We recently connected with Savannah Daniell and have shared our conversation below.

Savannah, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I never had an exact moment where I knew I wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally. Growing up, I always thought it would be so exciting and fulfilling to live life as a professional, full-time artist, however it never occurred to me that I could do it. Other people, sure, but me? No way. That is why I went to school for financial planning and worked in the financial planning industry for 5 years during and after college. It was around my first vendor event with my art when I realized how much I loved selling my art, and how much people loved to buy it. That would have been when I got my first inkling of realizing I could do it professionally and full time. Now, about two years later, I’m vending multiple times a month at craft shows and festivals and having a magnificent time! I couldn’t imagine going back to a life where I wasn’t creating.

Savannah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Savannah Daniell from Kentucky, and I sell handmade sun catchers for a living. I started off in college with a typical career that would earn a living: financial planning. I always liked budgeting for myself, so I figured that helping other people with their finances would be what made me happiest in life. I spent 5 years at a wonderful financial planning firm, but I never got my licensing to become one of the advisors. It felt like pulling teeth to try to sit and study for the exams. I realized at this point that I had zero real interest in financial planning, and really I just wanted to help people feel happy. After finally deciding to look into other careers, I still focused on financial related ones because of my degree. Then 2020 happened, and everything changed. I started an online financial coaching program that taught people how to budget and learn the basics of money management. My husband and I sold our house and moved into our camper to travel full time. He left his job and I left mine, hellbent on making a living with my own business. And I failed. It was my first big failure in life. Sure, I had a few clients, but not enough to make a living. I felt so defeated. Looking back, that big failure was so important to being an artist because I know I could have succeeded at that career if I had actually liked it enough to stay with it. It wasn’t my dream job, even though it was my own business. In 2021 I needed something to get my mind off my business failure and how in the dumps I felt. My parents were at a market in Chattanooga, Tn and sent me a photo of some vases for flowers suspended in a gold metal hoop because they thought I would like it. Little did they know, it set a spark of inspiration in my heart and the creative wildfire grew. I immediately went to the store and found some gold floral hoops. Then, I thought how cool it would be to put a plant in it, and I figured Tillandsias (air plants) would be the easiest. I tracked down four of them. I was so inspired at this point, creative idea after idea flowed into my brain. Next, I was inspired to find a sun catcher. I couldn’t find any locally and I was way too fired up to wait for delivery, so I found some drawer knobs at a hardware store that were crystal and bought four. When I got home I was giddy with excitement and I combines all my goodies with some wire and glue and made my first air plant sun catcher. I made a total of four and when I took them to the farmer’s market to sell, they all sold before I got in the door, leading me to realize that other people like sparkles and plants as much as I do. It was so inspiring and fun! I used $100 of our own money to buy a bunch of air plants. $100 was so much money to us that I didn’t have any way to justify using it on plants instead of putting food on the table. Money was so tight, but I just felt lit up and inspired like I had never before felt, and I knew I had to follow that feeling. I kept taking the money I made selling a few at a time at the farmer’s market and reinvesting it into buying more supplies. My designs got more creative. My brain was in a meditative state while I worked. I had no idea what was happening but it felt good and I was finally making a little money. My first event I made $300 and I was so dang proud of myself and my business. I spent 2022 finding craft shows and festivals to sell at so I could reach more people and spread more joy through sun catchers and air plants. I spent essentially every single weekend in 2022 at a craft show getting to know my audience and building a brand. Different from all the other times I had tried to “build a brand” in my other business, this was easy. I connect with others through my art, and I truly am having so much fun in this life, it translates through my art. The sun catchers I make and sell are pretty, but its so much more than making someone’s space pretty. It’s the joy that people feel when they wake up on a sunny day to an abundance of rainbows from their prism. It is the happiness they feel when their air plant blooms. My sun catchers are made with so much love, and I know others can feel it when they have one. Appreciation is also a large part of my business because not only do I appreciate with every fiber of my being how much I enjoy being an artist, but I also appreciate every single person who has or will purchase one of my sun catchers. Every time I sell one, I always take a mental moment of appreciation for the customer. Knowing that my art can bring customers so much joy for so long lights my soul up. It was a weird, long, unknown journey that led me to where I am, but I cannot think of any career I would rather have than creating happiness and smiles for people in the form of sun catchers and air plants.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn to be a successful and happy artist was the story that my work wasn’t good enough to sell. Funny story, this belief came from a long time ago in my childhood, and was such a small event, but truly impacted me. I didn’t realize how much until I started looking at the stories I told myself. Here is the backstory: When I was really young, maybe 5 or 6, I was playing with food coloring and some paper towels. I don’t really remember why, but as a kid I was always making art of some sort. Anyways, I made some dyed paper towels and I was very proud of how they turned out. I showed a loved one and asked if they thought I could frame them and sell them (again, creative entrepreneur spirit has apparently always been there). They replied that no one would even pay 10 cents for that silly paper towel. I don’t know why I let this bother me so much, but it crushed me. I was truly so proud of what I had created, and when I was rejected by a person I loved and cared about, it stuck and it stuck hard. I decided then that I wouldn’t be able to make a living as an artist. I didn’t even think those exact words, I just had the feeling. The media didn’t help heal that story with all the movies and stories about “starving artists”. Years later, when running my money coaching business, I took some coaching myself to uncover and release “money blockages” in my own subconscious. When I remembered this one, I realized it was the beginning of my lack mindset around money and being able to support myself. I spent a lot of time healing that one encounter, and now I can look back on it and realize that I don’t have to let other’s opinions have anything to do with my own life. I still love that person who told me that dearly, but I realize their opinions have nothing to do with me and are only a reflection of their own beliefs. I choose to believe differently. The lesson here is to take a moment to see if there is anything from your past holding you back and release it. It doesn’t matter if it is the tiniest event from when you were 5. If it is stopping you from believing in yourself, it is stopping you from living fully. Let it go, forgive, and move on.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The thing I think non-creatives might struggle to understand about my journey as a creative is that making more money isn’t worth it to me if the money isn’t flowing from a source that fulfills me. If I am not happy doing the work that is earning the money, it doesn’t matter how much I’m being paid. I would be happier making $30,000 a year but being so fulfilled in my work than making $150,000 doing something I can’t stand. I think along the same vein here is that I physically cannot make myself do something I don’t want to do for a long period of time. Of course I can make myself pay taxes and go to the dentist and check emails and do the little things I don’t necessarily want to do. However, when it comes to the big things, like having a career that I don’t love, or trying to get licensing for a certification I don’t care about, I cannot make myself do those things. I will absolutely crawl out of my skin and my anxiety will be so high I won’t be able to hardly breathe. I didn’t know this, however, when i was in college and in my career as a financial planning assistant. I genuinely thought my brain was broken and I was an undisciplined person. I could not force myself to get done the things I needed to get done until the anxiety of not doing them outweighed the lack of want to complete them. Then, I was able to get things done. I hope my past boss doesn’t see this, but I would be able to get more work done in the last 3 hours on a Friday afternoon than I would all week. The anxiety of not getting it done would outweigh the lack of desire to do the tasks and I would knock them out. No one knew this is how my brain had to operate. The guilt I felt was massive. Now that I am a creative doing what I want to do, I don’t have those tendencies or feelings anymore. I am able to get my work done because I enjoy it. I think that non-creatives will always struggle to understand what it is like to have a creative brain that runs on dopamine stimulating actions. And to be fair, I also cannot understand how someone can do office jobs 9-5 everyday and have their brain get work done they don’t feel passionate about. But man, I am so glad there are people doing that and enjoying it because this world needs all different types of brains!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tillandprism.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tillandprism/