Project Person // Profile #6

_{Subscribe here to receive Project Person each Friday morning.}

Meet Elena Balkcom // Project Person #6

What project are you currently working on?  A watercolor business. Very currently (and against my own standards), I'm listening to Christmas music in SEPTEMBER because it's already time to start packing these nativity prints!

What did it take to get started? Confidence to try (just start swingin', as my brother says), coaching from a friend with a good eye and a big heart, and a sprinkle of fairy dust called ADHD hyper-fixation.

What’s your most impressive or favorite stat? Ooof, one month I out-earned my salaried husband in my first year of business.

What’s something that never would have happened for you without this project? Car repairs. Ha! Is that a fair answer? But also staying home full time with my awesome kid.

What keeps you up at night? Nothing usually. Doctorate-level sleeper, here.

But all the rest of the time I'm trying to figure out what the heck is my "thing" to paint? Fish? Buildings? Carrots? Sheep? It's probably flowers, right, but that feels like it's really been done. Time to niche down, baby girl.

What are some of your other projects? Mentor Matchup was a Covid-times project to get women together on the internet because I believe 10 year apart friendships are MAGIC. Potty training my little dude feels like a recent one. Teaching the Bible to college students is so dear to my heart that I'll always try to find a way there, project or not.

Elena Balkcom received a B in her college watercolors class. 

“I know a B doesn’t sound like a big deal,” she told me. “But in something as subjective as watercolor painting?! I decided I must have been pretty bad at it.” 

She eventually graduated college with a Fiber Arts degree, and while she always “has a box of craft supplies on hand”, she more-or-less decided not to mess with painting again. 

When I asked her what she planned to do with fiber arts, she laughed. “I guess I hoped I would make an under-the-sea vignette out of coffee filters in an Anthropologie window one day and score a discount on a dress.” 

While those Anthropologie dreams are still TBD, she did happen to put that art degree to use. She’s now making a bonafide living as a (wait for it) …watercolor artist. 

And the path to get there couldn’t be more unexpected. 

After graduation, Elena worked in ministry, coordinated weddings, and scored some odd jobs, even working with me for a few years doing grassroots marketing. 

(When I wrote out the job description of what I was looking for, I remember saying I wanted someone like Elena. Then one day I thought, maybe I should just ask the actual Elena. 

“But I’m not a marketer!” she said. 

“But you know how to rally people into action,” I said back.

Thankfully, she said yes, and she was fantastic at it.)

She cut back on work when she had her son Luke, and she began to pull out that craft box during nap time. She even dusted off some watercolors at some point, making a few birthday cards for friends. 

One day, her church had a women’s conference, and they invited members to display art for a little gallery showing in the church hallways. Elena painted a carrot on a little four inch piece of paper. 

When she walked into the church that day, however, she was greeted with large paintings of sunsets as well as verses the size of the wall. Embarrassed, she discreetly stuffed the little carrot into her purse. 

When her pastor approached and asked if she had painted something, she said no and beelined to her car. 

“I lied to my pastor in the church hallway!” she told me, laughing. (I wish you could hear her tell these stories). “I eventually walked back inside and stuck the painting on a little music stand in the corner. That was my make-it-right.”

She didn’t put her name on the painting, but she did include the note she had written explaining the carrot’s significance. 

All season long, carrots grow beneath the soil. All we can see is the leafy stalk reaching for the light. It’s not until the end of the season when we’ll see all that was being formed.

And so it is with us:

God is doing something out of sight. We might see hints of growth, but we must resist the temptation to pull up roots early—and trust the Gardener to do his best work. 

Take heart: the carrot is worth the wait. 

Later that day, a woman Elena did not know but had always admired from a distance approached her in the bathroom. “I know it was you who painted that carrot.” 

The woman, Robin Becker, was a well-known Interior Designer in their small town of Milledgeville, and she calmly and confidently told Elena she could make her a real living off of painting. She asked to meet with Elena and told her to bring the rest of her work. 

“But this is literally all my work,” Elena tried to tell her. “I made a B in water coloring!” 

But the woman persisted. “How soon can you paint me a swan? Will you take $200?” 

The interior designer was constantly looking for unique, custom art for her clients, and, starting with that swan, she began passing commission jobs along to Elena. 

She also signed Elena up for a booth at Scott’s Antique Market. 

Held one weekend a month in a giant warehouse compound south of Atlanta, Scott’s has been a staple in home decor, frequented by individuals and interior designers alike. 

Elena paid for a booth and set up a little display with her paintings. She placed a sign on an easel at the front, hoping to spark conversations. 

“Hi from Milledgeville. I’m Elena, and I paint during nap time.” 

It worked. Over the past year, she’s averaged around $2000 in sales at the market each month along with another $500 or so in follow-up orders from those who didn’t make decisions on the spot. 

There were even two months there (Christmastime being one of those), when she out-earned her husband’s salary!

Elena continues to improve her booth, trying new ideas that come to that marketer-brain of hers. She gives away a free greeting card to anyone who signs up for her email list, for instance. 

She said they always seem so surprised at the swap. “This greeting card is free?!” they ask. 

But she says she feels like the winner. “Your email is free?!” she wants to ask back. 

Three older women approached her booth recently and gave her a little booth makeover. They had been selling at Scott’s for years, and they helped her arrange her set-up in a way that would lead to more sales. They lovingly pointed out that Elena had too many tables and not enough art. They pulled paintings out of boxes she had stuffed underneath her tables and handed them to Elena as fast as she could hang them. 

The situation at Scott’s allows her to work at her own pace through weekday nap times and then just hustle like crazy for the three days at the market. While that one weekend is a blur, it allows the rest of her life to be pretty simple and on her own terms. 

She knows she has a big opportunity for online sales as well, but she hasn’t put much effort there yet. She has a website (where I recently just ordered a handful of carrot prints—such perfect gifts!), and she’ll do a push every so often to her email list or social media. 

Her Christmas print push, for instance, paid for her entire family’s Christmas bill last year. 

As I was interviewing her about this whole painting story, a friend was at Elena’s house moving furniture around and pulling decor out of boxes. “She’s just so good at making spaces feel better. Look what she just did!” Elena said, texting me a photo of a little vignette her friend had put together in her hallway. Elena has always been a champion of other people’s skills, a true rally-er of people and causes.

When I asked her what she would want other project persons to know, Elena said, “You just have no idea what you might be good at at some point.” 

So what I love about the carrot is that it’s a mirror back to Elena. 

She never would have guessed, not in a million years, that she would be a watercolor artist. In fact, she would have said explicitly that she was not one. 

But these were skills that had been growing deep in the dirt somewhere. 

The painting. The marketing. The seeing something small but making it feel big. 

She had no idea it was even there or ready until the interior designer pulled it right up. 

It’s been her own hidden work, a process she would surely say has been worth the wait. 

-Callie

Next week, I’ll share Elena’s very nitty-gritty advice about selling your work in person. She even includes links to all her favorite booth must-haves! Stay tuned.