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

Cassidy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name of my business is CassidyMade, but a little know fact was that it wasn’t always. The original name of my business was actually AutumnReverie which essentially means ‘daydreaming in Autumn’. I thought long and hard about the name but shortly into things I realized it caused a bit of confusion. Was Autumn my name? Was reverie supposed to be revere? And in that case, what did it mean? Ultimately, I decided having a business name that was better able to identify the artist who is behind the business would be more beneficial in the long run. I could have went with a more niche name that incorporated pets and art, but instead I decided to go with CassidyMade. It’s simple and there is no confusion that things released under this name were created by myself, Cassidy. I also wanted to leave the future open for a wider array of possibilities, opportunities and growth as a brand.

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

Our pets are family and they deserve to be celebrated! That’s where I come in. I’m Cassidy, a fellow obsessed dog mom and Digital Pet Artist, helping people celebrate their pets with timeless art. I create custom pet portraits, pet ear outlines and more from reference photos, capturing pets unique personalities in the process. Custom CMC artwork can be used as decor, or put on apparel and made into stickers, allowing people to bring their pets with them wherever they go (even if the pet can’t be there physically). My main goals are to bring a little positivity and joy into peoples lives through artwork and connections, and to bring awareness to rescue pets in need through the different rescues I collaborate with.

I say that this business was a happy accident that was fueled by years of manifesting and lots of hard work. I’ve worked my fair share of jobs beginning with fast food, retail, and then ultimately transitioning into a vet assistant role. After leaving the vet medicine world, I began pet sitting. 2 years into it, Covid happened, reducing my workload and giving me a lot of free time. During this time I began to experiment with digital artwork and I found that I really enjoyed creating custom art of clients’ dogs. I shared a portrait with a client who subsequently shared it on their social media. I then began receiving requests from other people to create artwork of their pets and thus CassidyMade was born.

I love waking up each day knowing I get to create different kinds art of all kinds of pets. It is truly a dream and I am constantly looking forward to the next pet and their story, as well as the new opportunities that present themselves as my business continues to evolve.

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

I built my social media presence for CassidyMade just being myself and genuinely engaging with the community and those who support me. I don’t have a massive following by any means, but I do sincerely appreciate each person that has joined me on my artistic journey and I do my best to let that be known through the things I post and my conversations with people. The algorithms for social media platforms are always changing so whether its posting daily, or sharing videos instead of pictures, etc, those things can always be Googled and followed as a general equation. But without being yourself and showing up each day and being genuine in the interactions, there will always be a piece of the puzzle that’s missing.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the most truly rewarding aspects of being a pet artist is knowing something I created had the ability to brighten the day for another person. Whether it is through a portrait of someones pet that they can’t get enough of, or it’s by playing a role in the healing journey of someone who has endured the loss of a pet and wanted to memorialize them through art. Art has the ability to speak to parts of people that words don’t have the same effect on and it is truly beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cassidymadeco.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/cassidymadeco
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/cassidymadeco
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyspence
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/cassidymadeco
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCsj6vK0gtjIWniNs8_IMwA
• Other: Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/cassidymadeco

Image Credits
@bridgetlynn__ : flat lay of portrait with greenery and rocks