23:20.3] DJ: Does it have to be a coastal scene?

[0:23:24.9] BL: No. No. It doesn’t.

[0:23:26.3] DJ: Okay.

[0:23:26.3] BL: I think, generally, people like think of me in that realm.

[0:23:30.9] DJ: Yeah, that’s what comes to mind for me.

[0:23:33.2] BL: Yeah. One of my favorite commissions I did was there was a woman who reached out to me and her father had passed away and so they decided that after this particular Christmas that they were going to sell the family home and the mom was going to move into one of the kid’s houses, but they lived on the marsh and it was this gorgeous low country view.

So they had me paint this low country scene and they gave the mom the original painting for Christmas. Then I was able to get prints made of the piece that were given to each one of the kids as a Christmas gift as well. It’s just sweet when you know the story behind it, and that just like meant so much to them to have this. Not only – I always say like a photograph can capture so much, but then sometimes a painting, like if you describe the feeling, you can try and capture that feeling in the painting. I guess you can do it with a photograph too, but I love thinking about, “Okay. There’s a little bit of nostalgia in this,” and how can we sort of capture this feeling that they’re having about this view into this piece.

[0:24:50.3] DJ: Yeah. I would think with a painting, and you can do this with a photograph a little bit, but maybe in a different way. You can almost editorialize a little bit more of the scene than you can do with a photograph.

[0:25:01.4] BL: Yeah. I mean, it’s easy in a painting to make the water pink. Not so easy in a photograph.

[0:25:07.5] DJ: Yes. Yes. So how did you begin to market your – I mean, was it all word of mouth? I know you have great – I mean, from my point of view at least, it seems that you have great word of mouth now. But was it through – I mean, what are some of the things that you as an artist did to get word out there?

[0:25:24.5] BL: Yeah. So I kind of started this business when it was a little bit easier on Instagram to get a following. The algorithm now gets a little bit more complicated. But I feel like I got into Instagram sort of at a good time. Then really reached out to bloggers and people – Like interior designers in Charleston that had an influence, and just kind of pitched myself to them and my work and got feedback from them and tried to build those connections.

Every one of those like little features would start to create this sort of excitement around my work and people start talking about it. So then it’s slowly but surely kind of started to take off. But I would say it definitely started with blogs and Instagram. 

[0:26:16.4] DJ: As far as building relationships go with the interior designers and so on in your area, what did that look like? Did you just send them an email?

[0:26:25.2] BL: Yeah, I basically send them an email with a couple of photos of my work and said, “I take commissions, and here’s kind of the next two upcoming series that I have going on. I offer interior design discount.” Yeah, it kind of just started there. Then through them, I got contacted or connected with a couple of little shops in the area. So I started selling prints through them. I think also majorly lucked out being friends with Lulie and Teil and Raven, because like I said, they were really awesome artists that were a little bit ahead of me and just being friends with them and being associated with them. That kind of helped me gain a following right off the bat.

[0:27:13.2] DJ: Yeah, and you’ve done art shows back here in Annapolis as well.

[0:27:17.9] BL: Yeah, yeah. So I’ve done art shows in a couple of cities. Basically, I’ve had – The typical gallery artist relationship is more of a long term show that last a couple weeks or months or whatever. I do that in cities where I don’t feel like I have a super great connection or good following. Then in cities where I do feel like that, like Annapolis, being from there or here in Charleston, then I’ll do like a one day or a weekend sort of popup show and kind of run that all myself.

[0:27:56.2] DJ: Yeah, so that’s really interesting. I assume that when you run these weeks long show, you don’t necessarily have to be there all the time, right?

[0:28:02.4] BL: No.

[0:28:03.1] DJ: You can kind of hang your art in a place and then people can go and look at it.

[0:28:06.9] BL: Totally, yeah. So I just did one in Cape Cod, a market that I haven’t really topped into, but I feel like would fit my work really well. So I did that. It was a month long show, and then ended up doing some smaller travel paintings from that. But because I kind of gained a following while I was there, these little Cape Cod pieces sold really well, and the pieces in the show sold pretty well. Just the gallery’s connection in that area is super valuable to me, because they’re kind of tapping into this market that I don’t know super well.

[0:28:41.0] DJ: When you sell at a gallery, do you have to split your commission with somebody?

[0:28:44.4] BL: Yeah. I split it usually 50-50.

[0:28:46.5] DJ: Okay. With the gallery.

[0:28:48.3] BL: Yeah.

[0:28:48.6] DJ: So if you go up to Cape Cod, let’s say, and your art sells pretty well, then I assume that helps the relationship, right? Because the gallery is trying to make money as well.

[0:28:57.9] BL: Yeah, exactly. So generally that’s because 50% for me for painting the pieces, coming up the creative idea, yadi-ya, and then 50% for them, because they work towards doing all the marketing and bringing in the clients and making the sale at the end of the day.

[0:29:15.9] DJ: Yeah. Yeah. So do you stick to coastal towns, because that’s really – A lot of your work is based on coastal scenes?

[0:29:24.0] BL: Yeah, mostly, but I’ve done a show – Done shows in Raleigh and in Charlotte before, but generally people that live there sort of have connections to the low country Charleston, or just the East Coast in general. So I feel like that kind of people still like understand and feel connection to the work even though they live in – Also, have done stuff in Atlanta. But yeah, I think most people generally have some sort of connection to the coast and hopefully feel something when they’re there and that my artwork maybe reminds them of that. 

[0:29:58.8] DJ: Yeah. Well, let’s transition to talk about anthropology, because one thing I think I remember of you back in the day, so to speak, is that you worked at an anthropology store.

[0:30:08.6] BL: Yes, I did.

[0:30:09.7] DJ: Right? So now, just to give this some context, you can – Somebody could walk into an anthropology store right now and find your art on plates, bowls –

[0:30:21.7] BL: Dish towels.

[0:30:22.4] DJ: Dish towels, yes. There’s a whole line of stuff. What else? I should maybe prevent Krista from listening to this episode, because you’re going to list so many more things than what we have already, and we already have plates, we already have bowls and we use them every day.

[0:30:38.3] BL: Oh! That makes me so happy.

[0:30:39.8] DJ: Yeah. So how did that come about? Was this a connection you made back when you were working in an anthropology store, or is this something that was pretty much totally unrelated to that?

[0:30:49.9] BL: Yeah, I think it’s totally unrelated to be totally honest with you. I worked all through college, or I first interned with anthro, the one in Annapolis, and did their display internship. So I was making all the window displays, and I loved it. I mean, it was like my favorite thing I’ve ever done, and kind of thought maybe I would do that after I graduated. Then I actually worked doing floral design and then was kind of doing the painting thing at night and just never really got back to anthropology. I always loved the company and loved working for them and thought maybe I’d end up working there someday, but didn’t.

So fast-forward four years later – This is hilarious — no lie, cleaning my bathroom floor, like scrubbing on my knees in my bathroom floor, like feeling like Cinderella before she met her prince. My phone rings and I got an email and I flip it over and it says, “Anthropology,” and I’m like, “Oh, 20% off dresses. Whatever.”

Then I flipped it back over and don’t even think about it, and then I was like, “Oh, wait. The subject line said artist collaboration.” Of course, I think it’s just the local anthropology here. I used to work there.

[0:32:11.6] DJ: They want to hang some of your art in the store or something like that.

[0:32:14.2] BL: Yeah, they want do a popup shop, whenever. I’m like, “Oh, sure.” So I look at it and then I see the first line and it says, “Hi Blakely, we’ve been calling your work for a while, and we love this series and wanted to do a dishware collection with your work on it.” With that, my eyes went cross-eyed and I couldn’t read the rest of the email because I was so excited.

[0:32:41.9] DJ: What’s the first thing you did?

[0:32:43.9] BL: Yeah. So I forward the email to my husband and I called him and I was like, “You have to read this email to me, because I can’t see.” He’s reading it to me over the phone and he’s freaking out and we’re both screaming. Anthro is like my favorite company. I love the way they create the designs for their stories. I love the way they work with artists. I love the displays that they – How the displays in every store is different. So it was just such an easy yes, because it was such a dream come true, because they’re aesthetic, fits mine so well, and I was just thrilled.

So the crazy thing though was I get this email, I immediately say yes. I’m like, “Okay. We need these 15 paintings,” and they gave me like two weeks to come up with the paintings. All the ones they wanted had already sold, so I had to re-create them in a way, and I was like panicked. This is the hardest I’ve ever worked. Two weeks to create 15 paintings.

[0:33:47.3] DJ: So they already knew, and they said they’ve been following you for a while. I’d be so interested to know when they started following you and who was – That would just be so interesting to me.

[0:34:00.5] BL: Well and it’s funny too, because at the beginning of every year, I create goals or just kind of dreams that I would like to happen for my business. Because I’m an extrovert and needs somebody to talk to about this, usually Curtis and I have like a business meeting and I’m like, “Okay. I don’t have an assistant or anybody that works for me,” so I’m like, “I need you to talk through these goals with me.”

One of the things Curtis said was, “Do you think you’re ready to promote your work or submit your work to a larger company, like anthropology?” I was like, “No. No. No. I’m totally not ready for that.” Then literally one month later, beginning of February, they’re like, “We’ve seen your work.” I was like [inaudible 0:34:39.8].

[0:34:40.8] DJ: Oh man! That’s awesome.

[0:34:43.3] BL: Super cool.

[0:34:44.2] DJ: yeah. So they’d already seen – I mean, they’ve obviously been following you. They had seen your work and they choose specific paintings that I guess were on your website. They just take screenshots of them and send them over and say, “Hey, we want these.”

[0:34:55.0] BL: Yup. That’s pretty much what happened.

[0:34:57.2] DJ: So you said you had to re-create them. Why couldn’t you just like print them and send them back?

[0:35:03.2] BL: Yeah. So basically they take the original paint – I sent them the original paintings, because they want to color match everything. They want to see the real paint in real life and make sure what they’re printing on their pillows, or dishtowels, or whatever looks as similar to the colors as possible. Some of that was easier to do and I just got high-res photos taken up the paintings that I did and send those over. But some of them I had to send the real paintings and they kind of took it from there.

[0:35:39.5] DJ: Yeah. I mean, that’s incredible. I think too, I mean to – Just speaks of, I think, anthropology’s integrity towards the artist, right? Because it’s easy for you to send something over via the computer and the colors to be off a little bit and them just kind of not care about it and do it in this sort of a half-baked way. But they actually wanted to see the actual painting.

[0:36:00.8] BL: They’re really amazing about that. You kind of get to be a part of the process of creating. There was one plate that I really loved. It was the sailboat plate, but I was like it looks off to me because it’s a circle. So I need you to move the image over like 2 inches and they were like, “Oh! That sounds great.” They take your feedback and sometimes I suggest things and they’re like, “We have the pieces in person and we think they look great this way.” So you kind of have to trust them, but because they work really closely with you, you feel like you can. I always felt like they were taking care of my work really well.

[0:36:38.0] DJ: Yeah. I mean, that just incredible here, because they’re a massive company and I just think that sometimes when companies get that big, they can cut corners. I think that’s just incredible to hear that they took that much care of your work. I guess, in a way, I mean it’s kind of your reputation on the line, right? If your work doesn’t –

[0:36:56.1] BL: Totally.

[0:36:56.6] DJ: Your works would then be printed in thousands of stores and in a way that doesn’t honor the original work and the work that you can create. So that’s just so credible to hear that anthropology went through that process of working closely with you and taking feedback from you.

So, I mean, how did you go about promoting this? I mean, we’ve been following you forever. We have one of your larger pieces of artwork hangs right by Krista’s desk. Yeah. So we’ve been big fans for a long time now. So, of course, when we first that your work was in anthropology, Krista went and ordered all of the stuff. A lot of it, it’s been her go to gift for people recently. But beyond friends and family and people on Instagram who follow you, how you promoted this?

[0:37:45.1] BL: Yeah. First off all, thank you. You guys are the best. Always been big supporters, and I appreciate that. Yeah. So it’s been really interesting. I kind of threw out a bunch of ideas of ways to promote this collaboration. The one that really ended up sticking and kind of decided to run with was this idea of let’s get a photo of somebody with my work in every anthropology story. There’re over 200 stores in the U.S. and you can go into the stores, you can see a little display that has my dishware, and then there’s a sign that says, “Blakely made,” and then there is a little description about me.

So it’s been really fun seeing all these. I guess – So I put it on my Instagram story, and then people have been responding back with images of them with all the pieces, and it’s been so fun seeing everybody in the different stores all over the U.S. I even got some international ones, which is been kind of crazy. Somebody from Germany sent me one. A few friends of mine were in London and they saw it. So it’s really interesting, because it helps me to realize how much bigger all of these. It’s been just this little studio that I’m in everything, but it’s really fun.

Because then I always say, like the people I want to market to are the people – The friends of the people that already love my work. So if they’re then posting on their Instagram story about my pieces, then it’s likely that a couple of their followers will see it and be like, “Oh! I enjoy this as well.” So it not only promotes my artwork, but it promotes the pieces in anthropology and the whole collaboration.

[0:39:39.9] DJ: Yeah, I think that was just an ingenious way of going about and promoting this and making this a successful endeavor, because I assume on one hand too you want to make this as successful as possible for anthropology as well. Are there still stores available where people could go and take a picture and be kind of the first person in that city?

[0:39:55.7] BL: Yeah, I totally. If you do, you get 20% off my website, which is I don’t usually give discounts. So that everyone was very excited about that.

[0:40:04.8] DJ: We’re going to have to get an updated list from you when this episode goes live so that if any listeners are out there in a place where you haven’t got a picture of that store yet, they can go out there. How much longer will your stuff – Do you know? Will they run it for a specific amount of time?

[0:40:20.9] BL: Yes. So I think like end of July is when they’ll start phasing it out, but it will also – I think it will go into the sale sections. So it’d still be available. I know most of the coastal stores, it’s obviously doing a little bit better than maybe in land, but it’s been really fun to see especially here in Charleston. I went in the other day to just pick up one of the plates to give as a gift to somebody, and it was so cute. There are a couple of people in there and they were like, “Is this you?” I was like, “Yeah, it is!”

I think they kind of thought I would be little snobby about it, and I was like, “This is crazy!” So I’m just like blown away by it all as everyone else is kind of nuts.

[0:41:05.3] DJ: Yeah. We’re actually going to have to push up the episode release date so that people have the opportunity to go in and actually see your work in the anthropology stores if they want to. If you’re not near an anthropology store, I think Krista got most of the stuff online, because we’re over on the eastern shore, so we’re relatively close to Annapolis, but I think she orders stuff online.

[0:41:25.9] BL: Yup. It’s all available online.

[0:41:28.1] DJ: Yeah. So you can go online and find that stuff. That’s incredible. I think that’s just – And hopefully this is the start of an ongoing relationship maybe with anthropology, or gives you the – I mean, I think at the very least it’s a validation of what Curtis was pushing you towards at the beginning of the year, that you’re totally ready to go out and reach out to some of these longer, or these larger companies for collaborations.

As we transition, as we close here, I do want to ask you sort of a nonbusiness question here, and it’s about staying inspired. I know something that you mentioned towards the beginning of the interview a number of times was that you go out and you create series. Just following your work, I occasionally see you in different coastal areas.

So we recently had mentioned Cape Cod. You’ve been to other places too where you create series of works around in those locations. Is that part of staying inspired? Just getting out and going to different areas?

[0:42:18.4] BL: Yeah, that’s a huge part of staying inspired. I love traveling. One of the things that I think always intrigues me about the water is it looks so different in different places and the terrain around it is so different. That was what was so cool about going to Cape Cod and doing these little travel paintings, because it’s a rocky coast. There’s marsh, but it looks different than the low country. The trees are different. Just sort of like the feeling and the colors are there different.

So that for me – Yeah, traveling is huge. I love doing these little series based off of places that I’ve been and that I love and try to capture that feeling of how it was while I was there. The people I met, the shops I was in, kind of all that feeling goes into these pieces.

Then sometimes, I mean, I work pretty much 9 to 5 every day, like a normal job aside from when I’m traveling. So some of staying inspired is just taking a walk, or even going to friends’ studios and seeing what they’re working on. Obviously, I love boating. So going out and kind of boating through the marsh are going to the beach, stuff like that kind of always gets me excited and fired all over again.

But I do – I’m like a big advocate of creatives need to – It’s important to like understand that it’s a job. So there’s going to be times where you’re not inspired and you still got to work. Whether you’re painting or not, I think that’s true. Sometimes, basically, usually the way I structure my day is from 9 to noon I’ll do business stuff. So like emails, and marketing stuff, and contacting, blogs, or working with magazine, stuff like that, then I’ll eat lunch. Then after lunch, I feel like I can take a deep breath and do some painting.

Obviously, that fluctuates depending on like what deadlines I have and what I have going on. If it’s a bad day or I feel funky about painting, then really just like a walk around the city or even like – I know this is like such a girl thing, but going shopping. Seeing like cool fabrics and textures and – There’s tons of creatives in Charleston. So just getting out and like seeing new things, it helps me get inspired.

[0:44:47.0] DJ: So one of the things that you mentioned was going to friends’ studios to seeing what they’re working on. Has that ever been a source of – I don’t know, whatever the opposite is of inspiration? Seeing somebody else’s work and being like, “Oh man! That is such a brilliant piece of work, or a brilliant idea,” and thinking, “I’m just dry out of them right now.” Because you work in a studio with a lot of other talented artists is well.

[0:45:10.6] BL: Totally. Yeah, I would say sometimes. I mean, my personality in general I would say doesn’t like turn towards that. Sometimes I’ll see people’s work and I’m like, “You’re a genius, and what am I doing?” But it never bends towards stress. I’m just like, “I got to work,” or “I got to get going,” because like I know that so-and-so is creating this amazing thing and I got to get going and find my amazing thing.

So it’s more like encouraging than it is frustrating, but I definitely have days where it’s silly, but I have a ton of art books. So like van Gosh, Monet, all the master, and almost looking at those makes me more anxious. I’m like, “I’m never going to be as good as van Gogh,” but like also, it’s van Gogh. You can’t be too hard on yourself.

[0:45:59.4] DJ: I feel like you have a little bit of a history here. All right? Just judging from this, where you say something like that and then all of a sudden the opposite happens. You’re not ready to reach out to companies, and all of a sudden a company reaches out to you.

One of the things that I thought that’s sticking with me from earlier in this interview is just this concept that you’re going to create pieces of work that don’t turn out that nobody is ever going to see, and you just understand that that’s part of the process. I think that’s inspiration for me, because I tend to air on the side of just feeling stuck, but really what I need to do is create so that I can get to those better pieces.

[0:46:39.4] BL: Yeah. I think this pertains more to an artist, but sometimes it helps me to switch things up. Instead of working really large, I’ll work really small or I’ll do like a little watercolor on paper. One of the things I also try to do is push myself out of just my painting medium. So I’ll do a Linocut print, which is you take linoleum and kind of carve out basically a stamp. So just little things like that that when I’m feeling exhausted or tired of what I’m doing pushes me out of it and gets me kind of going in a new direction and helps me get out of my swamp.

[0:47:19.1] DJ: So what are – I guess one other question, how much does Curtis get to hang out in the business? It sounds like he has a relatively active role in terms of at least the planning at the beginning of the year and just, I’m sure, being supportive.

[0:47:33.9] BL: Yeah. Totally. It’s so funny. Curtis is introverted and I’m extroverted. So he would probably say he has nothing do it with it, because all he does is listen. But I need somebody to talk to and like role through ideas with, because I can’t get through things if I don’t talk it all out. So it’s Curtis and it’s the girls in my studio.

Because, I mean, our walls only go three quarters of the way out. So I’m yelling constantly over the walls to Teil, and Lulie, and Raven, and Jane and asking them questions. Id it’s really great working in the studio with women that just create this community around each other. Because they’ll come in and say, “I really like this piece. Push this one harder, because I don’t see it quite yet,” and it doesn’t feel mean. I can take that criticism really well, because I know that they love me and they want me the best artist that I can be. So they’re kind of helping push that.

So I would say it’s Curtis, but it’s also the girls in the studio that really help me kind of stay on track and work through ideas and tell me when I need to push things harder or when I need to just stop right there, because something looks awesome or whatever.

[0:48:51.2] DJ: Yeah, that’s great. I mean, it’s just great to have people like that in your life and throughout your life, like going back to Lorenzo. Where can people find more – I mean, they can walk into anthropology store and figure out more about you for sure. They can go online and order any of that dishware stuff from anthropology online. But if people want to go to some places where specifically they can find out about you, where can they go?

[0:49:16.4] BL: Yeah. So they can go to blakelymade.com, Blakely, B-L-A-K-E-L-Y M-A-D-E, and that’s where I sell most of my artwork, and I have prints on there, cute little products. So that’s kind of where I sell the bulk of my stuff. But also kind of the best way to follow along is either singing up on my email list or following me on Instagram. Instagram is same thing, @BlakelyMade, and that’s kind of where I keep people updated with upcoming series, because I release things on my website about a month after I start to create them. Yeah, I think probably Instagram is the best way, but the email list and website are also good avenues.

[0:50:02.8] DJ: Okay. Awesome. I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us for this episode. Again, if you’re near anthropology store, you need to go, take a picture with one of the dishware items from Blakely’s line and make sure you tag her in the post. Likely Blakely said, you get 20% off of anything in your store, right?

[0:50:26.1] BL: Yup, anything in the store.

[0:50:27.9] DJ: All right. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us.

[0:50:31.9] BL: Yeah, thank you. It was great fun.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:50:37.8] DJ: Thanks for tuning in to the Brands that Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to daveyandkrista.com.

[END]