We recently connected with Jocelyn Krodman and have shared our conversation below.
Jocelyn, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I obviously have days where my optimism is stronger than my pessimism and vice versa, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how stepping out and attempting to make a career out of your creations is in itself a very optimistic act. Beyond that, continuing to pursue that career year after year, despite challenges and setbacks requires an enormous amount of optimism. It’s difficult to say where that aspect of my personality originated, but I do think it helps keep me afloat.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My passion for needle felting animals evolved into my small business, PetitFelts, back in 2011. My business, although still quite small, has evolved over time and in addition to crafting felted sculptures, I offer a line of felting kits and have found myself conducting workshops, fostering fair trade partnerships, and creating a line of ceramics. My love for sculpting animals continues to bring me much joy and writing stories for each of my creations has become one of my favorite parts of the process. Infusing love and humor into my work is a constant goal, transcending both felted and ceramic pieces. There’s a surprising amount of crossover between my felted work and my ceramic work and I’m noticing that more and more of my time is being spent working in the ceramic studio. I’m looking forward to expanding my porcelain offerings and seeing where it takes me next. I also am very much looking forward to launching new collections of fair trade ornaments this holiday season. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience to work with my fair trade collaborator for the past few years and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Perseverance, adaptability and passion have all been essential qualities in my journey.
I think that when you’re starting out on the path of a creative career, it’s important to realize things don’t always come easily, or happen overnight. I worked many part time jobs alongside my creative work for several years as I slowly built up my business. I’d also say it’s good to keep in mind that although passion is meaningful, you are not likely to feel passionate about what you’re doing every single day. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep going, or that you don’t love making your work, it just means you’re human!
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
It’s a dream of mine to collaborate with an animator that wants to bring felted work to life! I can be contacted through my website at www.petitfelts.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.petitfelts.com
- Instagram: @petitfelts
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