Today we’d like to introduce you to Faith Evans-Sills.
Hi Faith, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve got over 25 years of personal painting experience, which I draw from as I create my popular online classes and retreats. I love inspiring women to explore their creative dreams through making art. I have always been creative and especially loved painting. I graduated from Skidmore College with a degree in painting and got my MFA in painting at Parsons in New York City, where I lived for 15 years. I showed and sold my work in New York and Brooklyn, where I had my studio in our home when I had my first two children. I started a blog about my art, inspiration, and motherhood in 2008, which connected me to a large worldwide community of creative women. Many of those early online connections are ones that I still have today, and so many opportunities have come to me through the online community! My husband and I moved our family to Charleston, South Carolina, in 2011 to live a lifestyle closer to nature, and I feel deeply inspired by the coastal beauty of this part of the world. I had my third child after we moved to Charleston.
After that, I also attended a few art retreats where I connected in person with some of the creative women I met online. Understanding the power of gathering in person for a special creative pocket of time on a retreat led me to lead my first art retreat on Cape Cod in 2014 and, shortly after that, to create my first online class in 2015. Also, in 2015 I began working with my current co-host for my retreats and many of my online classes, Mati McDonough. We have been offering our retreats and classes ever since, and we co-wrote our book Painting the Sacred Within, published in 2017.
Today our online painting classes are enjoyed by women all over the world. We have gone on to create art retreats for women in Costa Rica, Morocco, Mexico, Charleston, and at the Omega Institute in New York State. Our popular retreat in Marrakech, Morocco, is offered each November, and our retreat in Nosara, Costa Rica, is offered each March; both sell out quickly. I create and sell my paintings in my home studio. I’m passionate about helping women connect with themselves through travel and creating art. I see so much power in stepping away from our busy lives to reconnect to ourselves and our most heartfelt ideas.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of the hardest things about being a business owner is that there is no road map, you are creating everything, and no one is telling you what to do next or the best move to make! This is the biggest blessing and challenging thing about working for yourself. You are your boss, yay! But you need someone else to tell you the best next direction for your business. As my business has grown, this feels less scary, but with every new offering we have created, like a new online class or a retreat in a new place, there is always this hesitation before putting it out into the world. It’s healthy to always be in that place of wonder as a creative business owner, always looking at things through examination. Is this offering still relevant to who we are as a business? Is it time to create a new offering, and do I feel inspired? Asking those questions means you are constantly looking to improve your business to develop offerings that will excite and delight you and your target audience; in creative practice, that’s the best place to be!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an author, teacher, retreat leader, and painter. As an artist, it is beneficial for my business to have various offerings to reach a wider audience, giving many ways in which people can engage with my work. I create and sell my paintings, teach various online painting classes, and offer international retreats for women in Costa Rica and Morocco a few times a year. Women of all skill levels join my classes and retreats, from beginner painters to more advanced established artists, all benefit from the time dedicated to gathering inspiration, painting together, adventuring, and connecting with other creative women. My co-authored book Painting the Sacred Within has become a beloved inspiration resource for women worldwide as they explore their creative and art-making dreams. My biggest accomplishment as a business owner so far was when our art retreats began to sell out in just a few days. Our retreats are a significant investment of time and money, so seeing that people trust our product enough to jump at the chance to join us has been deeply affirming! This validated a deep hope that I held for the business: that our offerings resonate with our audience just as we intended them to. Each of my retreats and classes has been created from a foundation of looking within myself and my retreat co-host and working to understand deeply what we want to get out of the experience. Then custom making the experience of the retreat or class serve the purpose with which it was intended, be that gathering inspiration through adventure, teaching new painting techniques, or experiencing deep soul-filling beauty. Seeing these offerings being received by our community in this affirming way feels like the biggest accomplishment.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the gorgeous autumn and springtime weather in Charleston so much! I especially love the sunsets in the fall here, nothing like it. Living just 5 minutes from the beach will never get old for me, having grown up where we did not have them. I will always love seeing palm trees all over town. The food scene here is fantastic. Right now, the thing I enjoy least about living in Charleston is the traffic; the roads are overcrowded and congested, and this seems to worsen every year as more and more people move here.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.faithevanssills.com/
- Instagram: faithevanssills
Image Credits
Young Love Media and Elizabeth Medina Photography
