Today we’d like to introduce you to Eppie Bailey
Hi Eppie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up surrounded by creative people. My father and mother, my many (12) siblings… I think we fueled each others imaginations. My brother Adam and I had a band with my cousin Toby and two other friends. I learned to write songs with them. I started a visual art business in early 2000’s with my (then) sister in law, Julie Barrett. We spent almost twenty years doing everything creative, from writing and performing music to designing multiple lines of toys for an online shop. We made Art together for various shows, designed festival merchandise and our work was used in several independent movies. We had good times renting our art for tv shows and being in the background during the filming of an episode of Nashville. We worked for Emmy Lou Harris making custom, handmade pieces to sell to raise funds for puppers in need. Meanwhile I also wrote and performed with different bands, sculpted with my sister Tiffany to make intricate art dolls and went back to school to study psychology. Currently I am working with Bethany (another sister), Tiffany, and Julie to design clothing and other lifestyle products for people yearning to find unique and creative alternatives to box store styles. We truly believe in adventurous designs made in small, ethically produced batches.
I am also writing and performing with my good friend, Steve Quelet. We enjoy being part of a local group of talented musicians who value original music.
I am living in Potter County Pennsylvania with my husband and youngest daughter Anyka on our family farm. My older sons, Logan and Jakob, are still in Nashville TN and my older daughter, Arowyn, is about an hour away from our farm. They all inspire me with their own creative and forward moving vision.
I am involved in some promising community ventures that are unfolding in my rather economically depressed area. I’m very grateful to have always been able to live a creative life and I hope I can encourage others to make the sacrifices it sometimes takes to do so.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road. I have wrestled with a long list of things common to many other artists, self doubt, confusion as to how to navigate business and life as a multidisciplinary artist. I have felt at times that my mind is a curse. As I am growing older I am finally learning how to manage it all. There are so many resources available now, to negotiate some of the more difficult quirks of the creative mind.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Professional Bohemians?
The Professional Bohemians started out as Zephyr Art. We rebranded and began in earnest when we moved to Nashville with our families in mid 2000’s. From doing all nature of odd creative jobs to designing intentional lines of handmade toys and art pieces we tried to find something that we could enjoy doing enough that we felt we could maintain a consistent business. Around 2018 Julie decided to concentrate more on gallery type pieces and Eppie tried to continue offering the lines they had designed together under The Professional Bohemians. Tiffany Cataldo pulled alongside Eppie in 2019 and they threw themselves into learning to sculpt, mold, and caste silicone dolls. This focus was gratifying and we learned about a whole new and exciting art form but realized that, as a business, we needed to move away from extremely time consuming hands on pieces if we wanted to market and grow in a scalable way. We put our heads together and decided we would love to offer our creativity in a way that was more accessible to the bulk of our creative following (they weren’t all loving the silicone babies 😆). Eppie starting working on a collection of designs that could be used to embellish and decorate fabrics, product, and clothing. Tiffany and Julie both brought their design, fabrication, and business experience to the table again and they are all working on their first collection, to be released in Fall of 2024!
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I feel it is the personal relentless pursuit of success in a unique and authentic way that resonates most with the tribe of people who support me and my business. We are all, the Professional Bohemians, absolutely committed to real and valuable connection. We want to encourage, support, and inspire other creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative mothers and women as well as all people who are challenged by being uniquely themselves in a society set up to reward ‘sameness.’
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.TheProfessionalBohemians.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/professionalbohemians
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProBohemia
Image Credits
All images are photos I took of my work.