Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jasmine Mathews. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jasmine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I’ve been earning a full-time living from my work for almost 3 years now. Funny enough, I actually had no intention of becoming a full time artist or starting a business whatsoever. When I graduated college, I thought I’d use my English degree to go into publishing. I was interviewing at big 5 publishers, taking the train from New Jersey to New York, trying to start a career, I guess. And then the pandemic hit, and things slowed down a bit. Suddenly I had all this time on my hands. so I put them to work and picked up polymer clay. And I started posting what I was creating, mostly just to my friends and people who followed my personal social media accounts. Y’know, I was having fun with it. And then my friends are like “Wait, you’re actually kinda dope at this. You should try to sell some of your stuff.” And I did all the research, followed other artists who were running online shops, asked questions. Me and my friends spent days brainstorming what to call my shop, eventually I came up with BADBASEMENT, a homage to a horror movie trope. That would end up being a major milestone because it really set the tone for what kind of brand I wanted to have and what kind of work I wanted to produce. A few months later in May of 2020 I had my first drop–immediately sold out–and made more money than I’d ever seen in one paycheck at any job I had ever had. So I was like, okay, let’s do this. I don’t think I could have sped up the process any quicker than that honestly. In April I picked up some clay, and in May I had an online shop.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m Jasmine, I’m a clay artist specializing in horror themed earrings and accessories based in Tacoma Washington. My work is not for everyone and is known to be very controversial, as I tend to mix horror and politics in my pieces, and I do this because the history of politics in horror film is incredibly rich–horror has always been political. I believe horror has produced some of the best political commentary of our times. So, I’m very proud of this, and not at all hesitant to mix business and politics in this way. BADBASEMENT has always been an anti-policing, pro-black, pro-LGBTQ+ brand and will continue to be.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I built my audience on social media slowly, by networking and creating meaningful relationships with my customers and other artists in the community and online. I have never gone super viral before, and so what that means for me is that the people who follow me arrive to my work more organically. I feel like sometimes, when artist go viral for a particular piece, it can put them in a box where they’re expected to preform the same piece or the same kind of content over and over again. So I’m super grateful for every engagement. My advice to those just starting out is just to have fun with it, don’t worry so much about trends and algorithms–as these things are flimsy and changing all the time. Build rapport and create friendships!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think a lot of people refuse to look at art as a valid career path. Growing up I was taught that art is a hobby, not a job. Even if all people wanted to do after a long day of work is consume art–by watching TV, listening to movies, playing video games–that somehow doesn’t register in their minds as something worthy of consideration. So in short, we can support artists by recognizing them as hard working people and providing them the tools they need to thrive in a creative way from the start and at a young age.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.badbasement.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bad.basement
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/badbasementllc
• Twitter: https://www.twitter,com/badbasement