We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chelsea Evans a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Chelsea, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Several years ago a client came to my home and brought with her a dresser and a story. She had lived in a marriage filled with trauma and emotional abuse for many years. She stayed because she believed she was what he told her, “Worthless”. She finally found the courage to leave. She recovered and she began to thrive. She asked me to paint from her story. To create a strong and beautiful finish with this quote written on it,
“She made broken look beautiful, strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.”
I thought of her and what she told me while I painted her dresser. I added texture and layers. I created wings out of feather moulds to surround the quote going down the face of the dresser. It is a bold and beautiful work of art that speaks to the triumph of her story.
I have since done a few other projects for this client. She is an incredible human. Her story has stuck with me over the years and reminded me of the strength and beauty that can come from ashes.
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
I’m, Chelsea Evans, owner & artist on Apple Blossom Way. I take inspiration from nature and create art & custom finishes from that inspiration and teach others to do the same. I am a Utah native and have spent most of my life exploring Utah from it’s red rock desert to it’s snow covered mountains.
Apple Blossom Way started back in 2017 on a dream and a whole lot of hard work and has continued to grow and evolve into its true, authentic self. I do custom painting and murals, as well as teaching painting & refinishing skills in my online classes.
I offer 6 online classes including:
Back to Basics
Stone Finish Class
Elements, Paint the Earth
Cabinets Class
Faux Brick Class
Painted Piano Class
On my site you’ll find all of my classes, tutorials, paint products, and the blog with DIY info.
My purpose is to show others how to find inspiration in the things around them and create beautiful, authentic art from that. I help others to see magic in the ordinary.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is sharing that creativity with others and seeing them thrive! I have learned and developed new skills along the way, but I am naturally a very creative person. When I started teaching my techniques I thought, “This is awesome! My students are replicating what I am teaching and they’re doing an amazing job!”
I thought that was the reward until I started to see my students take parts of what I had taught them and combine that with their own life experiences and their own techniques and create stunning finishes.- completely unique and their own.
Seeing others take the knowledge and techniques I have shared and create authentic finishes is absolutely the most rewarding part of being an artist, creative, and educator.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I have had to pivot many times in my life. I think most of us are regular “pivoters”. We pivot to adapt to what is happening around us. Sometimes it’s an easy switch and sometimes it is painful.
In my job there are many opportunities to pivot or rethink what you are doing. Paint doesn’t always dry smooth, glue doesn’t always hold, and things just happen. So we pivot.
A while back I was doing an epoxy pour on top of a large desk. I had sprayed it with alcohol to disperse a color and instead of waiting to torch the epoxy and allow the alcohol to evaporate, I torched it and the entire top went up in flames! I took off running for the hose and sprayed the whole thing down. It was burnt to a crisp in a few spots. Toast!
I could either toss the desk and call it a loss, or I could clean it up, scrape and sand back the burned areas and do something different. As a creative I see potential in just about everything, so I started scraping. Yes, it was a bummer and also a little scary but it was like someone handed me a cool canvas with a challenge and all I could see was the potential for a really cool desk.
After I cleared off the burned areas I added raised stenciling, faux rust, and played off the cratered epoxy top to give it a rocky, moon-like finish. It turned out to be one of my all time favorite pieces and to this day the coolest epoxy tops I’ve done.
I don’t plan on torching any more pieces, but I am glad it happened not only for the cool finish, but for the lesson it taught me in waiting to torch, and being more safe while working on projects in the future.
Contact Info:
- Website: appleblossomway.com
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