.png)
Unhinged Things I Have Done to Sell My Art
- Sarah Sonder
- Oct 24
- 8 min read
I've seen this "unhinged things I have done to start my business..." trend going around on Instagram and I honestly love it. I love seeing all the wild things that entrepreneurs are wiling to do to take their business to the next level and it gives me such great joy to know that I am not alone. Unhinged? Definitely. Brazen and bold? Always. Brave? You betcha. Regrets? Nah. You'll notice a theme as you read each of these stops on my journey. I never had any idea what I was really doing. I never had ANY MONEY to invest in my art properly and when I inevitably achieved each goal-I threw a celebration party to launch into the next phase. I'm a girl who celebrates.
I do not have pictures from all of the very earliest days of my jewelry making career, but I dug through the archives to show you some of the wildest things I have done for the sake of getting my art out there. I hope you will enjoy this stroll down memory lane with me. I wonder which phase of this journey you will recognize as the time you jumped on board? Choo-Choo!! Here we go-
Jumped In Blind-No Research-Both Feet
Like a lot of the best hobbies, mine started at the kitchen table. I literally started making beaded and charm based jewelry at my kitchen table with a magazine and a plier kit bought at the local Michael's store. I bought the cheapest supplies(oh, how I would learn), put together unique and loud jewelry based on what I wanted to wear. I held pop-up events in my kitchen and at anyone's home who would host me. I would take orders, then go back home and make the jewelry everyone ordered, to specification, and I think the most expensive thing I had available to purchase was $18. It was cheap, broke A LOT, and most of it makes me want to cringe just thinking about it. The thing that makes me proud? I was doing the VERY best I could. Learning constantly, trying hard to make quality stuff and delivering on what I promised. It wasn't good, but it was a start and it was called Hardrocks by Sarah.
Hair Salons Became My Outlet to Customers
I had a couple of dear friends who ran hair salons at the time that I was getting started. Two of them, my friend from high school, Tiffany who managed a salon locally, and a family friend, Becky, who still owns Absolute Hair in East Peoria offered me a spot near their check-out spots to display the jewelry I made and try to sell it. This seemed like an ideal deal for me. They would keep a small(they were so generous) percentage of what I sold to cover fees and for a little profit, and I got the rest. I sold probably hundreds of pieces of jewelry this way. Stopping in each month to restock, collect my money and chit-chat with the owners. I had fans of my jewelry I never met, people wearing my pieces that I didn't even know and that was a real win for me!
Cold Called Stores for Consignment or Wholesale Deals
After having a lot of success at the hair salons and home parties, I started brainstorming where else I could sell my pieces. Over the years, I got quite comfortable cold calling stores nationwide to ask about selling my pieces in their stores. At one time, I had jewelry for sale on consignment or wholesale in over 15 stores from Galena, IL to Bloomington, IL. I would call and ask to speak to the managers, then tell them I was going to be "on a sales trip" at the end of the month and wanted to schedule a visit to see if we would be a good fit for one another. I almost always got turned down, and combing the yellow pages suuuuuucks, but, I did land a lot of stores and it gave me a ton of experience in navigating those relationships, being told no and how to advocate for myself and my art.
Rented a Studio-As a Store Front
The allure of an "outside of the home" studio called to me. Not because I felt like I needed a place to work, but because I wanted a consistent place to sell my pieces. A place to decorate, brand and call my own. In a round about way, I found a studio that was willing to rent me a space, but it had to be built first. My then father-in-law, my dad and my then-husband helped me(read as 'I helped them') build out the 10'x20' space to call my own. I thrifted furniture from the reStore and worked day and night on jewelry to fill the place.
I designed chandeliers to fill the ceiling and sold those, too. Ultimately, it ended up being an expensive storefront that only got foot traffic on First Fridays(one day a month), so I moved back home. Not all for naught, I met some of my best customers at the studios and in a way, being amongst the other artists, validated me, if only to myself, and that was worth the $200/month rent.
Built An Art Studio Out Of A Lawnmower Shed
Working from home used to mean working from the basement like a dungeon troll, pounding away at my work bench. Then, in 2016, my then-husband offered to help me rehab the lawn mower lean-to into a studio so that I could get out of the basement. We had no money and even less expendable funds for my business, but somehow we hobbled together a studio complete with windows from Habitat for Humanity and a painted floor--a move that would later birth my signature painted spots look for Sarah Sonder. The sunlight and official space to call mine breathed new life into my art. My skills progressed and so did business!
New Brand, Who Dis?
Hardrocks by Sarah started to taste so sour on my tongue. Like a fake personality someone adapts to fit in and then ultimately betrays who they really are. Not that dramatic, but it felt so inauthentic that I couldn't bear to say it aloud any more. It was time for a re-brand! I came up with "Brazen Jewelry"-something that would speak to how different and loud I feel my art and personality are, but also sound cool and a little mysterious. It fit me well. I invested in this rebrand with full strength, throwing myself a brand launch party to celebrate and get the word out there.
I had to bring a lamp from my living room to light up the place I set up my display inside the brewery that agreed to host me. It wasn't "professional" but it was a major step up for my brand and artistic journey. Tons of people showed up, almost everyone ordered something, and I was sure I had finally hit my artistic stride.
The Brazen Bago
Do I just love a challenge? Am I in it for the story and the photo op? Yes and yes. But this one was more fun than almost anything else I have done. I got the bug to go mobile in 2016 and pretty quickly couldn't stop shopping for the perfect truck on Facebook Marketplace. Day and night I was changing my search perimeter and looking up weight classes until my eyes crossed. Then I found it.
An army green Winnebago that had been painted with a brush in Mackinaw, IL listed for $500. My then-husband was a mechanic, but definitely did not want to go look at this thing. I remember he used the word 'lemon' to describe it based on the listing picture alone. The tarp on the roof probably tipped him off to that, but I was in love. I drug him out to look at it, offered the guy a personal check for $250 for it and hauled it home on a gooseneck trailer. My ex had it running that same day and we did a complete rebuild of the truck inside to house a mobile store on---you guessed it--a shoestring budget. When she was officially done, I had---you guessed it--a party to celebrate.
I had a three-location, all day, grand opening celebration from Downtown to North Peoria to Peoria Heights to let the world know Brazen had gone mobile in the Brazen Bago!! When I closed this chapter of my life, I sold the Bago for $5,000 to a famous musician's wife to be used as a mobile art studio outside of Nashville, TN! The entire project was worth it for the profit, for the experience, and for the story.
Traveled To California On a Whim
--And made the most money I had ever made in a single day. I loved to peruse the art shows accepting applications on Zapplication and filter by shows that are FREE to apply to. Application fees will really add up, so this makes the stakes lower. I found a fun sounding festival in San Diego, CA that met my show criteria, so I applied, assuming I would not get in. I did get in, however, and right after purchasing the Bago, too! I decided that year was the year I said yes to everything that came my way for the business, and I ended up flying to CA that year, and the year after for KAABOO, and all that led to me having one of the wildest and fulfilling experiences of my career!
Selling hundreds of pieces of handmade jewelry, to artists, spectators, comedians, and people of all walks of life. VIPs, celebrities, teenagers, a group of Freddie Mercury impersonators--we saw it all. I made 10K in a weekend and went home feeling 10K foot tall. My website exploded, my follower count jumped. Business boomed!
Shut It All Down For Heartache.
Divorce. Boo. Heartache can make it hard to live, cope, or even create. As a newly single mom, I couldn't figure out how to survive, let alone push a business to success, so I gave in and gave up. Shut the doors. Said good bye to the creative side of life for a while and just lived day to day with my boys. An act of love, of sacrifice, of growth. I really believed I would probably never create art again. I am grateful I was able to walk away at that time. I think it was what was best for us as a family, but it made me so sad to say goodbye to a piece of myself that I had been working for a decade to cultivate.
Started Over Again at 40
Time away and years of lessons have me feeling freer and more sure of myself as an artist than ever. That, in itself, feels like an act of rebellion and a cry of freedom that I have lived my entire life hoping to find. To find love, space to create, and my career as a seasoned metalsmith blossoming at this point in life is sweetened by the appreciation only someone who has lost {almost} everything can have. I walked away and still came running back and I think that means I was meant to be here all along.
-with unhinged love,
Sarah
Comments