We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leander D’ambrosia. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leander below.

Alright, Leander thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I always knew that I wanted to make a career with my creativity, so all I had to do was to figure out what it was going to take to make that happen. Today I am proud to say that I have been in business for 13 years, 11 of those years with Leander D’Ambrosia jewelry as a full time endeavor. When I launched the first iteration of my jewelry business online in 2011 it was a side hustle that I would work on obsessively in the evenings while I worked a day job. Every spare dollar I had saved, I would invest back into my little business (usually to buy more silver and gemstones!) and grow my brand bit by bit.

During the early days of my business, in my free spirited 20’s, one of my superpowers was my ability and natural inclination to live as simply as possible, with as much adventure as possible. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this frugal yet productive mindset allowed me to focus on investing in myself and my growing business while being hyper-aware of where each dollar was going. In the startup phase of my business, and even today, it is incredibly tempting to get carried away with ‘shiny object syndrome’ and blow through cash on the wrong things – which can be particularly difficult when we’re talking about gorgeous gemstones and beads! But I realized that it is really important to grow slowly and sustainably in the early days, so that I could build a strong foundation for my company. It’s easier to go through the tough financial lessons when you’re smaller, with less invested… than having to go through that later down the road!

I believe that we grow through what we go through, so there is no shortcut to learning a lesson. Unfortunately most of the time we have to really experience it to really learn it. But that being said, in the early days I wish I had paid more attention to testing the market with my jewelry designs before going all in on production of a certain piece. Because what I thought would be a bestseller, wasn’t always what my customers wanted. I would have saved a lot of money if I had done more testing in small batches with real customers and real data to know what was selling and what wasn’t. Learning this lesson with expensive precious metals like silver and gold was tough! I still have way too many of these early pieces stashed in a dark draw, forever lurking around to remind me to stay focused on what my customers actually want to wear.

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’m Leander – the artist, designer, maker and visionary behind my jewelry brand LEANDER D’AMBROSIA. I have dedicated my life to creating beautiful, wearable art that has the power to make you feel valuable, confident, one-of-a-kind & infinitely beautiful every single day. Inspired by rustic old world charm and nature’s boundless beauty, my pieces are designed to elevate your everyday. I love to employ a richness of color through use of gorgeous hand selected gemstones and high karat gold and sterling silver. I use minimalist design motifs that are highlighted by artful texture and form, all while maintaining a stylistic dedication to timeless elegance.

Originally from Australia, my jewelry making operations are humble and all pieces are handmade by me in my quaint studio workshop in México – where the beautiful desert meets the calm and abundant Sea of Cortez. We ship our beautiful jewels worldwide from our shipping headquarters in Tucson, Arizona USA daily.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think the creative arts are imperative to a happy and healthy society. Without beauty in our world, what is actually the point of it all? Of course we cannot improve upon nature’s impeccable beauty, yet our fundamental human desire is to either create, admire or be immersed in beautiful things. It is a balm for the spirit and soul. Almost everything we touch in our daily lives has been designed by an artist or conceptualized by a creative inventor, dancing a delicate line between form and function, to make something mundane at least a little bit pleasant to look at. The arts are critical to society, yet for some reason The Arts programs are always the first to be cut out of a budget. I think the single most important thing that society can do to support the arts is to simply notice how bland the world would be without creative input, and surely that would awaken a passion to patronize the arts. I think non-creatives tend to assume that creative people are ‘just born with it’, which is of course true. But the actual reality is that making art must be celebrated, encouraged, taught, refined, practiced and evolve with technology in order to benefit society. It takes a lot of time and education to develop a creative skill, yet society often expects that artists give away their talents for free or for ‘exposure’. Often, artists are told ‘they’ll never make a living as an artist’, but yet the world needs artists. There’s never been a better time to support the independent artists and makers out there who are striving to make our world a more beautiful place every single day.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After lots of chats with my customers at in person events and as I get to know them online, I get the impression that my story and my business journey is not a typical one. I am Australian, but I live in a tiny little beach town in Mexico, and travel the world selling my jewelry.

Thanks to the internet and my amazing team in Tucson, Arizona who take care of shipping website orders, I get to live a pretty sweet lifestyle with lots of travel and adventure in between. However, running a business like this does get exhausting sometimes and it’s hard to be away from my family when I travel for art festivals.

People tell me I’m brave to take long drives through the desert, or to launch myself into a new culture and language, or even to simply be a full time working artist. But to me, it’s just another adventure and a puzzle to figure out as I go, with lots of ups and downs along the way! I guess that takes a bit of resilience, doesn’t it? Even when challenges arise, deep down I know that I am resilient and almost every hurdle is able to be figured out somehow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.leanderdambrosia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leander_dambrosia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leanderdambrosiawearables

Image Credits

Photography: Marcela Campillo
Model: Natalia Elizondo