We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brianne Scott a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brianne, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Right after high school, I went to college for several years and earned a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education, as well as a Masters degree in School Counseling. I accepted a teaching position immediately after graduating with my degree and went on to teach Kindergarten as well as Second grade for 5 years.

As much as I loved teaching, spending my day with bright, creative and exciting kiddos, and all the other bits and pieces that come with the career, I found that this line of work simply did not inspire me as a human being. I made the difficult decision to leave the education field and pursue other passions.

With my newfound “freedom,” I found myself spending more and more time out in nature, appreciating the beauty of it all as well as the expansive universe that opened up to me when I placed myself in it. It was a risk to leave my salaried, tenured teaching position, but I knew in my heart that nature was calling, and I had to go.

I sold my house and my car in order to purchase a truck and camper, and I proceeded to spend the entire spring and summer full-time camping around my beautiful home state of Montana. During this time, I rediscovered my passion for rocks, gems, minerals, and crystals.

Much of my time during this season was spent hunting for crystals. This included prospecting potential areas that I could legally access and collect at, and once I had amassed a large collection of rocks, crystals, and other minerals, I needed to find some way to create something with them. I wanted others to be able to experience the joy and wonder that I was allowed to experience when collecting them.

This is when I began my wire wrapping journey and spent several months to an year learning new wrapping techniques and improving my skills. I sold my first piece of wire wrapped jewelry and the rest is history!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I create wire wrapped jewelry using precious stones, crystals, and minerals. Many of the items I create are custom-ordered gifts for customers’ loved ones, while other pieces are simple products of creation that I make available for anyone to purchase that feels a connection to the piece.

Many times clients will want a custom piece of jewelry, but may have no idea what sort of stones and/or design they’d like. This is where my creative juices get to flow! One of my favorite parts of the craft is working with clients to pick out stones (based on stone-type and/or color preference) and then coming up with an aesthetically pleasing and completely unique design for each piece I create.

Unfortunately this endeavor has proved to not be financially stable enough to be a full-time position, but it is a “side-gig” that I plan to continue working for as long as my fingers allow. The current state of the economy has created challenges that have forced me to secure part-time work elsewhere, but even while working in my local part-time healthcare position, I am continuing to create unique and intriguing pieces of jewlery for others to enjoy.

The creative process for me is anything but simple. The pieces of jewelry I create sometimes take days to complete, and are other times completed in a couple of hours (on those super-juicy-creativity days)! Each piece is crafted and polished by hand and given to clients with information specific to the stone(s) in their piece. I greatly enjoy researching different minerals and compiling that information to then provide to my clients – they typically greatly appreciate all the new information as well!

The most challenging part of this journey thus far has been accepting the reality that, unfortunately, this line of work is not consistent enough for me to be able to create full-time, and survive off this income alone. Instead of stretching myself thin and losing my passion for creation, I decided to obtain a part-time position working in my community as well. I have since come to find that not having the need to be financially secure off my art alone, has allowed my mind to ease and become more creative in my processes. When we are able to create just for ourselves (and for the joy of others), beautiful things happen.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

In order for creatives to survive within a society, they need support from other community members. This includes (and is not limited to): providing free or low-cost advertising opportunities, fostering the habit of “buying local” and “shopping small”, as well as choosing to pay a slightly higher price for an artsits’ top-quality work, as opposed to seeing something a creative has produced, and searching the internet (foreign markets) for a cheaper (and typically not as well-made) version of the same item. Custom art not only takes time and resources from a creative, but it also takes a supportive community to help that creative be successful in their endeavors.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

The building of my following on social media platforms is a result of pure trial and error. Many of my social media supporters are local community members that may have met me in person at some point, while others are audience members from all around the globe that arrived at my page through the use of hashtags and shares to various different forums and groups related to my art.

My advice for others looking to boost their social media presence is to be patient and consistent. I have personally found that consistency in posting your work is key to maintaining a loyal following on social media. Although not all followers may be there to purchase a piece from you, they are most likely more than willing to share what you have created with others on their own pages, and are vital to helping your social media following continue to grow.

Don’t be afraid to advertise and put your work out there for others to see! You never know who may come across a piece you’ve created and reach out to you for some custom work simply because they love what they’ve seen you produce previously for others.      

Contact Info:

• Website: https://briannescott7.wixsite.com/designsbybriannescot
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/briescott?igshid=NGExMmI2YTkyZg==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrianneAreI?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Image Credits
Brianne Scott