Story & Lesson Highlights with Ellen Bruxvoort of Austin, TX

We recently had the chance to connect with Ellen Bruxvoort and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ellen, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Have you stood up for someone when it cost you something?
Seems to me like standing up for something always comes at a cost. Even if you’re standing up for your own rest and relaxation, it might come at a cost of income or opportunity. If you’re standing up for the rights of others, it might come at a cost of your time, safety, material, money, etc. Maybe it’s less of a cost and more of a trade. Ideally life is perpetually made of a million tiny trades, sometimes for us, sometimes by us. I think that’s just being in community.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Ellen and I am a fiber artist by the name, FIBROUS. Based in Austin, TX, I mainly specialize in commercial rope installations and custom fiber art. I started weaving a little over ten years ago, and while my work has carried me through a hundred different phases, it seems they’ve ultimately led me to commercial work, as it generally aligns with the pace of life I seek – slow and measured. Instead of crafting 2000 tiny projects in a year, I might make 3 to 5 big projects to sustain me all the same. In ten years of self-taught business, I’ve worked with clients like Google, Deloitte, Marriott, Madewell, American Eagle, and more. Before Fibrous, I spend a decade in the service industry. Before that, I was just a millennial who liked PhotoShop.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I’ve been mulling on this possibility that our core memories become muddled the more we recall them. Like what if some of the most challenging stories we retell ourselves fuel a narrative that’s based in a feeling we wouldn’t use to describe the same situation if it happened today? Does this make them any less true? Maybe retelling it this way simply protects us from changes we’re not ready to make? Who knows. But I’m in the process of trying to release some of those stories and ask myself – what if it happened today? How would that change the way you move forward?

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Oh, sure. *nervous chuckle* If you’re self-employed and haven’t yet found yourself at the foothills of such a mountain, I have faith that you will (comes with the territory). Mine was in the wake of compounding grief. I lost my dad to leukemia and then my cat to congestive heart failure. My relationship with my dad was complicated but my relationship with my cat was not. She was my heart beating outside of my chest and to lose her felt like I had no air in my lungs. So it was two different types of grief. One was layered and the other was simple, but both together were my mountain. I didn’t know how to climb that AND run a business at the same time. So I applied for countless jobs and didn’t get a single one. Thank goodness I didn’t, because I regrouped and closed out that year with a handful of installation contracts and a PR income report. I guess gaining two guardian angels in such a short amount of time has its perks.

Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Whose ideas do you rely on most that aren’t your own?
Are any ideas truly our own? I feel like I’m rolling my eyes at myself. But really, if the mere act of living is a constant consumption of details from other origins, all thrown into the blender of our own personal experience, I guess it’s possible that the exact recipe of my output is original. But the ingredients are far from it. So I think *everything* I rely on is based in an idea that I learned from someone else. But how far back can that go? And how far forward does that go? It’s like a giant game of telephone and suddenly this interview is about anthropology lol. This is the origin story of the name FIBROUS though – a general concept of connectedness and that everything we do is woven into everything that surrounds us.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
My community, which I love dearly. This is the proverbial garden of my life, to which I hope to water and tend daily, with as much care tomorrow as I did today. With any luck, it may continue to grow and bloom no matter the season.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Katie Jameson, Marshall Tidrick

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