We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Dennis recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ryan, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I was actually thinking about this earlier today. Certainly I was not super confident in my style or creative abilities during my teenage years and probably most of my twenties. That being said, I have always had a strong desire to express myself. But as the years passed by and I flexed those muscles more and more, my confidence grew. Ten years ago I started working for myself and by myself in a creative business. That gave me the space to really grow. I’m 45 now, and with age and confidence I know my style is not for everybody and I am good with that. Totally. I don’t want to be for everybody.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a vintage stylist, collector and artist based in South Carolina. For over a decade I ran my vintage business specializing in pieces with a little dirt and a lot of character. At the start of the pandemic I began doing Instagram sales that I cranked out every single week for years. It served me well and I’m thankful for all that I learned and for everyone showing up like they did. But my life is looking and feeling different these days and it was time to shake things up a bit. When I started I was 35 with a 5 and 8 year old. You can imagine that adding 10 to all those numbers has involved a lot of change. All for the better.
After some soul searching and coaching, I began the process of shifting from a full-time vintage dealer into a broader creative business. I finally feel like I’m settling into my new home. I obviously can’t pick a lane so I’m just not going to right now. I still have a space at in my town where I sell vintage and I might just do an Instagram sale every once in a while just because.
I’m now operating as Grey Street Creative and finally getting around to creating a website. It feels good to be spending more time working creatively with my hands and stretching myself in that arena. To sound fancy I do sculptural assemblage work which right now translates to me making sculptures using old composite doll heads and they are all smoking little paper cigarettes. It is my pleasure to make these. Obviously not everybody is into this kind of thing, but I am. I just introduced my first group of fine art prints. All of these pieces are available in my Etsy shop. Check them out!
I’m also opening up more time in my schedule to help other people with their spaces. It’s always been word of mouth but now I’m putting it on the website, making it a little more official.
www.greystcreative.com
@grey_st_creative
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Patience. My Instagram following isn’t influencer status by any means but I slowly but surely grew my following by showing up consistently and sharing just enough to connect with people. My account isn’t perfectly curated but it’s genuine and honest and that works. It all just takes time.
2. Developing my voice. I’ve been successful by putting out what I like and what I think is cool, not what I think will be an obvious sell. You will find your people and they will find you. There is a buyer for everything. Stay true to yourself and you will just get better at what you do. I just stuck with it. I’m still in the process of “building the field” with my doll work – the players will eventually show up.
3. No fear. I’m really not afraid of trying something new to see if it works or works better. That’s the only way you are going to get better. Who cares if it doesn’t work? You are the one putting yourself out there, the haters rarely are. I really love Teddy Roosevelt’s arena quote.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
Ok let’s see. In a perfect world where I had all the funds I needed, I would say go all in on what your strengths are and farm out the rest. I would love to get to that place and have ten people doing all of the things that I’m not an expert at or just don’t like doing. However, that’s not where I am and maybe I’m really just the kind of person that thinks, oh surely I can figure that out. I obviously have ADHD and get overwhelmed by a lot of the details of running my own business. But I digress. Thanks to YouTube, Chat and the rest of the internet you can learn how to do so many things with a little research. I just figured out how to make my Instagram posts “shoppable” and I’m still really proud of that one. I think most creatives spend a lot of their time as a one man band and can’t afford to pay for outside help. But thanks to modern technology we can get it all done, maybe not perfectly but close enough.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greystcreative.com
- Instagram: @grey_st_creative
Image Credits
none
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