We were lucky to catch up with Ellisa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ellisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I first fell in love with the world of art and creation as a little girl. My earliest memory that has stuck with me was specifically seeing my mother sketch and draw with colored pencils or pen…I was probably 4 or 5 when I started to really be captivated by the idea that you can take a blank piece of paper and create a new life for it with color and how it can all come from the mind. Though my mother never did anything creatively with her career, she had this hidden talent that I was able to see at this time in my life that really clung onto me. Most of my childhood I would wake up early in the morning and sit on my bedroom floor making up projects for myself to do involving whatever I could find in the house, which would mostly consist of too much printer paper, random glue, cheap paint, and whatever markers and crayons bought for the school year. Though nobody in my life really saw my passion for creation (other than some really great public school art teachers) it was the one constant in my life that absolutely never wavered for me. Once I had reached the end of high school, one of my art teachers pulled me aside to let me know I had taken the most art classes in my 4 years in the history of the school (lol). It wasn’t much a surprise, but I knew I wanted to continue to learn as much as I can. I had been accepted into the one college I applied for, but I was an angsty teenager who wanted to do whatever I wanted, and I just didn’t have the support needed to make that big of a decision at the time. Luckily, I had built up a pretty prominent twitter account in my last year of high school filled with absolute cringe content…but for some reason at the time it worked, I was known for some odd reason, and it was sort of my gateway to building a life of my own. Once I graduated it only took about a month into the summer and a crappy job under the hand of a shifty mural artist in the next town over when I had posted a shirt I made out of absolute nothingness…when I tell you it was just a random yellow gildan t-shirt, a scrap of bed sheet fabric, acrylic paint, and a safety pin put together. The shirt went viral, and I was able to quit that summer job to make these shirts. This wasn’t my first time “designing” a shirt though…the acrylic paint I used for that t-shirt was previously used making a bunch of t-shirts back when Donald Trump was elected in 2016 that said “F*CK HATE” with a red fist that I ended up making for my friends and other classmates who wanted them…I’m pretty sure I charged $5 for each once it started taking up most of my nights, haha. Ever since then I’ve been designing- it’s overtaken the 7 years of my adult life.
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.
My name is Ellisa, I’m 25 and I was born in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve been creating ever since I could remember, but I’ve been creating via e-commerce and an online presence since 2018. My work has definitely transformed over the years, but always for the better. I’m continuously working to improve and pivot from any road bumps that are inevitable in a fast-paced consumerist world. Everything I know I’ve learned through experience as a first-time business owner through various blog posts, YouTube videos, any classes I can find and take within a 100 mile radius. I guess you can call me “self made” because I really have been doing everything visible online on my own…which may or may not have to do with my obsession with my own hyper independence. Most of my work has been created based off a certain experience, a thought, a dream, or anything that I see and feel inspired by. I coined the name “lovers never die” while on a flight as I was looking out onto a descending sunset in 2019 and it’s stuck around ever since. Before then I was creating under the name “Tite Life”, but that wasn’t really me, I didn’t feel much of a connection to it, and I absolutely couldn’t take another DM that read something along the lines of “LOL tite means dick in filipino” which left me shook on several occasions. As time progressed, and I’ve matured with time, I’ve started to gain my footing. I’m a bit of a deep thinker and I mainly stay to myself nowadays. I’ve grown to love the mystery I’ve divulged myself in, which is the exact opposite of who I was from 2017-2020. It’s quite funny because I rarely tell people I know in my day-to-day life about what I do, but as I go and scroll through my anonymous Tumblr or Pinterest I always find my products on my feed, by pure happenstance. It’s kind of solidifying in a way, that hey, it IS really known and loved. I had gone through a life-changing 4 year on and off relationship that completely changed me as a person, from my looks and to my personality, and though the isolation and loss of community during that time period may have taken far more than was offered back to me, there was so much room for creation in that desolate space. It is like seeing a rose emerge in a desert that hasn’t seen water for a decade. I had, for the most part, erased myself from the internet except for this one on-going project, because it wasn’t me, but it was something beyond. I didn’t leave everything behind because I necessarily wanted to, but when you find yourself constantly monitored and your mental perception controlled by puppet strings in someone else’s hands it’s hard to see the self clearly, and to fully grasp what is actually going on. I think that is why I find it so important to keep creating. I think, in a way to create some of the things that I do, there is a desire to give something to the world that can mean something different to everyone who touches it. I want to make things for people to share and I want to see a world where people are open to sharing again, even after the pain, and loving despite the thorns and the swords and the chaos that comes from the unpredictable world we all reside in. I do resonate with the lone wolf, the misunderstood, and the perceived outcasts of society. In my perfect world everyone is safe to be themselves, they have a community to lean on, and they are safe to express themselves. I will never give up on that dream, especially now that the world has felt colder than usual. I think the greatest way to defeat evil and darkness is to continue even when you find yourself filled with fear…you will start to see exactly why giving up was never an option.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Many people in my personal life absolutely have no idea why I still do the things that I do. My parents are the first to tell me to give it all up and just pick up a 9-5 somewhere, even when I’m doing better than ever on the business side of things. It’s hard work, and I think non-creatives find it to be a turn off when you casually express that maybe you feel a bit tired or restless when it’s the busiest time of the year (lucky for me, I have several busiest times of the year) and they do make it their point to feel jaded rather than elated. The thing is, I’m not forcing anyone to understand the how’s or why’s of creation. It’s one of those things that truly is an “If you know, you know” sort of thing. Let’s just say if I ever listened to the people who wanted me to stop everything due to their discomfort I wouldn’t have created anything in any of my years of life. It’s the audacity and the courage that will take you places. You must give yourself the power to create the actions and desired outcome you seek… and if you let those minuscule or monstrous setbacks in with open arms you will see not only growth but also a new secret strength nobody could ever take from you. In a world full of negative affirmations, create your own reason to affirm the opposite. Not only will it help you as a person, but it might touch those who had no idea they were craving it all along too.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, I absolutely love seeing people gift things I’ve made and designed to their loved ones. Whether if it’s for a friend, a family member, or a lover it’s always the best feeling to know that something I’ve done has travelled to various locations in the world and had brought a glimmer of feel-good energy to strangers I’ve never met. I’ve even received messages from people who have met their partner through a mutual like of my work, and how now they’ve still been together after 4+ years. As someone who has struggled a lot in my personal life it’s just something I can never take lightly or forget about when I hear these stories. It’s one of those things that I will remember when I’m 95 on my death bed under fluorescent hospital lights, god willing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://loversneverdie.com
- Instagram: @loversneverd1e
- Twitter: @loversneverd1e
