We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Palmer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.

Jessica, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think it takes to be successful?

Ultimately, I believe that success comes from patience and perseverance. You start off by figuring out your talent, then you take the time to develop your skill through experience. Learning from others is key here as you can pick up both what to do and what not to do, especially as a business owner. You keep going and following your passion, no matter how hard it is. People will disagree with what you’re doing, and they will put you down. Or, sometimes you just won’t get any attention at all. However, continuing to push through those bad times is what will get you to the good times. There have been many moments where I have not felt good enough to keep designing or to sell my product because I don’t receive enough support. When you pay money to be a vendor at a market and no one buys a single thing, you start to think, “What am I doing wrong? Why am I even here?” I start to beat myself up for not doing something right and it puts me in a bad headspace. My boyfriend, Elijah, always seems to come to my rescue. He reminds me that not every day is going to be a money-making day, and that timing and location mean everything. So, I take that experience and I learn from it in order to increase my chances of success in the future. Today might not be my day, but the next day could be. I won’t know unless I try. So, I might not be able to paint a clear picture of what success looks like, but I know the steps to get there. I will say that every day when I look in the mirror and reject failure so that I can see what the day has in store for me, I feel pretty successful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So, I am this weird mix where I am super into punk and badass things, yet I have always been extremely well-behaved, disciplined, and organized. I took a lot of art classes in high school to experiment with different mediums in order to find out what I liked to work with. One thing specifically that I realized I loved was drawing out an idea and then seeing it come to full fruition in real life. Sewing clothes actually stuck out to me because I used to be obsessed with America’s Next Top Model. After realizing being a model wasn’t quite the thing for me, I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I be the person that puts the clothes on them?’ I stuck to it and got my Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Design from The Art Institute of Indianapolis. I’ve had a few jobs since I graduated that have given me experience in the industry, and they weren’t the typical jobs you’d think of for a fashion design graduate. I went on to sew racing suits and projects for the Indy 500, manufacture children’s knitwear for small businesses across the U.S., and create and fit costumes for theatre. All the while I worked on my own small business, Jewel Fire Clothing. I started out doing custom projects for friends and family such as making costumes and personalized garments. Eventually I decided that I really wanted to get my aesthetic out there and chose to participate in Indiana Fashion Week 2021. Rock ‘n’ roll music, urban culture, and the rebel attitude have always been my main sources of inspiration. These ideas led me to want to design alternative women’s fashion that makes a woman feel good about herself, like she can go out and take the world by its reins. Hence the motto for my brand – Sass + Class + Badass. After making wristbands, tote bags, dresses, jumpsuits, jackets, jeans, tube tops, etc, I released my first official collection as a brand, titled Dancing With Myself. It’s all about a woman not needing anyone’s approval; she is going through life at her own pace, in her own style, and looking damn good while doing so. Since then I launched an online store on my own site and I have been doing markets to help spread the word locally. I’ve experimented with creating designs specific to holidays as well as just seeing what I can make out of what I have and really testing my creativity. I’m inspired by this because I know that when I look good, I feel good, and it just enriches every other aspect of my life. I want as many other people as possible to experience this, and hopefully to be inspired by my story so that they may go out and do something impactful that they feel just as passionate about. On my website, people can find alternative women’s clothing and accessories I have designed and made for sale. I make all of my own patterns, and I usually try to offer sizes Small through XL (as long as I have the material). Sometimes I come into an abundance of plain tees, and I create a design to put onto them as a way of upcycling. I have examples of past work in the Portfolio section, and I am always reachable through the contact form on the website. The main thing I want people to know is that my work is genuine, and that I am not one of those shops that buys cheap garments and resells them. Everything I make has quality to it because it is all made and handled by me. I’m a one woman business who just wants to help other women to embrace their inner badass and show it off to the world.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the best thing about creating a piece of art, whether that is a painting, garment, piece of jewelry, sculpture, etc is either witnessing or personally experiencing a sincere amount of appreciation for it, even if it’s not perfect. It means that all those hours you put into the design and execution of it paid off, because that piece of art means the world to someone. I have a couple examples of this, the first one being a candy bowl I made in high school. It was for one of my sculpture classes, and I ended up making this black bowl that is supposed to be a monster’s mouth, so it’s full of pointy teeth that appear to be lying in wait to grab your hand and pull it into its bloody mouth. The bowl itself is definitely a little rough in some parts because it was a high school project, but I still use it to this day and it makes me happy looking at it. It was one of those first things I drew and could actually see come to life from the paper. The second example I have is in regards to my clothing business. I once did a market where this younger girl came back to my booth probably about five times across the course of the entire event and ended up making a couple purchases. I overheard her talking to her friend, and she was saying how my clothing was going to be her entire Christmas list. Who knows if it was true, but it made me feel great that she thought my designs were that cool.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I already know non-creatives who don’t quite understand everything about what I do, and it can be very emotionally taxing on me to hear their point-of-views because it tends to put me down. Some examples I hear are, “Well, why would you make something like that?” or “Is this price really accurate to what you put into this?” I definitely understand that it can be very hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes sometimes, but I think it’s important to be careful of the way you go about it so that you don’t come off like you’re putting that person down for making a certain decision. A lot more goes into the creative process than people think – there’s so much time spent coming up with the design, sourcing materials, making prototypes or test runs, and then actually making the final product. Not to mention, making it again and again if you’re making it in different sizes. With garments specifically, you have to design, source, make the pattern, cut the fabric, sew it together, and add any embellishments. With small businesses, we have to buy material in smaller amounts and that increases the cost. Not to mention, we are not paying for cheap labor from another country, we are putting our own hours in. As a creative, I can safely say I get inspiration from some pretty weird places. However, just because my idea doesn’t make sense to someone else, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I think it would be beneficial to everyone to take a moment and try to think about everything a piece of art has to go through to come to fruition before questioning the price tag or the reasoning behind it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jewelfireclothing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jewelfireclothing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jewelfireclothing
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jewelfireclothing