Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jennifer Keller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
Do I wish I started a creative career sooner? No, I don’t think so because I think with me I have always found a way to tap into that creative side in whatever I was doing. I think most creatives and artists can relate to that. When I think back on the path that led me to where I am right now, I laugh thinking I have never once enrolled in an art class of my own doing, but here I am painting banners as a full-time income.
My current small business as a banner painter started last October. I was at a time when I needed to find an income that I enjoyed, which gave me fulfillment with my time and allowed me a flexible schedule so I could be home with my daughter. At the time, my husband and I had just returned from living in Japan (where he was playing professional baseball), and I had left my job as a high school teacher. I think that this opportunity came at the exact time that I needed it to. Starting sooner, I would have put it on pause when we moved to Japan, and starting later wasn’t an option, I had the opportunity present itself, so I needed to take advantage of it. I started this when I did because I was inspired by creating a banner for my daughter’s first birthday. Celebrating a year of her, a year of motherhood, and all the challenges that come with that. So for me, that was the perfect start to my small business.
Jennifer, 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?
Hi there! My name is Jennifer Keller, and I run a small business called JMKCrafting! I design and paint custom celebration banners. My small business started in October 2024 and has been jam-packed with designing and painting since. Although I am not the only person who paints custom banners, I believe that we all have the style that we put forth to our clients. My style is large, bold text and graphics that are clean-cut and light and that take up the entire banner. I began this journey by making a banner for my daughter’s first birthday and then for my nephew’s birthday. I started an Etsy shop and posted photos of those two banners, and before I knew it, I had a handful of orders. I love being a small part of people’s celebrations, ranging from birthdays, engagements, bachelorette parties, weddings, and so much more! I love working with my clients; I love creating designs for banners and continuing to work with the client until we get the design that they love!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
My biggest two pivots in life happened one after the other. The first occurred in October 2023 when my husband got the opportunity to play professional baseball in Japan. I, at the time, was a high school science teacher. I obviously couldn’t take my work with me so I had to leave my career and pursue a life in Japan. Little did I know that this allowed me to work on being creative. I had slowly been making content for a website called teacherspayteachers.com. One of the reasons that I loved teaching so much, besides my interactions with the kids, was that I was able to still be creative within my classroom and use my creativity to create content for my classroom which I was then able to sell on “teachers pay teachers”. I loved that I was able to be with my husband, travel and experience a new country as well as find a way to make a side income and have an outlet for my creativity.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
My view, which I’m sure I share with a number of others, is that we live too much in a world where it is easier to buy things cheaply off the internet from a big corporation than to appreciate and support small businesses and artists. I specifically specialize in the party space and do the majority of my sales on Etsy. I know that many people would rather go to Amazon or Temu and get the things for their events cheaply from those sites. A major problem lies, though, with the fact that many of these websites are going on websites from Etsy and taking designs from artists and small businesses and mass producing them and selling them at a fraction of the cost. I think that one of the best things we can do as a society to support artists is to do our due diligence to make sure we are getting things from creatives when we can and doing our best to make sure we are getting work from artists that are original to them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jmkcrafting.etsy.com
- Instagram: @jmkcrafting
- Facebook: jmkcrafting
