We recently connected with Ellie Pellettiere and have shared our conversation below.
Ellie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I knew I wanted to pursue my creative path professionally as soon as I started making money from it. I was really just making pieces of jewelry for myself and friends. When I found my own style and people expressed they wanted to buy it from me, is when I realized it’d be nice to do this instead of my corporate job. Although I’ve never had the desire to work for someone unless it was creative, I’d never thought I could work for myself creatively.
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’ve always been a creative type growing up, but nothing really stuck because I was so in my head about it. Once I went to college all my dreams of art or fashion went away for awhile to focus on my communications degree, working part time and having fun. After college, I wanted to pursue my dreams and ended up getting an internship in what I thought was fashion, but was really just a retail sales job. I ended up learning a lot about sales and how to meet customer needs there, but it just wasn’t for me. I ended up working a corporate job essentially doing paper work. I went to working from home and realized I had more time to focus on things that inspired me. I would go into the ocean, find seashells and make jewelry with them for my friends and I. When I was younger my best friend and I used to make jewelry and in high school I took a couple jewelry classes. I used those skills to start making pieces with my shells.
I think I’m most proud of myself for my drive, I have bad days sometimes and overthink, but I mostly focus on the positive. Even if the positive is so small. It’s little things I could only dream of at one point in my life. Someone just liking my pieces still shocks me. I also love getting feedback from people and I’m open to learning new things. I think working with other creatives and not being so strict with my vision sets me apart from others. I always want to create, evolve and learn from others who want to learn from me as well. I truly appreciate anyone who supports my art.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Work with people who want to work with you and post it alllllll !
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
The goal is to never work for anyone but myself and hopefully it inspires other women to use their creativity to their advantage.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.damnregina.com
- Instagram: Damnregina.studio
- Other: TikTok: damnregina.studio
Image Credits
Cheyenne Doig, Megan Willis, Sierra Ferguson, Kait Taylor Ciccione