Meet Alanna Bailey

I moved to New York City for undergrad years ago to dually concentrate in creative writing and cultural studies + media. After school ended I wound up working in marketing + brand development in the luxury design industry for several years and made a home for myself in NYC for a decade. Eventually heading up my own consultancy, I thought it’d be easier to carve out time for writing, but it didn’t quite work out that way. In 2015 some health issues paired with a deeper searching for how I wanted to spend my time and what I wanted to ‘do’ in life led me to phase out my clients, work odd jobs and apply to graduate school for my MFA in writing.

I was incredibly fortunate, in fact, I’m still not sure how I got so lucky, but I got into BU and moved to Boston to fully immerse myself in literature and writing for about a year and a half. When I finished my Master’s and had to move I still hadn’t entirely answered the ‘what do I want to do’ question, but I knew reading, writing + creativity was non-negotiable to my life from here on out. That said, after 12 years in the NorthEast, I was pretty much done with the harsh winters and wound up taking a cross-country road trip home to Los Angeles.

When I arrived, quite humbly moving back in with my parents for a bit, I wound up working in higher education for about a year, helping a friend transition to her new department, and upon its completion was let go on January 31, 2020, just 5 weeks before the world shut down due to Covid-19.

Being home, with my parents, unemployed, with underlying health issues that made me very afraid of getting Covid, my anxiety was through the roof (like most of ours was I think). To cope with this anxiety and the state of the world – I just got busy. It started with painting a new fence for my parent’s house. At night I’d hop no zoom to ‘visit’ with friends and I picked up sewing again, and I’d stitch cloth together clumsily as I talked with people or watched movies. My anxiety made it really hard to focus on reading and writing, and working with my hands (and in the garden) became sort of a balm for stress.

When the fence was finished I began playing with a multitude of other materials I was able to get my hands on – wood, cement, metals, macrame, rubber and eventually clay. I made a lot of odd things and small disasters but when I gave miniature wind chimes a go I found them kind of delightful, pairing designs with gemstones. When I finally felt safe enough to have distanced outdoor visits with friends in the backyard (this was still pre-vaccines) my dear friend Maggie basically started (and continued) to talk me into selling these little windchimes. The gemstones were so pretty I also wanted to wear them, so I started making some earrings here and there. Then a friend had been posting about making earrings with polymer clay, which just looked really fun, so I started playing with clay… then my room just exploded. I’d basically accidentally created a whole inventory.

Months later, and after vaccines came out when I felt bold enough I approached a boutique to see if they were accepting any new jewelry and the owner immediately invited me to do a ‘pop up’. I scrambled for a week and borrowed money from my parents to get the supplies I needed to do a pop-up event (which I’d never done before) and after that, as they say, the rest is history…

This said, as someone working to build this into a full-time job/company (events are only part of the work!), learning the balance of finances and expenses is definitely humbling. It’s no joke when they say you have to spend money to make money, it’s an investment and can be scary spending a big chunk of cash on supplies, then spending tons of time making things by hand, then spending a chunk of money on booking events and just working and having faith, ‘ok, I’m going to make this all back and then some, you really have to focus on confidence and possibility – and hustle! It’s a lot of work. But I’m also finding it very, very satisfying.