We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsey Hall a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelsey, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I am so happy to work daily as a creative. I have had a regular job in a creative industry, and I’ve had a regular job in a corporate industry. Both were incredible experiences, but neither filled my cup like the one I have now, building my textile business into something I am so proud of.

I look back fondly on the days where a lot of things were taken care of by my employer – health insurance & paid time off, for example. Any time tax season rolls around I question all my decisions that brought me here, but I get always get through it and I always feel very accomplished and capable after I do. How cool is that?

I check in with myself regularly and know that where I am in life right now, it makes sense for me to push on and see what I can make out of my business, but I hope to feel no shame if I ever decide to move on and get a job elsewhere. I’m fully aware that it would be a lot easier in a lot of ways, and different seasons of life calls for different priorities.

But for now, if I were to weigh the perks of being employed elsewhere against the happiness I feel daily when I get to work, it’s a no brainer that I am where I should be.

Kelsey, 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?

I am a textile designer specializing in knit garments & home textiles. I design and make all of my pieces in my Nashville studio. I use a vintage non-automated knitting machine, which means it is completely hand powered. Each piece is fully fashioned, meaning it is shaped row by row, producing little-to-no-waste. The production method of my materials is also low waste. I knit with a really beautiful merino wool from a sustainable mill in Ireland. I love this wool for its quality and unique depth of color that is created by the traditional methods of production in this region of Ireland. I also love the relationship I’ve built with this mill over the years. Having lived in Ireland for the first 5 years of my knitting journey, I’ve been able to visit the mill and see their process myself.
I am most proud of my intarsia work. Intarsia is a technique for knitting imagery or “pictures”. It is labor intensive and difficult to re-produce on an industrial scale, making it really unique to the handmade process. I knit intarsia pieces as wall hangings and as garments.
Most people know my business for garments, but I also work business-to-business with interior designers on custom wall hangings.
I feel that my processes, color palette, and sustainable Irish materials set me apart from others.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn was that you need to go to school for something in order to succeed at it or become an expert. Sometimes this feels so obviously untrue, and sometimes it is so easy to feel like an imposter when you’ve taught yourself something that comes from traditional roots.

Teaching yourself a skill requires you to be resourceful and create your own curriculum, and I think there’s so much value in that. You also don’t have the influence of traditional methods in your ear. You’re able to learn a technique without knowing how it’s supposed to be applied and this is a superpower for creating something unique.

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?

I think a common misconception is that creatives have it so nice, they just sit in their studios and get to do fun stuff all day. True ;) but not true. I’m still a businesswoman at the start and end of the day and I have a lot of strategic and not-cute work to do.

It can be so difficult to balance these polar opposite and equally important parts of a creative business. On top of this, all the pressure of your prosperity and success is solely on you. Taking a sneaky day where ~you really end up not doing much but opps it’s 5:00 and there’s always tomorrow!~ directly impacts the success of your business.

There’s a lot of uncomfortable drive behind the success of any creative business, these things don’t fall into place on their own, even though the internet can make it seem that way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.studiokelsey.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio_kelsey/

Image Credits

Studio Kelsey, Liv Hamilton