We recently connected with Chelle Ellis and have shared our conversation below.
Chelle, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Four of my projects since 2020 are very meaningful to me for different creative reasons, so I will talk about each one:
1. Memphis/Germantown Art League (MGAL) at mgal.org is the group’s artists’ social networking and art exhibit website that I developed at the beginning of 2020. Developing an artists’ group website allows me to be creative as a visual and digital artist, following my own ideas and interests, which makes it really fun for me.
The website has over 120 members who are able to build their own simple webpage featuring projects, supporting slideshows, links, videos, and images of their works in searchable galleries. Within mgal.org, members are also able to send/receive messages and “tweets”, post in forums, view exhibit entry guidelines, art reception and awards photos, and art and group news.
Covid-19 canceled all physical art exhibitions scheduled in 2020, so MGAL went virtual with a new exhibit, shared with another local art group, Artists’ Link of Memphis, named Together Art Exhibit. I developed the 3D experience where viewers were able to navigate a virtual gallery via web browser, or take a walking tour, that moved the user to each work through the exhibit. For users who aren’t so web savvy, or might find 3D virtual reality navigation a dizzying experience, I also provided a FlipBook of the exhibit.
Since then, I have created numerous promotional videos for MGAL events, maintain their YouTube channel, and designed the current MGAL Yearbook.
2. G.O.A.T. Picnic at goatpicnic.com is a website I developed for the Mississippi blues festival of the same name, which celebrates the heritage & music of Otha Turner. Turner was one of the last well-known fife players in the vanishing American fife and drum blues tradition, who lived his life in Northern Mississippi hill country as a farmer and started the tradition of the goat roast that is in it’s 73rd year.
The annual goat roasting picnic offers sandwiches (and fare from other food trucks) to visitors to enjoy, while listening to ancestral fife & drum music by The Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band, and live performances by various Rhythm & Blues artists, who come to the picnic from all parts of the nation.
The sounds and the tradition of the G.O.A.T. Picnic feeds my inner musician and makes me proud to aid in this legacy of the story of Blues, born and thriving in North Mississippi.
If you are interested in my first G.O.A.T. Picnic experience, please read my article on my blog at: https://sadiesoldhouse.com/chelle/goatpicnic/
3. Sadie’s Old House at sadiesoldhouse.com is my renovation blog following our 1883 home, known locally as “Ms. Sadie’s Place” and referred to by me as “Sadie”.
“Sadie” was moved a mile South in 1942, so her original spot, along with the land of the 700 residents in the old valley of Coldwater, Mississippi, could be used in the Yazoo Basin Headwaters Project and developed into the Arkabutla Reservoir. Arkabutla Lake, its dam and spillway were ordered by Franklin D. Roosevelt and built by the WPA, in response to The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927; moving the entire town of Coldwater, formerly established as The Village of Elm Grove for $250,000.
If you have ever seen the Coen brothers’ movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?“, the flooding they are referring to is for the Arkabutla Reservoir, where “Sadie” once set.
My husband, Kenny, and I update our home renovation blog with improvements we make to the house and plans rolling around in the pipeline, to make Sadie her best self. We don’t post videos because all that you would hear is a lot of cussing and bickering.. so the written word, it is.
I have been a published writer for newspapers and magazines since 1990, so writing for the blog feeds my creative writing drive.
4. Feathers & Fields, LLC at feathersfieldsllc.com is a website I am developing for my long time friend, and fellow gardener, Linda Feathers.
Linda nurtures four eco-friendly acres in Hernando, Mississippi, while catering to bees, birds and butterflies. She grows uncut wild flowers and herb seedlings, produces honey, and cans her delicious basil pestos. All can be ordered, then delivered through the website, or bought every Saturday, Spring through Fall, at The Hernando Farmer’s Market on the Square.
My horticultural artist is happy at home with my orchids, but I so love to witness the fruits of Linda’s massive garden and help with her ecologically conscious farming practices.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Chelle Ellis, I have lived in North Mississippi for thirty years, and I own and operate Jaded Artist Media at jadedartist.com.
I am a commercial artist with over twenty-five years of experience in branding, web design and development, and design and layout in publishing. During Covid, I reopened my web development studio, where I hand select my limited clients, providing them with graphic design and web services that keep their brand relevant in an ever changing market.
I started building websites in the dawn of the dot-com boom, designing them in Photoshop and writing the code in Notepad, in the mid-1990’s. Aside from running my own web design firm for over a decade, I worked on in-house and client websites and branding for two major newspapers, a magazine and a major US defense contractor.
I evolve with the times and current client needs for content management websites and social media promotion. Therefore, my new media expertise generally covers the beginning of the Internet to present. But I have always been creative: in studio and commercial art, writing, design, and promotional strategies. My business keeps me artistically challenged, designing and developing anything from websites and promotional videos to laying out printed brochures and catalogs.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In 2007, I had to take a hiatus from my decade-long web design/development firm, but continued my direction in visual art, with my works available at chelleellis.com.
During my wedding anniversary vacation in Cancun that year, I went into convulsions, was rushed to the intensive care unit of a Mexican hospital and diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. My treating doctor wasn’t sure if I could survive a flight back to the states, but realizing nothing could be done for me there, ordered a life flight to Miami, Florida’s Jackson Memorial Hospital. After a week long stay at JMH, a team of neurologists un-diagnosed the brain aneurysm (whew!) and correctly diagnosed me with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.
Returning home to consider my new life in convalescence, I found my healing – once again – in art. When vision in both of my eyes was restored, I brushed my rebellion onto canvas, where it became an aesthetic I could consider. Balance and other taken-for-granted functions gradually returned and brought with them, new possibilities.
Creative therapy and continued education in media and techniques, helped form my style of intense color and repetitive, semi-abstract shape.
During the initial restless months of Covid-19 quarantine, I felt the urge to re-open my new media studio, linking my love for repetitive simple shapes with my love of coding. I hit the ground running with several interesting clients, and never looked back: I may have multiple sclerosis, but it doesn’t have me.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
My reputation grows from my obsession with perfection and need to nuture my projects as if they were my own children. My client’s websites reflect my ability, sure. But my competitive need to create the best website for my client in their industry and community can be maddening. I cannot allow even a pixel to be out of place, I become so obsessed with it.
It can be trying for my human relationships, my husband, Kenny, assures me. But somehow, he supports my insane need to crush the Internet.
Thanks Babe! <3
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jadedartist.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jadedartistdev/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jadedartistdev
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadedartist/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jadedartistdev
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jadedartistdev
- Other: Jaded Artist Media Portfolio: https://jadedartist.com/portfolio/ Chelle Ellis, Visual Artist: https://chelleellis.com Sadie’s Old House: https://sadiesoldhouse.com
Image Credits
Ken Ellis Angie Wynn Linda Feathers