We recently connected with Laura Kasperlik and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I have officially been referring to myself as a maker and artist for 8 years and change. Prior to that, I worked in healthcare, and then in international HR. And although the need to find patient solutions and to deal with corporate leadership certainly had its own sort of creative artistry, neither role gave me the freedom and fun found in using paint, fabric and stitching to design and produce art.

I’d played with creating some art during these two careers, but really had no significant time to devote to it – or maybe I should say that I didn’t make the time for it. Finishing my degree, learning life-saving skills and climbing the promotion ladder provided a lot of satisfaction and adrenaline…but I still missed the joy of cracking open new paint containers and digging in to all of that color, a joy that I’d had since I was young.

Having my job eliminated about 8 years ago provided the impetus for my current life phase – I decided to jump into the creative market and start my own business, and I haven’t looked back.

So yes, a big part of me regrets not having explored the arts earlier in my life, and at the same time – I am not sure I would have been ready for it without having experienced success and failure in other arenas. And those paths that I did take, required less risk of exposure, less vulnerability, than putting out art or products designed and created as an individual. Because there’s nowhere to hide, when your signature is on the piece! Without the former life experiences, I might have given up when early creative efforts flopped.

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

At Pretty Clever Words, the art is a little smarty, cleverness is celebrated and humor is often how we hug.

Reading is my first and most endearing love, and I am passionate about the power of words. Whether humorous or inspirational, most of my products have quotes, puns, random words and fresh fonts fused with fabric, paint, wood and other materials, to create unique home decor and personal accessories.

I launched a Pretty Clever Home line earlier in 2022, with punny soap, lux candles and bright, funny towels – all guaranteed to add humor and color to your every day – perfect for gifting too! And my art pieces most often combine fabric painted with acrylics, inks and watercolors, detailed with stitching and finished with some words in vinyl.

As a female-owned and operated business, my collections are inspired by and for fierce, focused, funny, smart and determined women – plus the loving humans surrounding us.

I try to use materials that are grown or sourced or made in the U.S., and I actively seek out eco-conscious suppliers with fair hiring practices as well.

As I often say – words and actions matter, peeps. It is a very challenging climate for history and word purveyors, as politicians seeking power try to shut down education, deny elections, and actively take away equal rights and representation. I am proud to focus on infusing my works with empowering words and quotes to stand against such censorship.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like so many of my maker friends, I had to pivot hard during the pandemic and for most of 2020 and into 2021. This won’t be new to anyone reading this – we all had to make changes in our personal and business lives during those years.

In early 2020, I was using a lot of paint and vinyl in my work, along with my heat press. Shirts, tote bags and hoop art comprised a lot of my sales. I had an old sewing machine that had seen a fair amount of work over the years, but I hadn’t done much more than make some zip bags with it.

Also…I was then, and am now, a fabric hoarder. Maker friends reading this will nod with understanding, as we all like to have stacks of fabric at the ready, purchased for all of our projects but just ..somehow..too nice to actually use them for said projects.

March 2020 hits, my craft events all cancel and business tanks. So again, like many – I started sewing masks and donating to organizations, sending to friends and selling them on my website. It was a crazy time!

So so many orders and hours of sewing…early morning and late night sewing, and then cutting up and using all of those lovely too-nice fabric stacks on these masks.

It was a complete change from what I’d been doing – I had to buy a new sewing machine after mine went down (fun fact – professional sewers all have a backup machine – who knew??) and learn how to use all of those great features very quickly. I had to source thread and binding and elastic during a procurement nightmare…blades and bandaids! So many blades and bandaids..fabric cutting blades are sharp, especially when cutting three layers of fabric for a 250-mask custom order.

In short, it taught me to be a small-but-complete manufacturing business in a very short time, and prior to that – I’d looked at my business as just a craft sideline. This pivot, this hard change required me to understand and manage every aspect of a creative organization and even though I was the only employee and had to complain to HR about myself sometimes – I learned so much! It was exhausting, not entirely profitable (another lesson learned) and I will never regret it.

It taught me that I can take risks, create new lines, and change quickly if need be. Also – use up the good fabric, your grandma’s china and those perfectly sharpened watercolor pencils – don’t save them for another pandemic!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Since I started my business, I have often found it difficult to create just for the sake of creating – to have fun with paint and fabric and stitching – without thinking of my customers and target audience and important things like HOW TO CREATE THINGS THAT WILL SELL and that II MUST COMMERCIALIZE EVERYTHING. (Of course, these thoughts that keep me up in the night are always capitalized in my mind.)

When you make your living as an artist and maker of beautiful things, there can be a voice in the back of your head, driving you to be competitive and sellsellsell and figure out what customers will want to buy even before knowing what creative actions will bring you joy on any given day.

I know this happens to some of my maker and artist friends as well -it’s a feeling that totally drains the joy from my endeavors, and during tough times, it can be like a drumbeat, overshadowing my creativity.

But I want and need to be able to sell my finished work, if only to buy more supplies! And I love my business, my website and my customer friends, and let’s be honest – I also love the ca-ching and the validation, really, of someone making a purchase on my website. You like me, you really really like me!

I don’t know what the answer is for me yet – I need to keep figuring out that balance for myself between working on art and working on my business.. I do know that when I truly create art that I love, with luscious colors and fabrics or simply words that make my customers laugh out loud – those are the best times, the most memorable times for me in this creative world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.prettycleverwords.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prettycleverwords
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prettycleverwordsartsmart
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/prttycleverword
• Other: etsy – https://www.etsy.com/shop/PrettyCleverWord

Image Credits
all images are done by author