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

Allison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m unsettled with where I am with my art and creativity. A lot of people think that doing something you love as a way to make money is a path to happiness, but it’s so much more complicated than that. When I make a painting for myself, it’s a calming and creative experience. When I make art to sell to someone else, the complications start, whether it’s a commission for a print, or a wedding stationery suite. It suddenly becomes a math project, how much is this worth per hour of my time, how many hours did I spend making it. Are there other costs? Are there hidden costs?

I try to not fall into the trap of monetizing my hobbies for this reason, but in a capitalist society, it’s drilled into us to make money on as much of what we do as possible. I recently offered a friend a discount for a commission recently, and they pushed back, insisting they wanted to pay me what I am worth. It’s an unsettling thought to me, that our worth as humans would be linked to a dollar amount. Don’t get me wrong, I think that artists are often undervalued, and that under our current circumstances it’s for the best that there are people that value art enough to push back when they think an artist may be under-valuing their worth. But there are times that I want to turn off that dollar amount and just do a pretty art project for a friend without it being a whole big thing. It’s all complicated and takes a lot of joy out of the art, as soon as the money talk shows up.

I do wonder what having a regular job would be like, and I wonder about it often. On some level I would love to have less of the administration and business tasks fall on me. Taxes would be so much easier! There are a lot of reasons I don’t think I will ever go this direction though. The pay gap between employees and folks higher up the chain for one example. Having my own schedule, and interacting with people on my own terms is huge.

There are also issues with the wedding industry as a whole. I began doing weddings, because it is one of the easier ways for me to make pretty things and make a living from it. The wedding industry always pushes for bigger, better, more expensive though, whether or not it’s in the best interest of the couple. The wedding narrative is that it has to be the very best day of your life. I’d rather my couples think of it as one of just one of many good days, think of it as a big, joyful celebration. It can be special, but if you’re too focused on perfection, that’s just going to make it that much more stressful and sap the fun out of the day. At the end of the day, I do love helping my customers add art and joy to their wedding day. It’s the start of a new chapter in their life, and I try to contribute as much happiness and joy as I can.

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’ve been artistic since high school, when I would drift away into my daydreams, and doodle and draw. The end of many classes came with me looking at my notes and realizing I had nothing related to the class, but plenty of little drawings. In related news, I got diagnosed with ADHD a couple years back. Who could have forseen?

I carried over the artistic playfulness into college, where I failed a ton of my classes, struggled through countless lectures, and made lots of silly art. I, ahem, got a hold of a copy of a popular photo editing software, and learned the ins and outs of how to use it. This led to a friend of mine asking if I wanted a job – his boss was looking to hire someone to help using a related graphic design program. I did eventually get my degree in Anthropology (which is a fascinating field that I love with my whole heart) and promptly never did anything related to it again. I was a graphic designer.

Weddings came a few years later. I had a friend get engaged in 2015, and she asked me if I could design their wedding logo. This spiraled into creating their entire wedding paper suite. Save the dates, invitations, programs, menus. Cute little timeline cards, and a pretty map to put in their welcome bags. I happened to be getting married the same year, so I figured, why not do my own? And I spiraled from there. I did our stationery in letterpress, which is where you get the ink pressed deeply into gorgeous, soft paper. I added hand painted details to each card, and I painstakingly picked accent colors and layered everything perfectly. I can’t do calligraphy, but I slowly and carefully hand wrote my guest addresses onto the envelopes with a matching marker. My handwriting is awful, but they were lovingly done, and I wasn’t unhappy with how the whole thing turned out.

It went from there. I’ve been doing weddings since 2015. In June of 2016 our family very suddenly and unexpectedly lost my mom. I shut down as a functioning person for a large part of that year. When I came back to life and stepped back into working, I named my business after her. Her name was Joy. I miss her dearly, and am glad that I can carry a little bit of her forward with me in my art.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’m not great at social media, but I think in a world where I could manage it in a bubble I would be amazing at it. It might be my actual favorite part of my business. I make a pretty thing, I put the pretty thing out into the world, and people look at my pretty thing AND tell me that they love my pretty thing? And to top it all off, I can make the pretty things into a cohesive, pretty feed? Don’t get me started on the branding aspect.

My advice to people starting, should probably be taken with a grain of salt, because it’s likely outdated. I still live in the land of pretty instagram feeds, and I feel a lot of marketing has moved over to reels and tiktok. I have my insta linked to facebook so that everything gets posted there. For making the posts themselves, I try to make sure I have a visual aesthetic that each image I post aligns to. For me this is whimsical, nature inspired, heavy on botanicals, with a focus on greens, browns, and pops of peachy-orange color. Your own personal branding normally won’t just pop out at you from the start. I would encourage people just starting out to work on finding stock images that speak to them, and narrow down their colors and aesthetic that way. Use free stock sites, like Unsplash and Rawpixel to start with, and don’t sink money into assets until you have your branding style more narrowed down.

My absolute favorite social media platform though, is Pinterest. Pinterest feels like walking around in an upscale boutique to me, window shopping. Looking at textures, admiring color schemes, going down a rabbit hole of a certain new style that gives my brain alllll the dopamine. For the business side of Pinterest, I use Tailwind. I have a few automated loops set up through Tailwind that will post my content on a regular schedule to my relevant boards. And then that leaves me to play on Pinterest and pin the images that speak to me on my own schedule.

The most important thing I think for businesses starting on social media is to be authentic. Don’t feel like you have to write each caption as an ad for your business. Just talk to your audience. Talk about your life. Talk about what your business processes look like. Talk about what you’re frustrated with, and talk about how you’re working on it. Ask questions. They can be unrelated to the image you posted. Post a pretty stock picture, talk about the silly thing your cat did, and ask about your audiences’ pets. Loop most things back to being related to the business that you’re running, but treat your audience as friends and you’ll grow organically.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I love when I can make art for myself, and then people actually end up wanting it for their home. No edit requests, just the exact thing I dreamed up, and somebody wants to look at it every day? The other most rewarding thing is working with a couple who has a vision for their wedding art that ends up flawlessly aligning with my style. When we end up making a ton of gorgeous, individual pieces that all flow into each other seamlessly, and add their special touches to their wedding day, it’s rewarding in a special kind of way.

My other favorite project to get is pets. I love illustrating folks’ pets. I love animals and the joy I get from creating an art piece of your absolutely adorable little buddy is always gonna make my day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wildjoystudios.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildjoystudios/
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wildjoystudios/

Image Credits
Veronica Sparrow Photography Wild Joy Studios