Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Rebloom, a podcast about change, creativity, and coming back to yourself. We are Lori and Jamie, and this is a space for honest conversations with people who felt that quiet nudge to realign, whether that's in their work, their creativity, or their everyday lives.
Speaker: Each episode is a conversation about becoming, about listening closely, making shifts, and finding your way back to what matters. So if you are in a season of change, you're questioning or starting again, we are really glad you're here.
Speaker: Jamie, oh my gosh, Wendy is... More than, I knew she was a badass, but yeah I have a and completely new appreciation for just how much of a badass she is.
Speaker: Oh my gosh. um Listeners, you are in for the biggest treat. It's been a beat since we've been here, but we are back and we've got an incredible guest for you today. And you're going to learn about how many incredible pivots you can take along the way and still... find a way to shine with your creativity.
Speaker: And I love that she talks about how there are seasons. Like you don't have to pick the one thing and think that that's going to be the thing you do your entire life because things have a season. And Wendy is brilliant at seeing what the next season might look like and then going after it. So very inspiring.
Speaker: Yep. Listen, everybody. And I hope you will all join the fodder school when you're done with this conversation. Thank you so much.
Speaker: Well, hello, Lori Seabird. How are you? my gosh, Jane, it's been a beat, right? Oh, my gosh. I am not sure what has happened, but we had this great rhythm going with our podcasts. And hello, listeners, we are back. We have never left you. Well, we plan to keep doing these because we love these conversations so much. And I think they've actually been helpful to people. But, you know, life sometimes I've been traveling a lot. Jamie's doing a reconstruction on a house. house It's life. yeah But we are not going to stop doing this. We are not stopping because the conversations and I think you're right. I think what we're hearing from our guests is has been.
Speaker: Just amazing. i i know you and I get so much out of it. I mean, we get it. We get a ton. i love it. So selfishly, we're not ending. um So this is just we'll call this our ah chapter 3.5 because we're in year three, which is still hard to believe. So this is our 51st episode, which I like. Hello. Proud of us. Yeah.
Speaker: i Look at us. Look at us go. So it is summer. And even though it's summer, we're back doing it. And I think, I guess the other thing I want to say too, is that's the lesson for all of us is that we sometimes find a passion. And certainly this is a passion project for you and I, and then life gets in the way. And then we think, oh, we need to be done with it. Not necessarily.
Speaker: Sometimes you just need to pause. And then you just pick it up again and you get right back on that horse. And here we go. Giddy girlfriend. Kind of like those long-lasting friendships. You might not see one another for a while, but you pick right back up again. So yeah speaking of friendships. Yes. Who do we have today, Lori?
Speaker: Well, I wanted to kick off our reboot with a really amazing woman who I'm actually working with now on fodder school, Wendy Salgonic.
Speaker: I said that right, Wendy, right? Salgonic. organic organic it's so Organic. Organic. Just like it's spelled. Let's see if you were Jamie Jameson, it would be so easy. yeah Wendy um is kind of a badass and she created fodder school, but she's done a lot of other things that I just recently learned about and lots and lots of really interesting pivots. So I reached out to her because she's the perfect guest for this podcast because we talk about pivots. a lot.
Speaker: So welcome, Wendy. welcome wendy Thank you so much for inviting me on. I feel like I have two new friends and you guys live so close. And this is like the beginning of something fun. So yes, yeah it is. i love it. And ah Wendy, Wendy and I were exchanging emails ahead of time. And I realized that she lives in the Cleveland area. And I live in Youngstown. I'm like, Oh my gosh, we can be friends. We can be real life friends, which I love as well. So welcome. And thank you for joining us today. Thanks for inviting me on.
Speaker: So let's travel back. oh yeah That's my job. i always love that. Take us right back to childhood. In fact, I was giving this advice to my niece who's like reevaluating her life. And I said, look back at your childhood.
Speaker: What did you love doing? Yeah. What was your passion then? And really look at that. So what was little Wendy like? Little Wendy would sit with her mother at the kitchen table as her mother and grandmother sewed. So they didn't make clothes from scratch. But what they did is they would purchase clothing from stores and then alter the heck out of it. It was like they were like a little like self-alteration situation where it was like they they were very prim and proper and they wanted all their clothes to fit perfectly. And so there were all of these scraps that would come off of the clothes as they would alter them. Like my mother would take like a long sleeve thing and make it short sleeves or she would hem something. It was constant. The upcyclers. Wow. Well, the thing is...
Speaker: you know, this is kind of funny and kind of personal, like they always wanted more than they kind of had. Like that was the reality. Like yeah they they loved really nice clothes, but they couldn't really necessarily afford really nice clothes. And so they would buy everything on sale.
Speaker: So it might not fit perfectly. It might not have been the right size. Something about it was like off, but they were like, Oh my God, I'm getting this like designer thing. And it's like at an affordable price. So I'll fix it. And so there was all this stuff, this like debris. And I had dolls and they were not necessarily buying me, you know, tons of doll clothes, but I wanted doll clothes and I wanted a doll house. That was my big thing. I wanted a doll house. We had a stationary store in my town and they had all this doll house furniture behind glass.
Speaker: and I would walk in there at least once a week and I would just oogle this like dollhouse furniture, but my parents couldn't afford it. So I was like cardboard boxes, styrofoam, extra fabric from you know my mother's you know clothing. And I was just always making stuff from scratch with what I had. And that's what I remember about my childhood. And i'm not that different today. And Lori, I think you're 100% right. I think this is what I tell my kids, like whatever you like to do when you were a kid, yeah do it as an adult and you will be really happy in your professional working life. It's so, so true. And I love the picture of little Wendy making these dollhouse furniture and doll clothes and all the scrap things that kind of really ties into what you do now. that's Using the scraps in different ways. I also, I also had
Speaker: like I use the word prophecy because I don't have a better word for it. But sometimes you just kind of like know something is going to happen in the future. and it's like you just feel it in your bones. And so i remember as a kid, my parents got my first cousin a pottery wheel as a birthday gift. And I was a little bit jealous because I was like, I want a pottery wheel.
Speaker: How come like, you know, cousin gets pottery wheel, but little Wendy doesn't get pottery wheel. But I didn't make a big thing of it because I don't think I put a lot of pressure on my parents. I don't know. Anyway, so but I remember it and I remember having this feeling of like,
Speaker: my body being at a pottery wheel and like, I know this is going to sound kind of weird, but like the position that you're in, like sitting in a stool and having your legs in a certain way yeah and like having your body with, I just remember feeling like that was going to be something for me. That's so interesting.
Speaker: Yeah. And I mean, I can tell parts of this story. I ended up going to law school. which was a terrible mistake. And I can talk about why I made that terrible mistake, but I made this terrible mistake and I realized it in the first week of law school. And I was like, this is not for me. i have no interest in this.
Speaker: And then I said to the law school, I want to take a year off. I don't think, you know, I actually made up a story. I was like, I need money. I need to work. I need a year off so I can go make some money. But really what I wanted was just a year off to figure myself out. And they were like, okay, fine. Take a year off.
Speaker: And the first thing I did after classes were over in that first year, I opened up my phone book and I found a pottery studio. oh my gosh. And I started taking wheel throwing classes. And then I was like, oh yeah, that's, that's who I am. Like I'm a maker. Wow. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not someone who wants to sit at a computer writing legal briefs or argue anything with anyone in a court. Like, no, that's so not me.
Speaker: So why? Why law school then? What happened there? It was just like the societal pressure, the pressure from my parents. My parents, you know, they had good intentions. They wanted their children to be more comfortable than they were, more secure financially when they were. And they just did this thing that a lot of immigrant families do. They tell their kids to become doctors or lawyers. And it's like, right.
Speaker: I felt incredibly like pressured, honestly, to choose one path or the other. And i did not feel really like confident at all that I could just make my way in the world and do something else. Like zero confidence. Like the idea of finding something you liked to do and getting a job at a company that does that thing and then rising in the ranks was never something that my parents ever talked about.
Speaker: It was just like, not only do you have to go get your undergraduate degree, but you have to go right to graduate school. Like that was like a big thing for my parents. They didn't want you to take any time off. They didn't want you to question it. It was like, are you going to go to medical school? Are you going to go law school? And I was like, I don't like science that much. I guess I have to go to law school. And I literally didn't question it because I was young. Yeah.
Speaker: I was young. I was, Yeah. Didn't you, I think in your bio, you said your body kind of reacted. Weren't you having like physical? I got irritable bowel syndrome. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And I was having horrible like cramps in my intestines and I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would have to run to the bathroom. i knew something i knew something was really wrong. It was really painful. And I was going to UCLA School of Law. And so I had access to like UCLA doctors. So I remember I went to like whatever the doctor was that would treat this condition. And he was kind of young. And he's like, you have irritable bowel syndrome, and you're never going to get rid of it. Oh, my go gosh. Yeah. He's like, there's no cure for this. And there's really like nothing we can do. oh my God. i left 22 or 20. Yeah. It's like 22 years old. And I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker: And then I met eventually, like within a couple of years, I met my husband. He's like, oh, I'm going to cure you. hu Oh, really? wow Because he's like, you can be an artist. I'll support you. Oh, my God. It did. It cured me.
Speaker: So wait, I want to double back. So so you're in law school. Obviously, your body's telling you this is not where you need. So did you do just one year and then you dropped out?
Speaker: Well, so I took a leave of absence for a year, and I actually went to work at a big law firm in L.A. It was actually the law firm that the television show Law was based after. wow. It was in the Fox Tower in Century City, which is where they filmed... What was that movie with Bruce Willis? It was like they called the Nakatomi Tower. Die Hard. Die Hard. we were on the 18th, and 19th floor, and I got to see like seventeenth eighteenth and nineteenth floor and i got to see like what You know, the practice of law, like high power practice of law was like, I had so many interesting experiences during that time.
Speaker: OJ Simpson killed Nicole. they The lawyers were all in our office. It was crazy. Johnny Cochran and and everybody was there. was an insane year. And I was like, this is so not for me. Like I knew i just wanted to be like Somebody else. This wasn't me. I wasn't somebody who dressed in a suit and sat at a desk. Yeah. Wasn't me. So, okay. Your question was what did you, did you go back to law school? So you took your pause. Okay. I took my pause and during the pause, so I worked at the law firm during the day and at night and on the weekend, I spent the entire time at a pottery studio in Santa Monica called the clay house, which no longer exists. It was a magical, magical place. It was like it it had an owner, but it was very communal. Everybody paid a fee every month to belong there. and We just made pottery, sculpture, hand building, lots of wheels. The place was kind of a mess, ah but I loved it and made pottery. And I i was like...
Speaker: this is who I am. I mean, I remember telling one of my brothers, like, I'm going to be a Potter for the rest of my life. Like, I'm so passionate about this and all this. And, um, I was looking around and I was like, how are these people supporting themselves? Because I had to support myself. I didn't have like some magical, you know, trust fund or something. I was like, I got to make money. And what I saw was lot of people who had day jobs, right. Yeah. And then they were making pottery at night and on the weekend.
Speaker: And I thought to myself, I am way too passionate about pottery to have a day job. I just want to make pottery. And i started like really talking to some of the people who were trying to make it as potters. So they were the people who were like doing more production pottery. And then they would do the craft fairs, like the big, there was a big craft fair in Beverly Hills every year called a fair in the park. And I was just like hanging out there, getting to know people, asking questions. And I just could see they were like, even if they were really successful as potters and they were selling to the craft market, they were still kind of subsistence level. It was going to be like a rough life. And so I was like, okay,
Speaker: I don't know if I can live that life. Like, just you have to you have to be honest with yourself. Like, what do you want out of life? and And trying to make it work and figuring out this puzzle. And so I went back to law school because, well, for a couple reasons, I'm kind of a completionist. So it was like, i started and I had convinced myself that it would be better to have the law degree just in case. Yeah.
Speaker: And I started and also my parents were paying my rent. And I like I was like, i I said, I had no confidence. None. I was like a zero on the confidence scale that I could actually make it in the world just by doing what I wanted to do. And so I was like, OK, I'll go back and at least I'll buy more time. And the crazy thing is I was so disinterested in the material and how I powered through it is like an insane level of grit.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And obviously very intelligent to, to me, to get through, you know, to get through all of it. yeah Very well. I have to tell you, like I was not a star student in law school. Like I was in undergrad. Like I was, I was barely getting by, you know, i was not, I had a couple classes that I liked and I would do well in, but most of them I was kind of like really not doing that well, but I hatched a plan.
Speaker: Of course you did. I had the plan. I'm a planner. If I have a problem, I need a plan. I will attest to that. Father school is so well planned. but Keep going.
Speaker: My plan was I needed a husband. Oh, that's a good plan. And I was very cute back then. you're so cute. i was shot So I was like, I'm going to date every guy who asks me out. And you're yeah I was in Los Angeles. I was 23 years old at the time. Like there were guys everywhere. And I was like, whoever asks me out, I am going to go out with them at least a little bit. I'll try it.
Speaker: And I was, I remember I was being asked out and I'm one of the guys that I met was my husband. And I was like, I think on the first day, I think I remember sitting there telling him I'm in law school, but I really don't want to be a lawyer. i really want to be an artist. And he was like, that's fine with me. Like I have a stable job. i can support two people.
Speaker: And this was first date conversation yeah and conversation. a week after we met he said we're gonna get married and that i i was actually shocked i thought that was very weird but what happened was the night that we met He we were at a party. It was a UCLA medical school, law school party. And he crashed it with his friends because they they were friends with the DJ and they crashed the party. And when we met and he heard my voice, he had a prophecy. Wow. He was like, that is my wife.
Speaker: Wow. Wow. And he he told me this a week later. And I was I thought he was crazy because who tells who even knows? But he knew. And it turns out it worked out really well. Wow. Oh, God. OK, wait, I have to. Is your husband a physician?
Speaker: He's not. He's a chemist. He's chemist. And he owns a factory in Cleveland, an electroplating factory, where they put metal on metal for the automotive industry. Wow. That wild. Okay, so I have to tell you this. I'm sort of digressing to my own personal story because it's cracking me up. On my first date with my husband, he was he's he's in medicine, and he said he just started his residency. That's why I asked, because you were saying in the med school and the law school. But he said, well, I want to be...
Speaker: mayor by the time I leave medical school or the time I leave residency, I want to be married. I want to be married. And, you know, I'm 23, 24 years old, same, same kind of thing. And I'm thinking, of course, I'm doing girl math. I'm like, well, you need to get married. You need to meet somebody, date them, get engaged, get married. And I'm like, that's pretty, like, I can't believe he's telling me this on the first date.
Speaker: And by the time he left residency, we were pregnant with our second child. got a plan and had a plan i love He sounds like he so sounds like we've married like the the guys with plans. I love it. Anyway, it was just funny. I had to sort of share that funny story. But so you meet this gentleman, you're in law school, you've got irritable bowel, you know, you want to be a potter. yeah and yeah And God bless you. I'm sure your parents were like, please just finish. Because you know and so many of our guests that we talk to and we're sort of the same vintage, um that's what their parents, you know, it's like be a nurse, be a teacher, be it like you. Heaven forbid you go be an artist. And many we've had sort of the extreme. We either had the the people or you would say this to whose parents were artsy. And we're like, oh, yeah, they had big art tables in their living room. And, you know, go be go, you know, of course. But then most but most of them were like your parents and really discouraged anything creative. Well, that's why i was steered to graphic design, because at least it was, you know, you could make a living as a graphic designer.
Speaker: In defense of my mom, she did often tell me when I was a child, you should go to RISD. so. so I was like, i remember I said like I had like no confidence. I don't know why I had no confidence, but I had no confidence. And when she would say you should go to RISD, all I heard was like, how would I even do that? Like, I don't I don't know how to do that.
Speaker: Yeah. No, like, yeah. Okay. So there's this design school and it's like the best design school in the country or the world. Like, how would I even get in there? Like, why would they even want someone like me? But she, she could see in me.
Speaker: The creativity. Obviously that I really loved making things. Yeah. Yeah. um But I had, it wasn't like. yeah actually maybe she would say to me do you want to take art lessons and i would just be so afraid but i did love like when when we would have art in school like i loved art in school you know i would be like the teacher's pet in the art class where i would just be like so happy every time we got taken to the art room until i had like the bad art teacher experience where the teacher told me i couldn't draw like that there you go i had that one everybody That's what does it to the confidence.
Speaker: It only takes one person. It does. So you, so you go to law, you let's, we'll kind of fast forward just a tiny bit. So you, when did the, so then you're married, you get married. Yeah. So basically.
Speaker: After law school, I decided i am not taking the bar exam. Like that was just a bridge way too far. I had no interest in law. I could never study for the bar. So right after law school, like four months later, we had our wedding. We were living in LA and I was just free to take whatever art classes I wanted. i was making pottery. i was selling pottery. I was taking drawing classes and painting classes, whatever I wanted. And I actually remember I i researched a little bit.
Speaker: the The UCLA extension had a graphic design program. And I was like, maybe I should become a graphic designer. Like, maybe I should do that. And I don't really I think probably what sort of stopped me is at this point, I was like 26, 27. was like, i want to have kids.
Speaker: And like, I don't want to have kids in my 30s. Like, I want to start having kids. And like, after we were married a year, we started trying to get pregnant. And so I was just kind of like, again, in that place of like trying to figure it out again. and I remember after I had my first daughter, i was 29 when I had her.
Speaker: And I remember... feeling this incredible sense of being like unmoored because my life for three or four years prior to that, after law school, you know, and then the birth of my first daughter, I was just making art. Like I was taking classes at UCLA extension and private studios in LA and just having fun and making pottery. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, like a baby, this is like 24 seven. Like, yeah Oh, where's my art? Like, how am I going to do my art And actually, I was in this mommy and me class.
Speaker: And the woman was a social worker who was the the leader of the mommy and me class. And she gave me the best advice. She goes, Wendy, everything in life is a phase. Mm hmm.
Speaker: This is just one phase of your life. There's going to be so many more seasons of your life. Don't worry about it. And I just let it go. And I was like, okay, right i maybe I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm mother, you know i'm doing the mother thing right now. And then pretty quickly I figured out that I could put her on a bouncy chair on top of the kitchen table and that I could do this thing called scrapbooking. yeah and i became very interested in cutting paper and drawing letters and doing all the things that scrapbooking is and it was great until she started to walk she would be in the bouncy chair and i would take a million pictures of her and do all this art and cut you know and i loved collecting all the materials it was perfect it was great Yeah.
Speaker: So that was that phase. At one point, did you also work at a stationary store? Okay, that, the, the scrapbook led to, led to, okay. All right, so I'll tell this part. So, so I'm scrapbooking like mad and we decide, my husband and i that we're going to move back to Ohio from l LA because raising kids in l LA was just not something either of us wanted to do. The housing was completely unaffordable And my husband is from Shaker Heights. his His mother went to Shaker Heights High School. He went to Shaker Heights High School. And he's like, I want to go back and live in Shaker Heights.
Speaker: And I was like, Shaker Heights is amazing. That's a great community. I would love to live there. So we moved back to Shaker Heights. And the first thing after I get here is I'm like, I got to make friends. I don't know anybody. You know, I have my husband's, you know, relatives, but I'm like, I need friends. And I meet some women and they invite me to be in their play group.
Speaker: And i met a woman who was really entrepreneurial and she kind of like latched onto me. Like, and she was like, I want to start a business with you.
Speaker: oh And remember I had no confidence. Yeah. I was like, what? Yeah. Yeah. Start a business. I don't know anything about that. Like, i mean, yes, I did on some level, like have lots about could i turn my creativity into like, like resources somehow, but I really did not know how, but she had like a hundred thousand percent confidence where I was like a zero. She was like full throttle confidence. She was like, we will figure it out. We will learn along the way. And I was in business with her. I think it was 15 years. We started a printing company that became like one of the bigger printing companies in the industry that we were in, which was like fine invitations, like wedding invitations, birth announcements, bar and bat mitzvah. We had all these laser cutters. We were cutting all this paper. We were had crazy sheets. and so many printing presses and a letterpress machine and billions of computers. And I mean, it was crazy. and we built this all on the back of her confidence. She was just like, we will figure it out.
Speaker: Wow. And a little obsessive like I am. i mean, i i when I like have a goal, when there's like a goal put in front of me, i can definitely like lock in. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you can. So I locked in on this stationary company thing and it was great. It was great until everything changed about the stationary industry.
Speaker: This episode of Rebloom is brought to you by Jet Creative, a woman owned creative studio and longtime friends of our podcast. Jet Creative partners with brands and individuals to help clarify their story, strengthen their visual presence, and communicate with intention.
Speaker: Their work is rooted in collaboration, care, and the belief that thoughtful creativity has the power to connect with people in meaningful ways. We are extremely grateful for their continued support of Rebloom and the conversations we care so deeply about.
Speaker: You can learn more about Jet Creative and their work by visiting the link in our show notes.
Speaker: Well, before you before we you we take the next pivot, and, you know, I think it's important because so many of our listeners, too, I think, you know, you're afraid to take that step. You're afraid to take that leap. And you're right. Sometimes it's that that friend who just says, we can do this. And so it's sort of and you feel better about it. um This podcast Totally that way. you know It was because ah i was confident that we could do it. Lori had she she's amazing. She's just absolutely amazing doing this. But we didn't have any tech skills or anything like that. But we just leapt forward and figured it out. And it's so great to hear you talk about a friend who did that. But sometimes it's that it's that trust. We've just got to trust that person that says you can do this and believe it because we I think we negatively talk to ourselves and like you have no talent. You can't do this. shit We can. We all can. We all can.
Speaker: So over that span of 15 years, did you did you finally come into your confidence? Well, it's interesting. I did because that's ultimately kind of how I exited. so Well, the first thing that I want to say is something to Jamie's point. I don't think that meeting her and her having the confidence gave me the confidence. OK.
Speaker: I think that what happened was we moved to Cleveland. My husband wanted to start his own business. We had a certain amount of money and we were running out of it.
Speaker: ah And I started looking for a job. And I was like, I had a one year old, but I was like, I think I need to like bring in income because I i think we're going to run out of money here. And she came to me at the right time and was just kind of like, let's start this company. And it took a little while for her to convince me. But it was not that I had confidence that we could figure it out. That is not what happened. I was like, well, I might as well try this because if I don't do this, I'm going to have to get a job. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Speaker: And then I learned the confidence. It took me a long time, many, many, many years. I remember we bought a very large piece of equipment. And when we went to this trade show to look at the equipment, I remember, and we always laughed at this. I was like hyperventilating.
Speaker: Because I was like, what? Like, this is a responsibility to have equipment like this. Like, I did not sign up for this level of responsibility. But I got accustomed to it.
Speaker: Over time. And then everything changed about the industry. The internet changed the industry. yeah And venture capital came into the printing industry and basically ended up just like everything. It just kind of took out all of these mom and pop printing companies. And we were a mom and pop printing company. and And tastes changed and budgets changed and people stopped spending so much money on invitations and they were sending evites. Like everything is always changing. Yeah.
Speaker: And it was so clear that like, okay, we had like a little heyday. Like we got lucky. We had a 15-year amazing ride, but this is not going to keep going on. And then we kind of started talking about like, well, is there another business that we could do together?
Speaker: You know, could we could we maybe start selling other kinds of printing or start another company? And I was like, oh, I am not feeling this. I think I just want to go on my own. Like business partnerships are very hard. i don't know if you guys are in a business partnership or this is just some kind of friendship thing you're doing. But business partnerships.
Speaker: rarely succeed in the long run. Like they have a very, very high failure rate. And we actually had a very successful run for 15 years until I was like, I'm done with this. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do other things. I wanted to pivot, but I didn't want to do it with her necessarily because I wanted to be on my own.
Speaker: i I want to double back one one point that I've heard on a lot of other podcasts. I think Jason Bateman or somebody, he was interviewing someone and talked about this, that one sure way to build your confidence is by facing a fear and doing it. Yes. And then the next time you do it, it's so much easier. And the next time after that, and, you know, like throughout my career, like starting different retreats and things, I laugh at the first time and how, you know, the mistakes we made, but then the next time it was better and the next time it was better. So I think that fear facing fear piece is pretty huge.
Speaker: Yes. And in a way, like I really have a lot of gratitude for my relationship with her and what we did together, because without her, I don't think I would have faced those fears. And she had so much confidence. And she also had a little bit of experience in manufacturing. So she had she just, you know, she came with that confidence and helped me build that confidence. Right. That's yeah amazing. So then what what was next when Wendy was on her own? OK, I don't even want to talk about this because it's like a dark period of my history. But ah while I was working at the printing company, I became very obsessed with shrinking my body.
Speaker: Like that I needed to be a certain size. And this was something that like carried over from my childhood where my everyone around me was always telling me I was too big. You need to go to Weight Watchers, like all this stuff. And while I was having children and working, i was like, I got a diet. I got a diet. And then I ended up.
Speaker: kind of, i don't even know. This is like, this is a whole other podcast, but I ended up becoming a diet blogger. Oh, really? i rarely, rarely talk about because I literally am so embarrassed, but I ended up becoming like very involved in this group of people that like ate in a certain way.
Speaker: and i was like, But maybe i should talk about it because in a way it all of it leads into what I do now. Like yeah basically one morning I woke up and i'm very impulsive and I was like on this diet and I was losing weight and I was like, oh, my God, this is it. It's like the holy grail of being thin. Like you just eat these foods and then you're going to be like thin and happy and everyone's going to love you.
Speaker: And I'm going to start a blog about it And then I start this blog and the blog like takes off. And then for the next like many, many years, I was like running this printing company and kind of blogging. And that was almost like another full time job.
Speaker: And I had three kids and Like I learned how to be a product photographer because to be a blogger, you have to do a lot of photography. And I figured out through this that I really love the photography aspect of it and the whole like website building, community building.
Speaker: um brand building. Like, yes, I was doing those things with the printing company, for sure, the brand building and all of that. But like, it was a little different. This was on the internet, right? And we were like an internet community. And I did that for many, many years.
Speaker: And so that Very much was part of the story of how I ended up doing what I'm doing now. Like all of the different things that happened in the past and the different things that I tried and failed at and tried, they all ended up leading me to where I am today. So, yeah. So interesting. We're both we're both raising our hands. We're like, and we agree. Because it does. We hear it like almost every guest we have on. It's so interesting to me that you pick up all these little seeds along the way and they they lead you to something that everything culminates together. And you're like, your story is so that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's and Lori and I have talked about this on past podcasts, too. I mean, it's even how we ended up here, because these little seeds along the way, you meet somebody, you do something, you fail at it, you do something that's maybe right for the time. And you're right, you were right on the blog, you know, that's when blogging and all of that, you know, we...
Speaker: And you're taking the things that are really popular or or popular is not the right word, but you found things. value yeah Yeah. I mean, the the printing to your point, gosh, I miss a good printer, by the way. It would be so nice to have a good printer back and maybe. And I think things are coming back to analog. Who knows? And we're going to have that stuff that we can touch and feel and all that good stuff. But you were in that and then the blogging and all of those things. that But yet your creativity is kind of staying along with you in each process.
Speaker: Yes, everything is creative. Everything involves a lot of creativity. Yes. And visual design. I don't know what the right word for it is, but right yeah there's there's visual design always throughout everything.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah So the diet thing you say, all right. That goes down in like a flaming hot like thing when I basically like there's this moment where there's like a huge backlash against all dieting. And it's like there's like the anti diet movement. And there's this one person who has a podcast who just educated me about how dieting is a life thief.
Speaker: And that made so much sense to me because in order for me to be in a thinner body, it was a full-time job. Wow. And it stole...
Speaker: All of me. Like it consumed all of me to be in a thinner body. It literally stole my life. It had to become my life. And that's what happened. Like I was, you know, a successful person in a printing company, but then I was like, I need to be smaller. And it ended up completely sucking me in like, wow.
Speaker: Get, you know, making all the right foods, acquiring all the right groceries, constantly reading about it so that you can like have in your mind that like certain foods are good and certain foods are bad. It was a full time job for me. It made sense that it was stealing my life. And over the course of like, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't really remember how long it took. I basically deprogrammed myself from a cult by listening to a lot of podcasts about people who had come out of dieting.
Speaker: Wow. And it was a major, major, major life change for me. Yeah. Major. And somehow during that time, well, okay, my, one of my children, this is, see, you guys are like, we're, this is going to be 45 minutes. about that Okay. So while this is going on and I have my three children and they are growing up, my middle child decides she wants to start a business in junior high school. Wow.
Speaker: She is like, we would always say about her, she cannot be stopped. So she's the one who goes to Cincinnati. She's at DAP? Yes, she's at DAP. She cannot be stopped.
Speaker: she If she gets an idea in her head that she wants to execute, she is going to do that thing. She kind sounds like her mama. Where does that come from? gene for Her first business was sewing American Girl doll clothing.
Speaker: on a sewing machine at 10 years old and selling the clothes on Etsy. Wow. How about that? She was like her mama. Yes. How about that? Right. It was almost unnatural. It was unnatural. Her ability to just get on a sewing machine and create what she wanted to create. And she got very involved in this American Girl Doll community and very involved in photography. This is going to come around. Wow. So she She does these. She's 10, 11. She's taking gorgeous photography of these dolls out in the wild with the clothing that she made. And she becomes part of this community. But very, very quickly, she recognizes an opportunity.
Speaker: Slime. She sees her friends playing with this thing called slime. Yeah. My grandsons love it. Okay. And she sees online that there are kids her age making these slime videos. And she says, mom, I want to start selling slime. And I'm like, hell no.
Speaker: I do not want that stuff in my home. I do not want you making a mess. I do not want to start having to ship slime. Like shipping clothing is easy. Shipping slime is a whole nother thing.
Speaker: Because of my experience with the printing company. Yeah. And all. All of that manufacturing and all of that experience, it was like she could not be stopped. We were starting a slime company. Oh, my goodness. She became one of the biggest international slime stars that are out there.
Speaker: What? She made of slime. Tons of money. i worked for her. Wow. In our home. We renovated our basement. She got the equipment. We were doing like every week or every other week releases. So she would make like 500 slimes or 700 slimes or a thousand slimes. We were traveling around the country in a van with the slime with our daughter. People would line up, take pictures with her. She was like,
Speaker: represented illness. Like it it was like a thing. And then the pandemic happened. wa wall walk one And she was in high school and she was staying up until two, three o'clock in the morning, making slime, packing slime and doing her homework and getting like straight A's, very driven kid.
Speaker: And I was like, this is not healthy. Like i just, I mean, I don't care how much money you're making. Like you need to be sleeping and doing normal things with your friends. Like this does not seem okay. Like, and I basically told her, like, I just don't think this is worth it.
Speaker: And the pandemic was happening. So it was like, she was kind of like, okay, I could like, I could see that having like a normal teenage, like, so like,
Speaker: ah she she would be invited to go do things with her friends and she would say, i can't, I'm working. And I was like, no, no, and and no, no. yeah that's It's not worth it. Maya, you need, you need to be a normal kid. yeah And so she stopped, but this is all part of the thing. These are all part of the seeds.
Speaker: While she is like this internet, Instagram celebrity, That's when I catch on that there's the world of online art courses. Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh my God, all the things that I love to do when I was 23 living in Los Angeles, watercolor painting, hand lettering, everything, drawing, it's it's all online now. You can take classes from everyone all over the world. And I start taking online art classes. And I'm like, this is the best thing ever yeah and it's the pandemic and i'm at home and it's like i i don't ever like i'm not one of those people who's like wah walk pandemic have to stay at home i'm like who cares we're staying at home or an art like this is so cool and i'm just making like that i'm just like making art all the time taking class after class after class i fall in love with collage fodder i'm like this is amazing
Speaker: My daughter says, you should start an Instagram account. ah And I had Instagram accounts. It's not like I was not on Instagram. I had a personal one. We had one for my other business. I was like, really? Why? And she's like, you should definitely do that. So she convinced me to start an Instagram account. And then shortly after that, she was like, I want another cat. So she was like very, she, we had a lot of pets because of her.
Speaker: And I was like, fine, Maya. And she was like, but she was relentless about this thing. Like, I want another cat. I want another cat. I was like, okay, fine. If you get me 10,000 followers on Instagram, you can get another cat.
Speaker: ah so She but goes on Instagram. She probably, at that time, like, she probably had half a million followers. Eventually, she had like a million followers on Instagram. But she... She just goes on Instagram and she tells all of her friends, her Instagram friends. My mom says if we get her 10,000 followers, I can get another cat.
Speaker: And in a day or two, i have 10,000 followers on Instagram. None of those people stayed, FYI. But it was like a little bit addictive. It was kind of fun. And people were responding really well to the things that I was posting. And because I had all that food photography experience, I knew about the importance of like how you represented yourself yeah and how you took good photographs and you edited them. Whereas a lot of artists...
Speaker: They don't think about like if they want to post their art on Instagram, they're not thinking necessarily about, well, how do other people perceive what I'm posting? Right, right. They're just posting.
Speaker: Right. And I'm always like, well, what does this, how does this represent what I want it to represent? And that's how it always started. So over the course of, I'm going to say a year, those little girls who were like slime addicts, they went away. Right. But the psychology of me having 10,000 followers and when people would find my account and they would go, yeah.
Speaker: She's legit. She's legitimate. Yeah. Yeah. And your images are beautiful. Yeah. So it's like a combination. I'm not going to say that like, I don't deserve to have followers, right but that legitimacy was everything because there would be people who took just as beautiful images who had 300 followers. And when somebody finds an account with 300 followers, even if they're taking beautiful pictures, there is a subconscious like thing that's going on in their mind. Like, do I have to follow that person who only has 300 followers? Even if you like what they're doing. Whereas when you, at the time, 10,000 followers was a lot of followers. It's not anymore, but it was. And so when you would come upon an account,
Speaker: that was making the kind of art that I was making and it had 10,000 followers, you'd be like, oh my God, she's, I gotta follow her. Right. And that took off, but I was not thinking about teaching classes.
Speaker: I was back in my, I don't have confidence really s thing. Interesting. And I was like, I don't know how to do that. My daughter does that. My daughter makes videos and puts them on the internet. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to edit a video. I don't know how to have an online school. But people started asking me, when are you going to teach classes? When are you going teach classes? And actually, Jean Oliver was like, will you teach a class for my network? And I was like, i don't know how to do that. Yeah. No.
Speaker: And then I don't know what happened, but one day I was just like, oh, I think this is what happened. It was the pandemic. I was like, I'm here literally. I might as well just try. and that was the beginning. Wow. Yeah. And that's, that was the beginning of the online school. That was the beginning an school. Tell that. Tell us, because that's where you, that's what's happening now. so tell us, tell us. yeah but Yeah. It does involve another person.
Speaker: yeah So basically, there, there was a lot of drama within my world online where there, you know, there's, there's just a, there's a, there's a lot of sensitivity, right. Of like, who's doing what, who's copying who is, you know, are you taking too much from what you see online, blah, blah, blah. And I was always very, very much trying to credit every, like overly credit everybody that I was like getting inspired by. But there was still, even with that, there was a lot of drama. Like if someone had something that they did and you tried to do it differently, but you were inspired by them and you didn't credit them the right way. There was just a whole mess of drama.
Speaker: And. I started researching. This is going to go way. This is interesting and way more than 45 minutes. So I decided that I wanted to find out like what the social norms were in this industry of mixed media art, because I was very OK. So I'll tell you this part of it. When I was in my early 20s in Los Angeles,
Speaker: I knew that mixed media art existed. i would ride the bus to UCLA with a copy of Somerset Studio Magazine in my hands. Right. And I would look at it and I would go, i have no idea how to do that. Like those artists are amazing. And there's so much going on in there. But I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin, nor did I know that people were giving mixed media art classes. I didn't have access to that.
Speaker: um So when I was doing this research, I was like, well, if I want to do this kind of art and take classes and post online, Like, where are these boundaries about what I can do and what I can post? And I started talking to people in the industry. Like I reached out to a bunch of different artists and I was like, hey, would you get on the phone with me? Or would you answer my questions? Like what's okay to do and not okay to do? And through this, this ah like educational little ah path I went down, I met a woman named DJ Pettit.
Speaker: Oh yeah. you know who that is? Yeah, I do. Yeah. So DJ Pettit like 30 years ago was working in a scrapbooking store on the West Coast and she ended up kind of like pioneering a lot of different book arts.
Speaker: Yeah. And actually I failed to mention this. It was beyond me just wanting to make books. I, I had, so I was so I was feeling so connected to making handmade books that I was like, I want to make a lot of handmade books. And there's no way that I want to own a lot of handmade books. I just want to make them. So I was like, I need to sell handmade books. So that actually for me came before doing online classes. I was just like, I love making handmade books. I made handmade books when I was in my early 20s. But now because of the Internet and the access to so many more classes, I was learning so much more about bookmaking than I learned, you know, back in L.A. when I was young. And I was like, okay, um I want to start selling them. And that was where the the stepping on the toes started. Because it was like, if you were going to sell handmade books, it was like, well, what were they? What did they look like?
Speaker: And were you drawing too much upon what somebody else did, where they felt proprietary over that style? Wow. where They were going to be angry.
Speaker: Interesting. You were selling books that looked like their books. And I made like a huge mistake. I took a course from a big online teacher and I had no idea that in the like fine print on the website, it said like you can make these books, but you cannot sell them.
Speaker: Like you can make them for yourself, but you can never, never sell them. And I took the class and I did not see that fine print. I never would have tried selling them had I seen that fine print.
Speaker: I took the class and then I was like, oh my God, this is so much fun. I want to make a million of these and I need a way to like dispose of them. I got to sell them on Etsy. And i I started an Etsy site and I put my books up there and very, very quickly, the person whose class it was, contacted me and they were livid.
Speaker: and I was like, oh my God, I am so sorry. i did not know. i will take this down immediately. I will never, ever, ever do that again. and that was the beginning of me trying to figure out what could I sell? i want to make handmade books. What's okay to sell? I need to be very careful. And I started interviewing people in the industry. and in my exploration, i found out about DJ Pettit. And DJ is still living on the West Coast. And together we decided, like, we both kind of wanted to launch an online course. I'm kind of speeding up the story. There's like a whole period of time where I'm actually selling handmade books. So I figured out like a style of handmade book that I really like that was kind of a little bit my own, but it was derivative of like a million other books. Yeah. And I was selling it and people were like lining up. There was like a really long wait list where people were like waiting to get a custom handmade book by me. then I was like, I can't keep up with this. This is, this is not something that's like, I cannot do this long-term. And that was when I was like, okay, I do really need to try to make an online class. That's way more like ah the right thing to do with this thing. yeah,
Speaker: I talked to DJ and DJ had developed these incredible techniques for her gorgeous handmade books. And that's how I started. So we both started filming and experimenting and sharing the videos with each other. And then very quickly, DJ was like, I cannot do this, Wendy. Her back...
Speaker: she'd had major back problems from an accident. She's like, I I'm so sorry. I just cannot do this. But because i started filming and editing, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.
Speaker: Gotcha. And that's what started it. That's what started it. You know, it's, it's interesting. And you're right. There's a slippery slope of, of people seeing I am I'm a photographer. I'm a floral photographer and i have artists contact me all the time. Can I paint from your work? can I pay from your work? and And, and I learned quickly from a lawyer about derivative rights and my rights as an artist. And, you know, it's interesting. And I, I think that's the best we can do. I love that you went into that because I think it's important that we, you do credit and we do make mistakes and people do make mistakes. And, and and there's, there's sort of the fine balance between putting it out there
Speaker: um Even if it's just putting it out there on social media and not necessarily selling, but putting it out there and and what people take take away. and And you want to inspire, but you don't want people to, cut you know, it's it's a fine it's a fine balance. Lori, you probably have that all the time. I've had friends who have told me that they've changed their complete way of teaching because, you know, they would be teaching how they paint. And then people would learn that and then start creating paintings like that and selling them. And so now they kind of completely changed, you know, their, their teaching in different ways. So that doesn't happen.
Speaker: so It's a complicated system. There's no easy answers. right yeah And navigating that system of complexity was a very, very stressful part of the beginning of this whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah. So when I first started teaching, I wouldn't even bring examples of my own work because, well, partly not because I'm worried about being copy. It was more my, my joy in teaching is seeing everybody's uniqueness yeah come up.
Speaker: And at the end of the class, I'm happy if everybody's work looks different and it looks like them. Yeah. Now I share a little bit more of what I make when I teach, but yeah, it's, it's tricky.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's tricky. And, So let's fast forward. Let's talk about where you are now. Let's talk about this online school and what's happening with that because it's really, you've kind of taken all of these pieces, all of these seeds, and you've got this beautiful entity that's happening now. Yes. So that first class that I did, which was a class about making these books that I call the Willa journals, the really junk journals, but it's very versatile.
Speaker: It was very, very popular. And i was like, oh, there's like a good market for online art classes that's worth me really concentrating on that. And then I just like after I launched that course, I was like, I'll do another one. I'll do another one. I'll do another one. And also the hundred day project, which you're probably both familiar with. Yes.
Speaker: I was doing those 100 day projects and I was really enjoying that. And One of the hundred day projects that I did was inspired by all these online art classes that I was taking where people were making collage fodder and then they were turning it into beautiful projects. And I was like, I want to do 100 day project where I just make collage fodder. every, you know, a hundred times and I'll photograph it.
Speaker: And while I was doing that one hundred day project, a lot of other people were also like being very turned on by this idea. And that kind of just ended up springboarding into this thing called the fodder challenge. So the fodder challenge was like the answer to, okay, well, what do you do with all that collage fodder? Like, yes, it's fun to make it and everybody is kind of addicted to making it, but what do you do with it? And then, so we did this free online thing. So, i mean, there's, there's so many seeds. There were other people doing these free events where they would take,
Speaker: groups of artists and bring them together. And every artist would do like a mini course. And then you would give it away for free because what everybody wanted to do is they wanted to build their reputation. They wanted to build their email list. And so people were giving a lot of stuff away for free.
Speaker: And I was like, I guess I should try that. Like I could, you know, bring a bunch of people together and we could do a free offering. And that was explosive.
Speaker: Because it was free. Anything free is going to be explosive. i've I learned later, like, that's that's got its downsides. Like, there's a lot you're going to attract a lot of people that they only want things for free and they suck your energy and your time. But i didn't i didn't know that at the time. And it was very successful. And while we were doing it, it's like you just have...
Speaker: I call it a prophecy. You just know, you know what the next right thing to do is. I knew the next right thing is we're gonna have a year long course doing this. So it's like, I was like every month we're gonna bring on a different teacher. They're gonna, it's gonna be a formula. It's gonna be make fodder in the beginning of the month and then use fodder at the end of the month.
Speaker: And then a lot of the other things that got built around it, which make it very special, very unique, are like bringing in the, inspiration we call it the inspiration squad now. So you you not only have the teacher coming in, and this truly is my favorite thing about the whole program. Like Lori is going to be a teacher, but during her month, you're going to have other people who are trained artists.
Speaker: doing her lessons and interpreting them in their own style that are often very different than Lori's style is gonna be. And those people create bonus content so that the all the participants get to see, oh,
Speaker: I don't have to do it just like Lori did. I can take Lori's inspiration, but then I could take my colors, my materials, things that inspire me. And I can, I can take away from Lori, the inspiration that Lori gives, but my project doesn't have to look just like Lori's project because look how these other people are making it in their style. And that is what I think uniquely sets the whole thing apart. It's brilliant.
Speaker: Love that. Love that. And what what have you found? Like, tell us about the people who are taking it, the gifts and what have how has it grown and where are you Where is it? I mean, tell Where is it? Yeah, I would say we're at kind of like an interesting point in the cycle of the business where.
Speaker: Like every year that we launch a new fodder school, I'm always asking myself, like, is this going to fly again? You know, like, are we going to have like, yes, we did all this work. We've invested a lot of time. Everyone's invested. Like Lori knows producing the content for fodder school is very time consuming. And we have a lot of teachers and a staff of people and all this stuff. And it's like a risk every year. You're taking a huge risk. Yeah.
Speaker: Is this going to actually yield, you know, a financial gain um to keep it going? And i I go back to my like lack of confidence. Like I never have the confidence that it's going to fly again. i do my best. I show up every day. I have a lot of grit, but it's like, you know, we're coming, we're literally like a week away from opening up the sales of Fodder School 6. And I'm just like a little kid again. And I'm just like, is it going to work?
Speaker: Is it not going to work? I don't know. Because a lot of stuff is just outside of your control. like You can show up and you can do everything right. But there's all these other factors. There's wars. There's consumer confidence. There's just the market. You know, the market for online classes Is it still growing? Is it shrinking? Are people moving past that? Do they want – you just don't know. There's factors outside of your control. there There are. And, you know, Wendy, it's interesting, though, because you've been on the front end of the circle sometimes i and on many of these businesses, as we've talked about, the the stationary business, the blogging. um And even now these online classes, and I think the the lesson for the listeners too is just you always have to pay attention to all of those signals that are coming at you. Everything has a life cycle. Yes, everything has a life cycle. You know, online classes, are they hot right now? Yes. Are retreats hot right now? Yes. Are they going to be hot in 15 years? Who knows? Who knows? But, you know, you're always, <unk> it's interesting throughout your career, careers, I should say, you've always paid attention to that. At least that's what I'm hearing. And that's what we all need to do is, yes, you can keep doing the thing that youre that you love and you're like, I'm never going to stop, you know, being a ceramic artist. Okay, that's fine. But if you're not making any money at it, well, then that's on you. You know, like you've got to, we all have to pivot.
Speaker: we all need to pivot. i I do think though, you've created such a buzz around. I mean, that's the reason I reached out to you because, you know, I teach retreats and I i would hear people say, well, I'm taking father school. I'm doing father school. Are you doing father school? And I'm like, and I always kind of watched what you were doing and love what you're doing, but I'm like, maybe I want to do father school.
Speaker: Well, everybody, we want you to do fodder school. So tell us about when, when does it, when does it? One more point I want to make. The other thing you really have going for you, Wendy, and I will attest to this from my own experience now is you have, you are so buttoned up in everything you do and you do it at such a high level that that's a big differentiator too.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of people to thank for that. It's you, the universe sends you gifts or something. I don't really know. how i mean, you know, Evan, cause you work with Evan. yeah Evan was literally like a gift that came through my oldest daughter. Like, I don't know if you know how i ended up hiring Evan. No, but probably you should tell me that offline. because we're going long here okay all right i also i could talk about we'll go but so fodder school is going start again and so we will start again yes first is a challenge so there'll be the month of october is what we call the fodder challenge very low cost very high like level of of content that you get so it's not a free offer, but it's a very low cost offer. You get to see all the different new fodder school teachers. And then right after October, we start right in again with, you know, our regular fodder school months in fodder school six. And we also have fodder school seven, all the contracts signed. So there will be also a fodder school seven.
Speaker: Well, there's your confidence. How about that? You've already got contracts for seven. And then what we'll do is we'll make sure that our listeners have the links to that so they can join the fodder school. And I can't, I mean, I'm so excited and so inspired. Plus, I want to come up and see you in Cleveland when Well, if you come in Cincinnati to visit your daughter, know, you need to reach out. Go see Lori. It's, it's a what a journey. And, you know, thank you for sharing. I mean, I know there have been, I mean, my gosh, there's been so many pivots, but so many good pivots that have led you to this beautiful space and this creation.
Speaker: It's incredible. Just incredible. Yeah, I'm not afraid of pivoting again. Like I'm not afraid at all. It's like fodder school will have a life cycle and there will be something else on the other side of it. And it will be a little bit different, but it'll always involve making things like that's guaranteed. Right.
Speaker: Well, right back to little Wendy. Amazing. little scraps that her little scraps It's the mixed media of life. We just all scrap it together and and then it's beautiful. Oh, Jamie, that was a good one. Isn't that good? i know. i love it. Wendy, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker: You are so welcome. Thank you for having me on and listening to me go go on and on. was It was long. Hey, our our listeners haven't heard us in a while, so they they get a little extra bonus. But to all of our listeners, thank you so much. Peace, love and re-bloom.
Speaker: Thanks for spending this time with us on Rebloom. We hope something from today stays with you. Maybe a thought, a feeling, or a spark of inspiration.
Speaker: And if this conversation resonated, we really hope you'll share it with a friend. We sure are grateful you're here and we'll see you next time.
