Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily Mann. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)
The investments I’ve made into getting an outside-of-my-house professional studio space and hiring help managing the studio and making art has been the best money spent on my business. The studio space itself allowed me to expand the type of work I make, create functional production systems, helped me separate my work and home life, and importantly enabled me to bring in other people. One of the challenges of being a multi-passionate creative who really loves to understand and be involved in every aspect of business from the design, client communications, social media, planning, logistics, and of course the hands-on making is that my first impulse is to try to do it myself. Outsourcing what I can means I am able focus my energy where its most useful and not feel completely tapped out and overwhelmed by the day-to-day of running a bustling studio.
Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Emily Mann, I’m the artist and owner of Ink + Indigo, a multidisciplinary art studio located in Avondale Estates, Georgia. A lifelong maker and generally design-obsessed person, I have always made art of all kinds and crafted. In college I studied studio arts where I found a focus in fiber and textiles and began to explore creating large scale dimensional work from intricately made, smaller elements-a theme that carries through to today. The business and entrepreneurial side of things is hugely interesting and exciting to me, and I was able to learn the ins and outs of art-as-business in the first part of my career working as an Art Consultant. In that role I was commissioning and placing art on hospitality, healthcare, and corporate interiors all over the world. Having my first child shifted my energies to raising small humans and my creative focus back into making art for myself in the studio. From that studio practice I created Ink + Indigo (10 years ago this year!). I was creating work nearly everyday, sharing a lot of it on Instagram and really finding a lot of community and opportunities there. My work at Ink + Indigo ranges from watercolor and pigment paintings, encaustics, dimensional paperclay wall art, textile works, site specific installations, to an expansive fine art licensing line where I offer more than 250 of my original images available to print in infinite formats and applications. The studio has expanded over the years to include a Studio Manager and 2 Studio Artists who are integral to making this studio the busy and growing place it is.
Much of the Ink + Indigo client base is art consultants and interior designers-and nearly everything we make is commissioned. We really specialize in collaborating with our clients and understanding their design vision so that the art we are making helps tell the whole design story. Having a background in consulting is integral to understanding all the intricacies of working in this niche and we love helping problem solve and come up with elegant art solutions to design challenges. We aim to be fun and energetic collaborators who put as much thought and integrity into the client and business side of the biz as we do the creative side.
In addition to continuing to make art everyday I am dreaming up lots of fun things for the future of Ink + Indigo. I want to share what I love, including specialized techniques and skills I have developed over these years in art making- including in-person work shops, online art and art business courses, creative retreats, and larger scale design collaborations in the future.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
An endlessly exciting and fulfilling aspect of being an artist is the ability to pull ideas, inspiration, and energy from my own mind and the world around me and bring it to physical, tangible, and hopefully beautiful art form others can enjoy and bring their own perspective into.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media is a tricky beast and something I’ve had an on and off again relationship with over the years. Regardless of how frustrating it can be it has undeniably been a source of great inspiration, community, and an anchoring place for people to discover my work. I think it can be tempting for creatives to be “everywhere” across platforms but for most of us individual artists thats just not feasible and can result in burnout. For those just starting out I recommend picking a platform that feels good to you and sticking with it consistently-show up for the community there and treat your viewers and followers generously. Doing a #100dayproject or something similar can be great-my #100daysofinkandindigo project was integral in gaining a following and helped me just get better at showing my work and showing up online. Its tempting to think of social media as everything but focus on owning your own home on the internet-have good website, start a newsletter list, and make sure you are always linking back to your own platform rather than relying on the social media giants as the main place you can be found online.
Contact Info:
- Website: inkandindigo.com
- Instagram: @inkandindigo
Image Credits
All photos by Gabriella Valladares | Group Photo is L to R : Laura Brown, Emily Mann, Sam Kranz, and Robin Zoubek