We recently connected with Shellece Durfee and have shared our conversation below.

Shellece, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Most people know me as Shellece, not Shelly. But when I was really young my parents called me Shelly. My cousin had the same nick name and it got confusing so my parents stopped calling me that. For the past few years I have been on a journey of recovering from Complex Trauma. It’s basically childhood trauma that is sustained over a long period of time. Regular trauma is from a single event. As I have been recovering, part of the process is healing my inner child. I’ll be honest. I thought healing my “inner child” sounded kind of silly and a little embarrassing. But I have come to find that it has been exactly what I have needed. And in honor of my young, creative, wonderful, hurt little self I decided to name my company after my younger me. Now, every time I see my business name I remember how far I have come and that in a sense I am my own hero. I achieved my dream of being an artist. I look back and appreciate the strength and resilience I had when I was young. I love to celebrate the fact that my little self has made it this far and is now an awesome, compassionate adult.

For the second part of my business name “studio” I purposefully kept it simple and vague because I do a lot of different creative things. My interests are varied. I love drawing, painting, photography, working with clay and basically any artistic craft I can get my hands on. I wanted to name my business something that was all encompassing and would still work if I decided to pivot my business model in the future.

Shellece, 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?

Hey friends! I am Shellece Durfee. I love drawing and painting landscapes, plants and portraits. I have two different styles. I do more realistic and painterly oil paintings and watercolors and I have been teaching myself how to illustrate in a more cartoony style. Much of my artwork is created for the pure enjoyment of it and for the mindfulness benefits it gives me. I have lived with anxiety and depression off and on for most of my life starting when I was 8 years old. Drawing was something I had available to me on a daily basis that felt was fully mine. I would lay on the living room floor and try out all the crayon colors, colored pencils, pens and stamps my mom had for us. I liked collecting Janet Jackson stamps from the mail and disney stickers off of the bananas my mom bought. I drew cartoons on the sides of my homework pages and I made homemade valentines cards for my close friends. I also spent a lot of time outside playing in mud, looking at leaves, grasses, flowers, bugs, icicles, snow, and so on. I spent a lot of time in my imagination. I have used creativity and art to cope with many of the stresses I had as I grew. I feel like my activity in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has also brought me peace and joy as I have implemented it’s teachings throughout my life. The church teaches that we are all given talents and gifts and that we can use those to bless others. It also teaches that we are all creators and that beautifying our world brings us joy. I feel that my talents are gifts from my Heavenly Father and that I can use them to make the world a more delightful place and I enjoy them too. I currently teach local children’s art classes. I love teaching them the basic principles because I see how fast it sharpens their skills. By the time they are my age they are going to be much better artists than I am! I am currently working a children’s book about inclusion, resilience and kindness. I am planning to name it “I Love You As You Are”. I will be selling it on Amazon KDP unless I find a way to get it published traditionally. For updates on my book and my current projects follow me on Instagram @shellece_durfee. I am hoping to license surface designs to manufacturers and I would like to create some online courses to help aspiring artists improve their skills so they can enjoy their craft as much as I do. I keep myself really busy but I enjoy it. I think there is a lot of pressure to make a lot of money these days but there is something to be said about doing a craft just for the pure joy of it. It’s true that we need money for survival and necessities. But I think we need recreation and mindfulness for calmness in our lives. Doing creative things is a vehicle for inner quietness when we do it with self-compassion and patience there is an opportunity for satisfaction that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

While I was in school earning my bachelor’s in Fine Art I was teaching art lessons, and seeking out opportunities to grow as an artist and sell my work. About a year before I graduated my husband and I found out that I was pregnant. I had my baby before my last semester. Adapting to motherhood was hard but I kept busy and active in creating a lot of art work. When my daughter was about 10 months old I got pregnant again. The pregnancy was super difficult and then I had two little’s to take care of. Having my two daughters was definitely the time that my business had to be put on the backburner. I had them 19 months apart and my husband and I have both wanted my children to be a top priority in our lives. When they were toddlers things were especially hard. We had very little money, we were living in a two bedroom apartment and my mental health plummeted. I hit a point in my depression that I felt completely hopeless and I felt that I was failing my family in every way possible. We were struggling to get by and I just felt that I needed to try to make some money on the side and if I wanted beautiful things in my home I had to make them myself. So I got to work. I sewed dresses for my girls, I exercised a few times a week to combat my depression, I cooked homemade bread, tortillas and many other things in order to save on groceries. I invited friends over and did art projects occasionally to continue sharpening my skills, I hosted a couple of paint nights. Even with all these successful things going on I realized my anxiety and depression were still not going away. I finally decided to try medication. I hadn’t wanted to do it. I wanted to fix things “the healthy way” but nothing was working. I started with the lowest dose of my depression meds and it helped. I finally felts calm sometimes, and happy again. I could focus on cleaning tasks until they were finished. I was calmer around my children. Needless to say during that time I wasn’t making the big bucks with my art work, but I was gaining skills and working hard. My daughters are still pretty young but my younger daughter will be going to school full day next year so I am looking forward to have a bigger chunk of time to focus on my projects. I feel like I am just recently starting to see my business grow and I am ok with that because my family comes first. I have been letting myself be seen as an artist online and in my community and that has been fun. I feel like there are seasons in life, and I am in the motherhood season, and that’s ok. When the time is right I can put more effort into my craft. But I don’t want it to be at the expense of my children. I realize that some day my girls will become adults and they will probably move out and that will be sad. But if I cherish them while they are young and growing I think I will be better able to live life with less regret. So that’s what I am going to do.

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

One resource I have come to appreciate is Skillshare. Yes, it is a paid subscription but the information on there is amazing. It is so much easier to the find exactly what I am looking for. I have spent a lot of time searching through Youtube videos for specific art skills and though I have found some good ones I had to sit through a lot of useless information waiting to see if each video was what I was looking for. Skillshare has many creative topics and their classes are broken down into modules so you can look through the class modules and see if they have the exact topic you are trying to learn. I have used Skillshare to learn how to illustrate, how to market, I have found specific photography help on there and there are some classes that are simply super fun! I am not affiliated with them by the way. I just feel like if you want to be more creative but you need some help they are a great place to find what you are looking for.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @shellece_durfee
• Linkedin: Shellece Durfee
• Youtube: Shellece Durfee
• Other: Etsy: InkBlossomStudio

Image Credits
Mariah Durfee and myself :)