We recently connected with Ellie Whitener and have shared our conversation below.

Ellie , appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

While I’ve always prioritized and loved making art, I wouldn’t have considered it a business of mine until recently. It was always my outlet and passion, but I always hesitated to push it further.

I work with a variety of mediums, and I always struggled with making my work feel like it all fit into one business seamlessly.

Historically, I’ve done custom and commissioned graphite portraits primarily. It was usually more for friends and family, casual orders and definitely not a refined or super professional process of ordering and fulfilling. After years of these casual orders here and there, I was finding myself a bit bored and itching to make the things I was envisioning in my head come to life, and ideally, profitable. I knew I needed clarity and the commitment to dive in head first this time around if I wanted to succeed.

With the help and encouragement of fellow artists and friends, I decided to (finally) establish a website and took care to articulate my vision and statements there. This gave me the confidence I needed to push some ideas I’d had for a while, the main one being starting a print shop with some of my more popular pieces.

I started experimenting with different print shops, paper options and platforms for selling prints — a good option for me to get creative and also give people the opportunity to buy from me at a lower rate. I eventually took the leap of starting a print shop through Etsy with pieces I had made and knew I loved, while also continuing to promote the custom portrait work on the side to help supplement income.

These are somewhat obvious and small steps, but for me, they were big. It was the difference between taking myself and my work seriously enough to push it, or staying in the comfortable realm of selling occasionally to friends and family. There has been and will continue to be a lot of trial and error when it comes to merging the different mediums and establishing clarity of vision within my business, but these small steps helped push me out of my comfort zone enough to challenge me to execute my ideas in real life!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Ellie Whitener and I am a portrait artist and abstract painter from Tennessee. I’ve always loved art and am so grateful to be able to continue to work creatively in this season of life. I offer a variety of works, primarily custom graphite portraits, abstract paintings and paper collages. I’ve also expanded into print sales of these pieces this past year.

My art practice has always been deeply intertwined with my beliefs and spirituality, and I have found that these concepts are explored best through a variety of mediums. The finished products develop and change a lot depending on the season of life.

The simplest way for me to put it is this: art to me is a form of prayer, and art to me is a form of appreciation. I love getting to sit down and complete a portrait of someone’s loved one, a memory that holds weight to one’s life, etc. Over the years I’ve grown to deeply appreciate the value in each life and face as I’ve sat down and drawn these portraits. It’s detailed, it’s slow, and it’s methodical. It’s a beautiful way for me to slow down and appreciate what God has created in us each individually.

On the other hand, there’s a side to me that has an intense need to explore and question, take risks, etc. This is where the other mediums come into play. The paintings and collages become platforms for prayers. This comes in the form of meditation, questions, even wrestling with ideas and concepts I feel tension around. On this side of my business, I have a lot more freedom to explore how to represent concepts and portray emotions, truths, etc.

It’s been really fun to see how customers engage with my business lately. I was so tempted for so long to just pick a medium and go for it, leaving the others behind, but I’m so glad I didn’t. I’ve made many customer connections on both ends, and often have repeat customers that come back for portraits and something a little more elusive and abstract.

It’s my belief that we need both. We need the representation of what’s already beautiful and important — our portraits and memories. And we also need the challenge and space to question and look deeper, to explore what we really believe and think about the world.

My hope is that as my business grows and develops, I’ll continue to be better and better at articulating this truth.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

This is something I want to continue to grow in! Most of my customers are repeat customers and I love it! It’s a ton of fun building relationships with people and getting to be a part of their life, even in a small way, over the years.

My goal has always been to be very transparent and intentional with each customer. I do my best to make the ordering process very personalized and once a have an established customer, I love getting to throw in free prints or stickers in orders as I ship them out as a thank you for coming back.

When things don’t go well, there’s a delay or issue, I try to be quick to update the customer and fix the problem with transparency.

I also try to keep an active social media presence and have started building my email campaigns with updates as well — offering discounts to those who have stuck around and first looks at new collections.

Ultimately, people like to return where they feel appreciated and seen. There are small ways we as small business owners can do this, and it goes a long way!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Similarly to the previous question, I think building your reputation comes down to the small things. How you treat people, the pride you put into your work, the extra things you do for each customer, and the commitment to excellence in all sides of your business. I think people respond best to authentic representations and honest portrayals of the artist’s experiences, processes and outcomes, especially with small businesses.

Though not for everyone, an interesting way that I have continued to develop my reputation and built a solid community of friends and buyers lately is by starting a podcast. A fellow artist and dear friend (Grace Manning Art) and I decided to start recording conversations around faith and art about a year ago. We did this for fun, but I’ve been surprised by the community it’s built and how much more understood my work feels.

Since these topics of faith and art already heavily informed the work I do, it has been really fun to get to put language to some of the processes behind the pieces I put out.

While a podcast may not be something you feel led to do, even hopping on Instagram stories or a live and taking time to talk through some of your recent work or processes is a great way to build trust in you as a seller, generate interest in your ideas, and present yourself authentically in a way that advertisements and email updates may not be able to accomplish as effectively.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elliesikesart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elliesikesart?igsh=MTl1NTNiaGt1dWh4NQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Other: The Faith and Art Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/3fyYO9WJEStsUNAvsZjP4f?si=WLdV-4HzRIqfMICgMWXVSw