Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Mandell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I recently became an orphan, at the age of 39. This new season of life has given me even more opportunities in recent months to look back and appreciate everything my parents did for me to encourage my creativity growing up and into adulthood.

My dad passed away in July of this year, exactly 17 years to the day after my mom (both from cancer). I knew I had good parents growing up (aside from a few misguided moments as a teen when I hated everyone and everything) but now I can clearly see very specific ways they each impacted my creative growth, my need to always explore & learn new things, and my appreciation for other people’s artistic efforts.

My mom was the one who initially sparked my interest in art, making time to do craft projects around the house and eventually taking extra curricular art classes with me at the community college in the evenings when high school electives weren’t enough to quench my thirst. She was gifted with drawing and painting skills, but for her it was just a hobby. At the time, we didn’t really know of anyone who made a living with their art, it seemed like an impossible thing. Even still, she wholeheartedly supported me when I chose to go to art school, and just weeks before she passed she was able to see me graduate from Maryland Institute College of Art, get married, and begin my career.

My dad was a gifted writer and researcher, and he was the one who nudged me to explore and learn. I didn’t realize how important those characteristics were until I was well into my 20’s. His love of nature inspired my love of nature, and we always found interesting art museums and new places to visit together. His patient editing of my poorly-written papers although school taught me to be a better writer, and when I published my first novel in 2012 and my second in 2016, I knew he’d be the first in line to read it.

The thing my parents did 100% right the whole way, even when it was not an easy thing, was encourage me. I know for sure I had some dumb ideas, I said some really stupid things, but they supported anyway and helped guide me in the direction towards a creative life.

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 the brains & busy hands behind Once Again Sam, a small handmade business in Greer, SC. I’m also a published author and an interior designer, but nearly 75% of my time goes towards creating handmade jewelry, fiber art, and running Once Again Sam.

I got my start in 2009, a few years after graduating from art school, because I missed working with my hands. At the time I was repurposing leather upholstery scraps and odds & ends from the thrift store, which is where the “once again” comes from. The SAM part is my initials.

Leather and wood jewelry were my main focus for the first year in business, mostly hand cut earrings and painted pendants (all of which I still make and sell to this day), but then I had the itch to try something new. I got into needle felting in 2010 and have been hooked ever since. I use dyed wool roving to sculpt quirky animal portraits, plants, and even anatomical hearts. In the last 7 years or so I’ve begun to focus more on 2D work, painting with wool fiber to create landscapes inspired by the southeast.

Because one form of fiber art isn’t enough, I’ve also learned rug hooking, weaving, punch needle and basket making in the last few years. It’s fair to say that I live to create!

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

I would like to think that my art is self-explanatory, but I have learned it’s really not. I do several in-person craft shows and art fairs each year and it’s taught me to be able to speak more comfortably about my techniques, inspiration, and subject matter. I never expected to have so many questions about my needle felted work when I started out, and I wasn’t really prepared for the extensive answers most people were wanting, so I eventually figured out it’s a lot easier to show my craft in action rather than to try to explain it.

My 2D needle felted landscapes look like traditional paintings from a distance, but when you get closer you begin to see that the images are made up of soft fiber. If you’ve never seen needle felting before, this is mind blowing! I see a lot of jaws drop and people can’t get their questions out fast enough. I try to have a piece in progress with me at these events, or at least some raw materials and tools, so I can give them a show & tell.

If you work in an unusual medium, don’t expect people to know what they’re looking at or how things are made. An explanation or demo goes a long long way!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I had no intention of starting a creative small business when I graduated from art school. It never came up during that time, I didn’t have any business or marketing-related classes, just core studio classes and some cool electives. Don’t get me wrong, art school kicked my butt and taught me how to think creatively in addition to introducing me to a wide range of mediums, but it did not teach me anything about earning a living with these skills.

A few years into my journey as a small business owner I had the opportunity to attend several summits specifically geared towards artists and creative entrepreneurs that were total game changers for my creative trajectory. These events were an awesome overload of all the things I never knew and never knew I needed to know. Topics like accounting, social media marketing, pitching to press, photography, wholesale, just to name a few.

The two summits that had the most noticeable impact for me were The Makers Summit in Greenville, SC and The Maker City Summit in Knoxville, TN. Other events like these take place all over the country, and if you’re thinking of starting a creative small business, are a few years in, or a few decades in, there’s probably a lot you can learn from this type of education.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.onceagainsam.com
• Instagram: @onceagainsam
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OnceAgainSam
• Twitter: @onceagainsam
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UClLe2hnPJIh0kOMH5NwRwlw
• Other: Blog: https://www.sarahmandell.com/blog TikTok: @onceagainsam