We were lucky to catch up with Jenna Evelhair recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jenna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
Where to start? From the moment I looked at my mother as a child and said “I want to make crafts just like you”, she made certain I had a paint brush, scrap wood, rocks, crayons or whatever we could find to create with close by. Growing up, I bounced around from hobby to hobby. This trend began in early childhood and continued up until my late teens, early twenties when curiosity led me to pick up a crochet hook. This curiosity in combination with my mother’s support is what ultimately led to the creation of my first business. As I ping-ponged from one adventure to another, never once did my mother force me to “stick with” any of these fleeting interests. Instead, she would simply ask why I was moving on to something new, always accepting my answer of “because it just doesn’t feel right”. My mother’s constant support regardless of “what” and “for how long” was one of her most admirable traits.
My most notable adventure was when I ran off to college for Fashion Marketing a month after graduating high school. I didn’t last four days before calling my mother in tears. My gut couldn’t lie; fashion marketing was not the path for me.. Without hesitation, she asked me to write her two short lists, 1. What do you want to do? and 2. How are you going to do it? I don’t remember the exact wording of those two questions, but what I do remember is filling up a full 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper front and back and handing it to her after my two hour drive home that weekend. While others would ridicule my decision well into adulthood, my mother never once made me feel like a failure for coming home four days after starting college.
Although my father could paint cars, traditional arts and crafts weren’t his thing. Despite this, his support never wavered. They say “it takes money to make money”. No matter what chaos life has brought my way, my father has always aided in supporting my dreams financially. I have been eye level with rock bottom on several occasions, and it was especially during these trying times that he demonstrated his belief in me. Cue Christmas Eve 2019. I’m fired for the first time ever, mid shift, no less, ultimately leading me down my sudden path to full time entrepreneurship. I imagine most successful business people have one of those stories, the one that forced them to stand on the edge of a precipice. This was mine, and I found myself jumping into full time self employment at the break of a global pandemic at the same time my landlord informed me they were selling the home I was renting. Between moving and needing just shy of a $5,000 deposit for another rental, I was financially exhausted. Cue my father’s lack of hesitation to purchase supplies for me to continue forward throughout the uncertainty. This wasn’t his first time digging me out of the proverbial hole, and I know, without a doubt, he would do it all over again, if I ever needed.
If there is one thing to take from my story, it’s to embrace others (especially your children) for exactly who they are, not who you want them to be. We all learn, grow and experience things in many different ways. There are a lot of different trails that lead to the same summit… and there are also a lot of different mountains to be conquered. I am grateful to have grown up in a circle of individuals who fostered my differences, which has allowed me to overcome the difficulties of entrepreneurship and embrace change.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I should start by clarifying, I own two businesses. The first, Evelhair Handmade, is a handmade apparel company (custom hand crocheted beanies) and the other, Evelhair Photography, is a photography business focusing primarily on product and content photography, which emerged as the handmade apparel company was floundering at the peak of the pandemic.
My first business, Evelhair Handmade, started largely thanks to my mother. I was always enamored by her creativity and wanted nothing more than to be just like her. Thankfully, she had a significant amount of patience, considering it took me nearly 2-3 winters to conquer crocheting. It began with making gifts for family and friends who then began asking to purchase goods from me. From there, I jumped into a consignment shop to sell my retail goods. After selling my home in 2016, I was a bit lost and took that summer to reflect and navigate what direction I wanted to go. And so began my wholesale journey, which is the only side of my crochet business that is still going strong today. I began sourcing yarn and patches and started marketing, mainly to breweries. I had been working in the brewery industry for 6 years at the time. This is where I learned just how important quality is which fell perfectly in line with my handmade goods. This led me to multiple visits out west (Colorado), where I finally felt I had found my “home”, and in 2019, I made the big move. Within six months in Colorado, I saw a level of support from my new community that I did not have back east. I managed to build relationships with local businesses like Odell Brewing Company, Zwei Brewing, and Friendly Nick’s Butcher as well as many other small businesses in Northern Colorado and have been making hats for them since!
Evelhair Handmade is known for quality. This has been a priority from the beginning. The funny thing about the beanies I make is that the pattern is fairly simple. For years, I would see fancy color yarns, crazy designs and textures, but never did I find a minimalistic, tasteful, handmade beanie. Thus, came my basic beanie pattern. In order to eliminate waste, I began putting any excess yarn I had left over from making solid color hats to the side and once I had enough, I would make what are now referred to as my “scrap caps”. Scrap caps are one of a kind, multi-colored hats. These have become so popular, they are primarily the only hats I make!
Wholesaling a handmade product is tough, but it’s what really sets me apart from other handmade businesses. This business has helped cultivate incredible relationships within my community. I am beyond proud to work with the wonderful businesses in my community and anyone else I am blessed enough to reach.
When it comes to photography, I have been all over the board (surprise, surprise)! I feel it’s important to note that growing up, I used to set my barbies up and take pictures of them with my disposable cameras. I also loved documenting EVERYTHING… from candid photographs on vacation all the way to the kitchen and bathroom of the cabin we were renting (sorry for wasting that film, ma!). Fast track to high school, I took film classes and even made my own pinhole camera once. After my quick trip to college for Fashion Marketing, I started at a state university for photography, taking a film class, but soon found out my brain couldn’t handle going to college for something so subjective. While I knew I didn’t want to go to college for photography, that didn’t diminish my desire to have a camera in my hand. With help from a good friend, Justin Hamel, I bought my first DSLR and began exploring abandoned buildings, thankfully never getting caught. From there, I managed a lot of seniors at my full time job and got asked to take senior portraits for a few of them. This began a slow trickle into what I swore to myself and everyone else would never become my career, a professional photographer. Much like my first business, I was being approached by family and friends to take portraits. In 2013, a friend who focused on wedding photography moved back to the area and needed a second shooter. Throughout my time as a wedding photographer, I gained a lot of portrait clients and began photographing my handmade goods for my other business. Ironically, when I moved to Colorado (2019), I took a bit of a hiatus from photography for about a year, to the extent that I sold a majority of my equipment to help pay for rent within my first few months out west. I was overwhelmed with my handmade business taking off, building new relationships and was working for a small business in town as well.
As mentioned, I lost my job at the end of 2019 and chose to take that as a sign. As I mentally prepared myself for full time self employment, I had no idea what I was up against. Breweries made up a significant amount of my wholesale accounts for my handmade business, all of which were being shut down. I made the decision to pivot and utilize one of my biggest skills… adaptability! With big thanks to my step brother, Jason, I quickly learned about a freelance site online and began offering product photography; after all, I had been doing all my product photography for my handmade apparel company. Fun fact, I had little knowledge about product photography. I remember building this obnoxious lightbox out of a cardboard box as if I was entering a science fair in elementary school before realizing how inexpensive a lightbox is. With the help of my best friend, and now part time assistant, Arielle, I was able to tackle jobs that were above my skill level while I learned a majority of my basic product editing skills from her in the early months. What began as a move of necessity became an overwhelming success.
I can say with confidence, and a lot of reviews, my communication is by far what sets me apart from others. I am a firm believer that a little bit goes a long way. Due to starting my business online throughout a global pandemic, connecting with my clients has been one of the biggest hurdles for me to overcome. After my first full year in business, I implemented phone consults with my clients (when applicable) in order to not only create more efficiency within my process, but connect with my clients on a deeper level. It is my goal to create strong relationships, as it has proven that with strong relationships, you can overcome life’s biggest uncertainties.
Without hesitation, my resilience is what I am most proud of. If I can pivot, start a new business and manage to succeed within the first two years while navigating a global pandemic, losing my housing (twice), months of brand new gear failing on me and the ultimate gut wrenching sudden loss of my mother, nothing will stand in my way.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I have felt lost in a forest without a compass with the amount of pivoting that has taken place over the last two years. When I started my photography business during the break of a global pandemic, I thought that would be the ongoing hurdle I spoke of, not the following year, 2021. While the pandemic was still lingering, I started experiencing significant technological issues at the beginning of the year. Thus began a year (or more) of constant pivoting. First, my brand new hard drive failed on me within six months (completely full of content, might I add). To add insult to injury, my 9-month old custom-built computer needed its logical board replaced not once, but twice. Cue salt in the wound: my car’s transmission also went out at the same time. Thankfully, with the help of a kind friend, I was able to get a ride to drop off my computer that same day. The following month or two, I was forced to surrender for a small period of time, after exhausting every feasible option (borrowing computers, purchasing new hard drives, etc.). I slowly trickled back into work as spring approached, up until the end of July when I found out while on a work trip in southern California that I was losing my housing, once again. As I navigated immediate, short and long term solutions, I found myself in temporary housing. Right when I thought I had established a solid plan to move forward, despite the uncertainty, the unthinkable happened. On October 10th, 2021, I received a phone call five minutes before a client arrived at the studio that an ambulance had just left my mother’s driveway. I spare you no surprise, the news I received mere hours later was news that would forever create a significant divide in my life. There was now and will forever be a “before” and “after”.
I lost my mother… suddenly, unexpectedly, 1,600 miles away, 7 short days before I was planning on surprising her with an early visit. I didn’t just lose my mother that day. I lost my best friend. I lost my mentor. I lost my silent, unofficial business partner. I lost a big piece of myself that day.
I am confident in saying that this will forever be the biggest pivot of my life. I have uprooted from Colorado back to Pennsylvania temporarily as I navigate settling an estate at the age of 31, while simultaneously trying to keep two businesses alive. I continue to bounce back and forth in order to sustain relationships and the life I spent the last three years building for myself. As I navigate this new life, I am reevaluating who I am and what I want from my business(es). As hurtful as this new normal is, there is something empowering about that moment when you realize the choice to live the life you want, truly is yours and no one else’s.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Resilience, as defined, is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness” and although some may not view getting out of bed, brushing your teeth or showering as “tough”, allow me to express just how my journey through grief has redefined the definition of “resilience”.
Since the very sudden loss of my mother, every single task has felt heavier, more difficult and many days, useless. The simple thought of unlocking my phone or leaving my house in the morning was far too much to imagine, let alone actually commit to doing. Throw in an eating disorder that surfaced two months prior to this incident, one that I had only told my mother of two short weeks before I lost her. So, there I stood, walking on eggshells with people trying to force food down my throat, which in hindsight, is what I needed, if maybe less aggressively.
Resilience looks a lot different to me these days. Resilience looks like getting out of bed on my own. Resilience looks like me forcing myself to eat so I have enough energy to practice Jiu Jitsu and roller skate, which both bring me so much joy. Resilience looks like asking for help. Resilience looks like communicating my wants and needs, even when I, myself, don’t know exactly what they are.. Resilience looks like vocalizing the words “I lost my mother” without falling to the ground. Resilience is continuing on this journey, one so heavily influenced by the hole in my heart.
Sometimes resilience is simply surviving, and sometimes that’s okay.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.evelhairphotography.com
- Instagram: @evelhair_photography
- Facebook: @evelhairphotography
- Other: Evelhair Handmade WEBSITE: www.evelhairhandmade.com INSTAGRAM: @evelhairhandmade FACEBOOK: @evelhairhandmade
Image Credits
Evelhair Photography, Steve Bagwell (1 photo – photograph of myself in Therapy Brewing beanie)