For our last Meeting the Makers feature of 2011 I am happy to share the story and work of Nidhi Chanani, a freelance artist and designer. Born in Calcutta and raised in suburban California she currently draws and dreams in San Francisco. Nidhi’s work is romantic and whimsical, like a window into a magical world-I hope you enjoy this chance to visit with her and learn what inspires her. Thank you for sharing your story with us Nidhi!

Did you always know you were going to be an artist? What got you into art?

I always wanted to be a writer! I doodled and drew and danced around art, but never thought of it as a career. In college when I started actively following the work of some illustrators, the seed was planted. I started taking more art classes, but it wasn’t my focus. I worked in the non-profit sector for years after receiving my degree in Literature, and I started drawing a comic strip and when it was published in a small magazine, I felt more confident. A year or two after that, I took a deep breath and plunged head first into art.

Your art vacillates between the fantastical and the everyday. What draws you in those two different directions?

I’m a dreamer and a lover. I think my art reflects the many sides of me… I dream of adventures with animals, other worlds, new narratives. It’s what I love about art… we may not see it… but if I draw it, it ceases to be fantasy. Its real, you can see it, imagine yourself in it! The everyday is the romantic in me, I feel that we are constantly enveloped in beauty and love. Everyday there are one, two, thousands of moments that we experience that can fill our hearts. Its those moments that I capture in my illustrations.

How do you go about creating your art? Is it digital, analog, or some combination?

All my illustrations are digital. I begin with a loose line drawing, and then work in layers building the drawing up from the background and finally  the characters. I see it like this: I draw in Flash and paint in Photoshop. I do have original work, too, wood burnings. I use a professional wood burning tool, that works like an old-time pen which has different tips. I plug it in, heat it up and burn each line into raw wood.

What was the tipping point for moving from art as a hobby to a career?

Well, I’ve only been doing this for over a year! I’ve always wanted to be a freelancer, to be my own boss and make my own hours. I’m horrible with authority, I just want to test it and disobey! Working for myself is best for me. When I began to get regular freelance jobs, sales and felt that my income was steady enough, I made the jump. It was less of a creative decision and more of a “Can I pay my bills with art?” And I still love to say, after I’ve purchased something like a new blouse or plane tickets “Art paid for that!”

Are there other types of art (animation, painting, or even a totally different craft like film making or music) that you’re interested in pursuing someday?

I love all art. Visual, performing, music is a constant – I don’t draw without some music on! I’d love to learn animation, but I don’t foresee that I’ll have the time in the near future. I’d love to combine my original desire to write with illustration and create children’s books. I’m actively pursuing that… and I’ve always been attracted to watercolors. I hope to explore that sometime soon!

You very much run your own business in addition to doing the art. Do you ever feel like these two tasks conflict with each other? Compliment each other?

I believe the key to success as an artist is to have those two things work together. However, sometimes the business is overpowering and I realize I need to stop and draw. That’s why I love my daily drawings, everyday love, before emails, marketing, and sometimes before my morning tea, I create a new illustration. Everyday. So even if I have tons of other work, I know that I’ve created something that day.

You go to lots of art and comic shows. What is your favorite experience from any of those?

I love comic conventions because the people are incredible! They support artists, writers and creators unlike any others! They have a lot of heart and I absolutely love seeing all the hand-crafted costumes. At craft fairs, I love to shop! Really! I love supporting other artists and creatives, and I’ve found some of the best gifts there… But above all else, at both kinds of shows, my favorite experience is connecting with other small business folks and artists. I’ve made some long lasting friendships through those shows, and at times doing a show feels like one big reunion. It’s a lovely feeling.

Connect with Nidhi by visiting her:

Website | Etsy shop | Facebook | Twitter 

Meeting the Makers guest post by Katie Clemons of Gadanke

Fast forward years and years. Imagine you’re 90 years old, and you don’t remember your story. You don’t remember what inspired you to start a handmade business. You’ve forgotten what made you passionate way back in 2011. And you certainly don’t remember all those fears and bits of joy in everyday life.

What do you do?

My grandma and I were sitting in a recording studio for NPR’s StoryCorp. It was her 90th birthday. She looked at me with sad blue eyes and said, “I don’t remember. I wish I did.”

There was nothing she could do. But I knew there was something that I could do.

My name is Katie; I run an award winning handmade journal shop – www.gadanke.com.

My books are filled with writing prompts that help draw out your stories. They range from journals helping you figure out your dream career to travel journals, home minibooks, and gratitude journals.

My goal at Gadanke is to help you get down the stories, the hopes, the fears, and the things that make you feel alive – all things my grandma has lost. I also want my journals to be a place where you can tuck away the bits of life; that’s why the bindings open and close. Tuck away letters from your grandma, photographs, and memorabilia. Or use the old fashion library cards, mini envelopes, and pockets in all the books. It’s seriously so fun!

When did you start your shop?

I launched Gadanke in 2009 while living abroad in Berlin, Germany. The name “Gadanke” comes from a German word that means thought, mind, or idea. Now there are thousands of people around the world celebrating their stories with my books. I build them all myself in rural Montana, and it feels like a dream come true.

Tell us about being a green business.

I believe with all my heart that we should be preserving our environment as well as our stories.

Earlier this year, Gadanke received the EcoStar Award from the governor for my green business initiative. All of my journals include 100 percent recycled papers, domestically-produced materials, and products from sustainable forests.

What were some ways you prepared to become an handmade biz owner?

Taking risks is a huge part of starting a handmade business. Living abroad taught me how to take risks because even going to the grocery store involved so many new challenges. It also taught me patience – with myself, with my new environment.

What is a current challenge are you facing, and how do you plan to overcome it?

Hmm, one big project my husband and I are undertaking is the remodel of an old airplane hangar. We want to build a little loft home in the back. We also want to give Gadanke its very own home in an underutilized storage space in the facility. It’s exciting!  It’s exhausting. I’m blogging the progress at www.makingthishome.com.

All we can do is work at it one day at a time. We can’t let the big goal overwhelm us.

What are four tips you can to pass along to someone who wants to start her own handmade business?

Be patient with yourself and your business. There are so many little details that constantly come up. Just keep working through them.

Ask for help when you need it.

Make sure it’s something you love and that you love having as a piece of you.

Document the journey in a journal. You can learn so much about yourself, your ideas, and the direction you should take just by getting your ideas out on paper.

About Katie

Katie helps people capture memories and express their thoughts creatively with her eco-friendly journals. Her award-winning business, Gadanke, offers handmade journals filled with writing prompts and fun embellishments. She also blogs at Making This Home about simple, handmade living from her homes in Berlin, Germany and a hangar in rural Montana.

I am thrilled to introduce Oh My! readers to the beautiful, one of a kind,  knit accessories and clothing of Elena Rosenberg. Elena’s pieces show a true passion for handmade, each stitch lovingly created by the hands of a talented maker fully in love with her work. The quality and intricacy of her pieces is awesome and inspiring so pour yourself a cup of tea and get cozy while we get to know the heart and hands behind the needles of Tickled Pink Knits. Knitters can get excited too since Elena offers patterns for some of her most popular designs in her pattern shop!

Hi Elena, thank you for visiting us and giving me a reason to show off your gorgeous work. Please introduce yourself and your business.

My name is Elena Rosenberg. I live and create just outside of New York City, in Westchester County.  My one-woman business is dedicated to wearable fiber art.  I design and hand-knit fashion accessories and clothing — lovely and luxurious treats to wrap around your neck, shoulders, hands, head, and body. I would describe my designs as romantic, elegant, and playful, with a modern sensibility.  I love exploring and experimenting with texture, shape, drape, and color, and hand-knitting is the perfect medium for this pursuit.  Although much of my work is made for women (of all ages!), I also enjoy creating unisex designs.

Tell us about your work and your process-I know your beautiful pieces are entirely handmade by you, what goes into the creation of each one?

Yes, I make all of my pieces, large and small, literally one stitch-at-a-time.  I work without knitting looms or machines.  Although I am a pretty fast knitter, hand-knitting is definitely a very time-consuming process.  Hence, my work is either one-of-a-kind or limited production. I like the idea of producing pieces in small quantities, forming each stitch and row individually by hand.  Even the smallest projects, such as my fingerless gloves, feature hundreds of stitches, while larger designs, such as shawls and wraps, contain many thousands of stitches. I choose high-quality luxury fibers for my designs, and work almost exclusively with natural materials, including merino wool, baby alpaca, organic cotton, bamboo, cashmere, and silk.  My current focus is on accessories; I believe that an exceptional scarf, wrap, or hat can transform your outfit as well as transform your mood. My work also includes an exciting line of abstract fiber jewelry, done in crochet.

How have you grown your business and your work from the first piece to where you are today? 

I learned to knit as a child and briefly tried my hand at designing as a teenager.  It’s hard to believe it now but I actually did not knit at all for about ten years (while in college, graduate school, etc). I picked up knitting again approximately five years ago, and since then hardly a day has gone by without knitting needles and yarn.  I opened a shop (Tickled Pink Knits) on Etsy in 2007 and pretty quickly found a welcoming audience for my designs.  Etsy has been a wonderful venue for me — I was a Featured Seller there in 2008, I have had an opportunity to work on commissions for customers from all over the world, and to interact with lovely clients as well as with other artists and craftsmen.  Also thanks to Etsy, I participated in the One of a Kind Show in NYC in 2009 (as part of the Etsy Pavilion for Emerging Artists).

My business has been growing slowly and steadily since then.  Earlier this year, my designs debuted at the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, MD as part of the AltCraft section, and at the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen Fine Craft Fair in Wilmington, DE.  Up until very recently, my knit fiber art venture had been part-time while I worked full-time in university administration.  This past August I decided it was time to dedicate myself to this knitting adventure full-time.  I still plan to maintain an active online shop but I am also eagerly pursuing the fine craft show circuit because my experiences at the OOAK and ACC shows were absolutely exhilarating!  This autumn promises to be incredibly busy and exciting — I will be showing and selling my work at the following juried fairs and festivals.  If you are in the Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or NYC areas, I hope you will stop by these shows and tell your friends too!

October 8-10, 2011, Paradise City Festival of Fine & Functional Art, Northampton, MA

November 12-13, 2011, Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen Fine Craft Fair, Lancaster, PA

November 18-20, 2011, American Craft Show NYC

February, 24-26, 2012 American Craft Council Show, Baltimore, MD

We love learning about where artists work and what inspires them, can you tell us about your workspace and tools?

My studio is currently in my home. In addition to a trusty collection of bamboo needles of various sizes and a treasure chest of vintage and new buttons, I probably own enough yarn to open a small yarn shop.  I love looking through the yarns I’ve collected; often, just holding a skein in my hands is enough inspiration for a new project.  Inspiration is just as likely to come from nature, artworks, the runways, or a fleeting shadow of an unusual shape.  Since small- and medium-sized knitting projects are fairly easily to transport, I tend to bring them with me almost everywhere I go. I recently spent some time on Cape Cod and had a very productive time knitting up a storm in colors of the ocean and its shores.  Most often, I can be found in a comfortable armchair in my home studio knitting while listening to podcasts, NPR, or watching films (I love foreign cinema, and have mastered the skill of knitting and reading subtitles simultaneously).  Rather than sketch my designs, I usually begin designing with knitting needles and yarn in hand, trying our a stitch or a combination of stitches, watching the garment take shape, experimenting as I knit along.  I am currently working on a few quite unconventional pieces that I hope to add to my knitwear line later this autumn.

What do you have planned for yourself and your business in the future?

In the very near future, I am looking forward to getting ready for the upcoming art/craft shows and having successful runs at each of the events.  Both the preparation and the show experience can be quite grueling and exhausting but immensely exciting too.  Many of the artists and craftmakers who regularly exhibit at large juried shows work in teams or with assistants, and since I am currently running a one-woman operation, preparing sufficient inventory is definitely going to be a challenge for me.  I hope to be able to manage my time wisely, continue focusing on quality over quantity, and dazzle visitors to my booth at this year’s shows with exquisitely crafted, lovely original designs.  I also plan to make my online shop a destination this holiday season for shoppers looking to treat themselves or their loved ones to luxurious and out-of-the-ordinary hand-knit goodness.  At some point in the future, I plan to publish more knitting patterns for some of my designs and focus on creating more one-of-a-kind pieces.

{Victoriana Scarflette pattern above & others available here}

This month is our Back to Business theme-do you have any thoughts or suggestions to share with artists who are just starting out?

For artists and craftspeople just starting out, my advice would be always to innovate rather than imitate; choose quality materials; seek out like-minded individuals in your medium or other creative media either through local guilds, social media, or places like Etsy teams; and, importantly, not to undervalue/underprice your work.

Where can we find your work or connect with you? 

You can find me via my main website — http://www.ElenaRosenberg.com, via email at elena@elenarosenberg.com, and at the following sites:

Etsy Shop for Ready-Made and Made-to-Order Knit Fashion and Accessories – Tickled Pink Knits 
Etsy Shop for Knitting Patterns – AtelierTPK 

You can also connect with Elena by visiting her:

Facebook |  Twitter  | Ravelry | Blog | Flickr | Pinterest

A note from the editor: Welcome to a new series here on Oh My! Handmade where makers visit us to share their work and stories in their own words. I loved our Meeting the Makers theme so much I decided to make it a regular feature here on Sundays. I am excited to showcase the work of the incredibly talented illustrator Sasha Prood. Her work is lush and gorgeous, the attention to detail and technique in each of her pieces is inspiring and her talent is off the charts, enjoy!

Sasha Prood is an illustrator based in New York City. She creates typography, illustrations, patterns and graphics using pencil, pen and watercolor with the computer. Thematically, her work leans toward the organic, natural and scientific with vintage, utilitarian and childhood influences, creating anything from logos to posters to apparel graphics. Her work can be viewed on her website, sashaprood.com. Sasha’s longtime friend and fellow NYC-based designer, Alia Hassan, interviews her below.

How did you become interested in art, design and illustration?

My interest in art was not something that I was ever really conscious of—it was always just “there.” I have drawn pictures for as long as I can remember. When I applied to college, I selected design as my major. At the time I did not really understand what design meant, but it seemed like the most artistic career that I could pursue while still being marketable in “the real world.” As I learned more about design at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Design and during the semester I studied abroad at Switzerland’s Schule für Gestaltung in St. Gallen, I grew to appreciate the expressive potential of design and realized that it was a great fit for me.

With regard to illustration, though I dabbled in the form at pre-college programs, I did not truly understand its range during my time at Carnegie Mellon. It was only after two years of working as a graphic designer that I realized that I wanted to incorporate my art back into my everyday work and that illustration could be my way of doing this. I have worked to develop myself as an illustrator for the past two years, and it is now my full-time job. As of next fall, I will be attending Cooper Union’s postgraduate typeface design certificate program, Type@Cooper.

Sounds likes you’ve been exposed to various arts disciplines through quite a few reputable institutions, and have chosen to continue this by attending Type@Cooper. Your design and illustration style is quite organic and has a lot of personality. Do you believe your structured arts education has shaped the illustrator you are today? How so?

Absolutely—I feel that my formal design training was the solid base that I could then build of off. That knowledge of composition, typography, etc. helps to ground my current, more expressive artistic experiments.

Where do you find inspiration?

It might sound a little cheesy, but I find inspiration everywhere. I love the organization and sense of simplicity found in geometry. I find science to be inspirational, particularly biology—cells, molecules, etc. I have included animals, vegetables and minerals—anything natural and organic – into much of my work. Things from childhood are also inspirational to me, particularly items with a sense of play and humor.  I’m attracted to vintage items, especially ones that are typographic in nature. Everyday “mundane” things that are basic and utilitarian as well as anything hand-made—particularly cultural items such as textiles, ceramics, basket weaving, etc. are inspirational to me. I’m interested in aspects of black magic and ritual. And on and on!

What do you like most about being an illustrator? What do you like least, and how do you combat that?

As a freelance illustrator, I most like the freedom and control—to be able to choose which projects I take on and to manage my own time. I least like the slow times—I’m at my best when busy. To avoid the slow times, I make sure to always be working on some promotional pieces and self-initiated projects. That way there is always something to do!

What would be your dream project?

I have several “dream projects.” One would be to create a fully illustrated book. I’m also anxious to work on patterns and graphics in collaboration with a fashion house for a seasonal collection. My long-term goal is to create a group of work to be displayed in a solo art show.

I searched “Sasha Prood” online, and found that a popular word online commentators use to describe your work is “detail.” What are your thoughts on that?

I love it! I put a lot of care into the details and absolutely appreciate that people notice.

The way your work is presented on your website is beautiful and compelling. Can you talk about how you choose to present your work?

Thanks so much! When designing my current website I thought about the problems of my old websites along with pluses and minuses of other people’s portfolio websites. I wanted my website to be easy to update, the images of my art to be the main focus and presented in a large format, to subtly bring my personality into the design and to not have too many pages/buttons to click through (I personally hate clicking through too much stuff on a website).

How have you dealt with that tricky balance between art and business—doing what you love and believe in, but in a way that allows you to make a living out of it?

I love to create art, but it moves into a whole new realm when money, contracts, copyrights, etc. are added to the equation. Balancing art and business has been something that I have dealt with day-by-day and situation-by-situation. Since I’m still somewhat new to the world of business, almost every situation that I have encountered has been for the first time. I handle this by preparing myself as much as possible by talking to people with more experience and doing as much research as I can. When a problem comes up that I’m not prepared for, I try to handle the situation as professionally as possible and learn how to avoid it in the future. Honestly, my passion for the art is what helps me to get through the business aspects of my job.

You’re based in Brooklyn, New York. What do you like most about living in NYC, and what do you dislike?

I dislike the tourist traps and the crazy people that you often find yourself forced into small crowded spaces with. I love the immediate access to amazing food, museums, shops, etc.

I’m a huge fan of your work and love that I can stay informed about what you’re working on on your regularly updated site, sashaprood.com. Where can we buy some pieces?

You can buy a curated selection of my handcrafted items at my personal web shop, the Print Shop. My Botanica Caps Poster is available at Arty People and my Botanica Caps (non-keyable) font is available at HandMadeFont. Also, in early November, one of my watercolor patterns Chevron Repeat, is going to be sold as a limited edition print at The Working Proof .

Thank you Sasha and Alia for this insightful, creative and educational interview. I hope our readers love learning about you and your work as much as I have!