We recently connected with Neal Eilers and have shared our conversation below.

Neal , thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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?

Yes, fortunately I have been able to turn my creative work into a full-time living. I was at a point in my life where I told myself if you don’t try to follow your passion and what you enjoy doing, there might not be a better time to do so. My journey without even realizing it started in high school in the wood shop class. Since then, I’ve always done projects here and there but never made a push to make it a business. Fast forward to a few years before the pandemic and I found myself getting more into wildlife and landscape photography. Once I started to print and try to sell my photos, I thought of ways that would separate my work from other photographers. One of my ideas was to own the whole process from taking the photo, editing it, mounting it, and finally framing it. This is the time where the woodworker in me started to come out again. I started to buy some basic woodworking tools to make my own frames and set up a shop in my garage. After making a few frames I decided to post them online to see if they would sell or not. Well, they started to sell and before you know it, I was getting a lot of orders from around the country for my frames. It was at this point that I made the decision to follow the money and started a custom framing business. This was April of 2020. In August of 2020 I had an opportunity to have a store that was brick and mortar and after about a week of going through some numbers and kind of getting the courage up to open a store, I said yes. You must remember at this time I was still kind of set on trying to build a natural and wildlife photography business as well so opening a store I knew would kind of take that away because I wouldn’t be able to travel very much if at all. But ultimately, I was ok with that and started the process of opening my store. Fast forward to 2023 now and I have been open almost 1-1/2 years and business is going great.

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’m originally from Ralston, NE (which is where I live now and where my business is) but have traveled and lived not only in the US but also in other counties, mainly in South America. I spent some time living in Bolivia, Chile, and Colombia where I met my wife. I lived in Medellin, Colombia for a couple years before moving back to the states in 2014. I had a nice corporate job and really enjoyed my time there, but I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing and was not happy with the direction of my life. As mentioned, I got into the custom framing business through my photography and wanted to own the whole process from taking the photo, to mounting, and framing it. I now have a store in Ralston, NE called Nebraska Custom Framing & Furniture. My main business is custom framing. But I’m not like many other frame shops as I make all the molding myself in my own shop, which happens to be right below the gallery. I have clients that bring me pretty much anything you can think of to frame. I like to think that I’m helping someone preserve the things they cherish for a lifetime. I have clients that bring me items from expensive works of art to their grandfathers’ WWII Navy jacket. So there is a wide variety of objects I have framed for my clients.
What I’m most proud of is the fact that I make everything in-house. I’m making the frames with local natural hardwoods that I source myself. This is what really separates me from my competitors in my area. When you walk into my store you don’t have the overbearing feeling of where do I start? I try and make the process as simple for my clients as possible. Now, don’t get me wrong I am always coming out with new frame designs to offer my clients but it will still always be with natural wood and I will always be the one to personally handcraft each frame.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist and owning my own small business is that I have finally found something that I am passionate about doing and every day feels like a day off. I have never dreaded going into work and one of the best moments of my days (besides spending time with my wife and dog 😊 ) is opening the door to my shop and thinking about what I get to do that day. There is a lot of work that goes into owning your own business especially when I am the only one that works at the business, but each day is a new adventure and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think this is a great question and one that needs to be told repeatedly. The pandemic really opened the eyes of a lot of people around the US. People found it hard to find things that they wanted because the supply chain was backed up and they had to turn to local businesses which they might not have otherwise turned to. From this I think there was and still is, a big push to support local business which of course includes local artists and makers. There are all sorts of things people can do to support artists and creatives in their community. A small but effective thing is just liking and following their page on Instagram, Facebook, or whatever social media they use. I still get excited whenever I see a new follower pop up on my Instagram page. Also, going and checking out their work even if you don’t intend to buy anything you still get to know the artist or creative and you never know what may come up in the future. I think communities need to showcase the artists/creatives they have in their area by putting on a makers/artist’s market. We started doing that here once a month in Ralston and it has had a great impact on the community and the local artists/creatives. I think ultimately there is so much a community can do for their local artists and creatives, it just comes down to finding things that work within that community.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.necustomwoodframes.com
• Instagram: necustomframing_furniture
• Facebook: NE Custom Framing & Furniture

Image Credits
I took these photos so they are all under my name.