We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Kinder. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.
Alright, Sarah 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?
Yes, before I started my business, I was working full time in social media marketing for a jewelry company for almost 9 years, and switched jobs in 2021 to work for a cosmetics company doing the same thing. From the beginning, I could tell that the company wasn’t doing well, and it was the middle of the pandemic still, so I started weaving Macrame and learning the cement trade as a way to meditate, and transfer some of my anxious energy into something positive. In June of 2021, I learned that I would be laid off, and although I got multiple job offers after being let go, I chose to take my freedom from corporate America as an opportunity to invest in myself and start my own business. I remember being absolutely terrified during my first market event, thinking no one would actually buy my work, but I made $200 in 4 hours, and thought maybe I can actually do this! I continued doing market events for about a month, then decided that I wanted to go bigger, and rent out a market space and sell my art full time. I sometimes wish I would have started my business sooner, but I don’t think I would have ever quit my job to do art full time, but being let go, and not having a choice forced me out of my comfort zone and into a new world of creating for profit. I don’t think I would have done anything different in my journey because it’s my story of how I got started, and I needed each lesson I learned in the time I learned it, to grow into the business owner I am today.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Sarah Kinder, and my business is called the Kinder artist because my work is kind to the environment. I started my business by weaving Macrame – it was a craft I learned when I was about 12 years old. My mom taught me the knots, and bought me a book on how to make macrame jewelry. So in Junior High, in the 90’s, I was making macrame jewelry with shells and beads, for my friends, and selling them to acquaintances. I shopped my work to local boutiques to carry in their stores in California. in 2002, my family moved to Arizona, and I stopped creating to focus on school, and other things in life. Fast forward to 2020, tiktok blew up, and I stumbled on someone making this huge macrame wall piece, and I thought, “I can do that!” like we all do when we see other people creating online. I ordered a ton of macrame and sticks, and my first pieces were small, awkward, and kinda just AWFUL. I quickly learned that weaving macrame home decor is very different from weaving jewelry. I took pieces apart and put them back together several times before I really found my rhythm. But it took forever for me to make a single macrame piece, like it would take an hour for me to make a single coaster, and the going price for something like that is $5-$7, and honestly, macrame artists (and fiber artists in general) just don’t get paid enough for the work they do, so I started looking for alternatives to fill a market table that would still fit with my boho aesthetic. I also wanted challenge myself to work in a medium I have never worked in before, and found epoxy resin, but I didn’t like that it was just more plastic being produced, and over time it yellows, and looks old. I started researching how to work with cement, concrete, and other eco resins to make home decor pieces that I couldn’t find in stores, that would be unique, and add to a space in a way that macrame couldn’t. I basically just started testing out everything, until I finally landed on Jesmonite. I have like 20 bags of different cements, concretes, and aggregates chillin in my basement from when I was testing what mediums would work, and I might use them one day now that I know what I’m doing, but for now, I will stick with Jesmonite. Unfortunately Jesmonite is only available in the UK, and an official distributor hasn’t made it to the US market, so when I can get my hands on Jesmonite, I buy as much as I can. And I think what makes my work unique is that I make my own molds that are very woman forward and highlight my dedication to feminism and use a material that has a low environmental impact. My macrame pieces are also made from recycled cotton, and I hide an abstract vulva in all of my wall art
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
When it comes to creating, and putting yourself out there, I used to hear the that I need to niche down, or that I need to figure out my target audience, or I need to work with what is trending, etc. And the truth is, as an artist, your niche is whoever loves your work. I have people from all walks of life, all genders, religions, cultures, and age groups, etc, who love my work, because it is a reflection of myself. I also had to unlearn that I had to have a “style” and sure, having a signature style is great, but I also felt like it crippled me as an artist. Why can’t I work with cement, macrame, texture art, and paint? Who says I have to work with a specific style or medium? What makes me an artist is my desire to thrust myself out of my comfort zone and create with no limits. Limits are for corporate jobs, but I’m an artist paving my own path, and if I fail, it will be my own fault. But so far, I’ve been pretty successful being my authentic self.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When I first started my brand, I wanted to have a specific look, and have a beautiful and uniformed social media grid on my IG, FB, and tiktok. I also tried to jump on every viral trend to stay relevant. I took advice from so many social media coaches, about hashtags, algorithms, audio pushes, filters, etc. And I was trying so hard to get at least one video to go viral. In the beginning I had people add me, and remove me from their network within days because of my overly pushy and sometimes cringe content. The thing that helped me create an authentic following was being my goofy ass self and planning out my posts, instead of trying to post daily without any sort of flow. Today I only have 2,423 followers on IG, but each person who follows me is an actual person, or local business who is supporting my journey, and therefore those accounts interact with my content in a genuine way because they actually like my work. I worked in social media for larger corporations before I started my business, so you would think that I would know exactly what to do with my own business, but growing an authentic audience is a lot harder than maintaining an existing audience. And I’m on the growth side of things, and my community is everything to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thekinderartist.com
- Instagram: @the.kinder.artist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekinderartist
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sarah-kinder
- Twitter: na
- Youtube: na
- Yelp: na
- Other: tiktok: Thekinderartist Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thekinderartist
Image Credits
I did not use any photography service for these images