We recently connected with Gemma Lessinger and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Gemma thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I was able to go full time as an artist and entrepreneur in January 2023, but I was building my craft and business for 3 years prior to that alongside a full time job. It was an unexpected journey, I was incredibly happy in my full time career as a fashion buyer but when Covid 19 struck and I was furloughed from my job and I didn’t know what to do with myself! I was so used to being on the go and busy all the time, I was completely lost with nothing to do. I was also missing visiting the ocean everyday so wanted to bring its magic to me in my home. It was then that I remembered I had some old paints and some canvases under the bed in the spare room. That moment changed my life.

I hadn’t painted since I was at college, many years before. I had just forgotten I could do it, but starting again during lockdown lit a fire in me. I shared a photo of the first piece I created on social media and people loved it. I did another and someone asked if they could buy it. It was only after a few people asking about buying a piece that I thought, I might have a little side hustle here… I could never have dreamed it would lead to me leaving my job and being able to support myself and build a thriving business.

Social media is the main reason my business grew, with the world on lockdown all of the art industry was now solely online and it gave artists like me the window to show my work to the world. Building my own website was the next milestone that gave me a place to really sell from, to tell my story, build a brand and share my passion for the ocean and repurposing.

After going back to work and running my art business in my spare time for a year I realised it was where my heart lie, where I wanted to focus my time and skills. So after a conversation with my manager he allowed me to go down to part time hours. Having that time two full weekdays to focus on my painting was a game changer. I had time to really focus on marketing, press and pr, email marketing. That propelled my business forward and really made me realise I wanted it to be my full time career. I wanted to grow things even further and paint every single day.

After a year working part time, I finally made the leap and became a full time artist and entrepreneur in January 2023. It was terrifying but exhilarating. Now a whole year later, I have so many exciting plans in the pipeline for 2024, having spent 2023 meeting with new customers, new partners like galleries and retail and hospitality venues. I have been able to try and test my teaching skills and am really excited to see where that leads.

I don’t think I would have wanted the process to speed up in all honesty. I am so glad that I had that time before, with the security of my job to help take the financial strain off of my business. It gave me confidence to try things without the worry that it may not work or sell. It gave me the time to build a solid foundation to support myself, a strong community of customers, followers and regular collectors who I knew would be there in the future. Taking risks and using all my earnings from my business to market my work, using it to grow the business is what has lead to its strength today.

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 am a textural seascape artist, painting aerial views of the ocean using repurposed materials to build 3D texture. Essentially I create waves from waste.

I use eco acrylic paint mixed with upcycled materials and waste to share my love of the ocean and the Cornish coastline. I aim to bring the magic and the momentum of the ocean to you in your home. One of the main upcycled materials I work with is offcuts of fibreglass from surfboard manufacturing. I work with a shaper in my hometown of Newquay in Cornwall, and use the scraps of ‘fabric’ to build the depth and texture of a wave into my paintings. These scraps cannot be recycled so by me repurposing them into my art, I am helping the shaper become one step closer to being zero waste, saving it from ending up on landfill. Not only that, but it is incredible to work with as an artist. It holds the peak and curving crest of a wave in the most incredible way.

I have also used other waste products like coffee bean sacks, tea bag paper, neoprene offcuts and woven thread from another artist. I gather beach plastic, driftwood and other things I find on the coastline I am focusing on, saving it from polluting our oceans. I also repurpose waste as a canvas, like old broken surfboards, saving them from ending up on landfill, transforming them into art.

I am constantly looking for new ‘waste’ that I can use to experiment with, to take my texture to the next level and show people that there is so much at our finger tips that we can re-use instead of throwing away. I am really proud that this message is really starting to grow with my followers and collectors. We all need to do our bit in trying to undo the damage we have done to our planet, if my art gets people to stop and think just for one moment about that then I am happy.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

That you can’t earn money just from painting. That I wasn’t skilled enough to own and run my own business.

That was the main reason I went into fashion and buying as my career, I was told at college that it was safer to use my creativity in a ‘proper career’. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my fashion career and the skills I learnt during my many years working in it are actually what led to me realising how wrong I was about both parts of my lesson above. I always had the idea that I, as a woman and someone who didn’t get straight A’s at school, I could never run a successful business. You only saw highly educated upper class men doing that.

I was so very wrong. You can earn money, create a career and a business from painting, if you treat it like a business rather than a hobby. You will not ever be skilled to do all aspects of running a business, my goodness that was a massive lesson for me, but there are people who you can work with and hire that can help in the areas that aren’t your expertise. Everyone has their strengths, so focus on yours and get help for the rest.

I had the dedication, the focus and determination to run my own business. But I learnt quite early on that the one thing that can propel you and your business, is marketing. You can’t expect people to come find you, you have to shout it from the rooftops on a daily basis. Show the world in every way you can that you have something that might solve a problem for them, whether that be free tools like social media or paid advertising. That is how you earn money from painting and create a successful business. It doesn’t matter what you paint, create or offer or even how good it is, if you don’t tell people about it they won’t know what they are potentially missing out on.

Surrounding myself with other women in business and creative women has really helped my mindset in truly believing I can do whatever I put my mind to. With the help and support of other likeminded people you can do anything.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The joy that something I created with my own hands can bring to someone else. I never fail, 4 years into my business, to be incredibly moved by peoples reactions to my paintings and work. I get so nervous before I unveil a commission or someone receives their painting, so to hear they are pleased with it is incredible. To hear some of the stories as to why a collector choses me to bring their beach memory to life on a canvas is very humbling, so I want to ensure I do their memory justice. So they can look at my piece everyday and be transported back there.

Teaching in my repurposing to create art workshops is also so incredibly rewarding and I am really excited to see where this leads in 2024. It is so amazing to watch people, who come to me saying they are not creative, have never painted before, stop their busy minds and let their creativity flow. Also showing them that there is so much we can re-use or upcycle that we would ordinarily throw into the trash. Thats a very rewarding feeling knowing that I may have got that person to rethink and change their habits to help our planet.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.gemmalessinger.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/gemmalessingerart
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/gemmalessingerart
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/gemmalessinger
• Other: www.pinterest.com/gemmalessingerart