It’s a sunny fall day in Saskatoon. I walk down a shaded sidewalk lined with tall raspberry plants to the residence’s front door. Sunlight dapples the leaves, and the ripe fruit shines like rubies. Pam opens the door at my knock and greets me like an old friend. Her dog barks a friendly hello, and a black cat scoots outside with some exploring to do. I soon find myself sitting in her cozy home and studio, ready to chat about her art and business.

Pam Brace has always had a creative spirit. From an early age, she was creating art with pencils, brushes, and pastels—always busy with her hands and continually developing her artistic eye. She felt drawn to photography but didn’t get into it until adulthood. She loved the precision of the craft and the exhilaration of taking photos that others were excited about. “It was like a dopamine fix!” she says with excitement. When she upgraded from a point-and-shoot camera to a DSLR, there was no going back.

Pam owns and operates Roses & Scars Photography, a business she started in 2018 when a friend hired her for her first gig—a relative’s wedding. “It was scary at first—people think I’m good enough for this?” As word of her quality, speed, and enthusiasm spread, her confidence grew.

Thanks to her creative and adventurous spirit, Pam has experience with a range of photographic styles and subjects: from weddings, family photos and maternity/newborn shoots to sports photography for the Saskatoon Roller Derby League. Today, Roses and Scars Photography is a thriving business that focuses primarily on capturing graduations and boudoir. She recalls feeling an instant connection with these two styles: “Holy shit! I love this!”

The name of her business tells a story about her intent and approach to photography. To Pam, “Roses & Scars” means that both happy occasions and painful moments are beautiful and worthy subjects for art; they are a natural part of someone’s life story.

I ask a question I’m not quite sure how to frame. As a camera-shy person myself, I wonder whether it’s possible to work at all with people like me so that the right moment is captured. It turns out this is one of many “magical superpowers” that are just part of Pam’s nature: she puts people at ease because she is open to feedback and her excitement is infectious. I get excited just listening to the passion in her voice as she recalls past projects.

Pam is often inspired by her own creativity and her ability to learn and adapt. She came into craft of photography in adulthood and successfully navigated learning all kinds of skills, from F-stops to writing marketing copy. She says she stays inspired in a few different ways: making her business low-pressure and learning about new techniques.

Roses & Scars Photography stays low-pressure for Pam because it isn’t her only form of work: by day, Pam is a skilled respiratory therapist. Balancing the two occupations can be tricky, but to her it ultimately means greater freedom.

Pam keeps learning and growing by following photographers she admires on social media. She is particularly attracted to inventive work that makes creative use of light and color. Studi0 2:22 is a present favourite.

Pam supports her business with the following technologies:

• Website and blog (Wordpress)

• Social media (Facebook, Instagram)

• Content scheduling (Meta Business Suite)

• Invoicing (Google Docs)

• Long-term photo storage (physical hard-drives)

• Photo sharing (Google Drive, thumb drives)

Pam uses ChatGPT to help her with copy for blog posts and social media captions, as well as to help visualize artistic ideas.

She used to use Shootproof, an online tool that photographers can use to create branded photo galleries for each client, but found it ultimately limiting. It is difficult for clients to use and pricey.

Price and ease of use are important considerations when selecting technologies to support a business. Pam began by managing and evaluating every tool, including building her own website from scratch. She feels this learning curve is essential even if you end up contracting out the work to someone else eventually, as she did with her website. It’s absolutely vital for a business owner to know their tools.

Pam has the following advice for creatives:

”Continue growing and don’t give up!”

When starting out in business and selecting tools, Pam knows from experience that the process can be overwhelming. She recommends approaching the problems that come up with a simple mantra: pick a small piece, learn more about it, execute on the learning, and repeat.

Pam is also extraordinarily resilient in her personal life. She shares that she experienced mental and emotional hardship after the birth of her son a few years ago. She learned a lot about herself, coming away from that time with an ADHD diagnosis and greater understanding of and support for her needs. She laughs: her fun escape these days is indulging in phone games. The Ants: Underground Kingdom presently has her hooked.

Thank you so much, Pam, for sharing a bit about your business and creative journey with me! To learn more about Roses & Scars Photography, check out the website and follow the business on Facebook and Instagram.

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Pixel art is a digital art style characterized by low-resolution, blocky scenes reminiscent of impressionistic paintings. Digital artists originally created pixel art for video games in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The hardware limitations of console games at that time meant that video game files had to be small. Even though the same technical limitations no longer exist today, the style is nostalgic for many and has remained immensely popular.

As with many other artistic styles, pixel artists can generate income through a variety of sources: from private commissions and creating products from their art, to designing sprites and scenes for video games and creating art for online publications.

Last week, I met with Izzy Hubert Lyall to chat about art and business. Izzy creates dreamy pixelscapes through her online business izjustpixels, based in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada).

A lifelong gamer, Izzy has always enjoyed the vibe of retro games but didn’t (and still doesn’t) consider herself a very artistic person. Art class wasn’t very encouraging growing up and picking up a paintbrush was never her jam. After following pixel art social media accounts for years, she began making her own art in 2021, creating scenes from her imagination and from her life in Edmonton. She found pixel art to be very accessible in the beginning because of the welcoming community and the availability of online tutorials.

When she is working on her art, Izzy finds that she becomes so absorbed that she enters a flow state, where time and worry seem to melt away. She creates best in a quiet, cozy atmosphere: listening to lo-fi music with a mug of hot tea or coffee in the wintertime works best.

Izzy’s creative inspiration comes from a variety of places. She loves spending time on something enjoyable that sparks interest and appreciation in others. Her projects often use Edmonton landmarks as their subject, making them instantly recognizable to those in her local community. Izzy also enjoys following the development of other pixel artists online. Some have started only a few years ago and have gone on to design art for online publications and video games.

Creating pixel art requires the use of a few standard digital tools:

• Aseprite

• Pyxel Edit

In addition to these tools, Izzy supports her business using the following technologies:

• Custom domain (NameCheap)

• Website code (GitHub Pages)

• Print-on-demand products (Redbubble)

• Commission payment processing & digital art storefront (Ko-fi)

• Social media community (Mastodon, Pixelfed, DeviantArt)

Izzy chooses to be completely AI-free in art and in the business tools she uses. There are practical reasons for this: generative AI models haven’t yet mastered the unique constraints of this style of art. It isn’t yet possible for AI models to generate pixel art images that make sense. Izzy has ethical concerns as well. The AI models that exist today are trained on digital and digitized art without artists’ permission and without compensation or recognition. This makes using contemporary models to generate and sell art ethically questionable in her eyes. Finally, Izzy thinks the act of creating art is enjoyable! She draws on an analogy to weightlifting: we can design a robot to move heavy objects from point A to B, of course, but the goal of weightlifting is the change experienced by the process. She feels making art works the same way—the goal is the process, not necessarily the product.

The tools available to contemporary artists are constantly changing. For Izzy, the most difficult thing about art isn’t creating the art—the artist’s tools are learnable and quickly become muscle memory. The area that she struggles with the most is picking platforms to support her that won’t change out from under her.

For a while, Izzy was active on Twitter (now X) and Instagram but found both platforms changed significantly over time. The sense of community on Twitter dropped drastically with its rebranding to X in 2023; Instagram’s algorithm changes in 2016 and onwards disadvantaged many smaller creators and made it more difficult to spread content to non-followers. Even print-on-demand platforms like Redbubble change their pricing agreements with artists regularly. It is difficult to keep up with the changes and continuously evaluate whether the tools are benefiting creators.

While she recommends being diligent about picking social platforms that support good community and moderation, Izzy also acknowledges it is impossible to know what the future brings. Because the online world can be turbulent, she tries to engage with a real-life community of local artists as much as her online community.

For those interested in beginning pixel art, Izzy has the following advice:

“Just get started! Make it exist first; make it good later.”

For Izzy, the point of creating art is the joy it brings to herself and to others. Outside of pixel art, Izzy loves playing the ukulele with her local ukulele group. She finds making music with a welcoming community of other players to be a uniquely joyful experience.

Thank you, Izzy, for chatting with me and teaching me a bit about your art and business! Connect with Izzy through her account on Mastodon; check out her artwork on Pixelfed and DeviantArt.

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Sunshine filters in from a large window, illuminating the room with a soft, gentle light. The shelves lining the walls are filled with bottles and potted plants. A vintage tapestry hangs behind a large desk. I feel as though I’ve stepped back in time and through the door of a welcoming apothecary. Jennilee watches me from over the top of her computer screen and greets me warmly as I enter.

Jennilee Cardinal-Schultz owns and operates Green Tree Beauty in the heart of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada), a business specializing in natural, sustainable, and cruelty-free skincare and cosmetics.

In 2016, Jennilee found that she could no longer tolerate the irritation from wearing mascara, so she began testing alternative, natural products. Through her research, she learned how harmful the synthetic compounds are in mainstream makeup. A makeup artist by trade, Jennilee couldn’t endorse products she wouldn’t use and switched the makeup in her kit over to natural products. She specialized in using natural products from then on, and Green Tree Beauty was born.

Jennilee’s business is thriving today. She has just hired and trained two additional makeup artists to help with special occasions, such as weddings and photoshoots. She also carries over 30 brands of mostly Canadian-made beauty and cosmetics products. My personal favourites include Corpa Flora from Quebec, Routine Natural Beauty from Alberta and Ash & Thorn Herbals from British Columbia.

Routine in particular has developed a strong following among Jennilee’s customers. This company specializes in natural and effective bath and body products with amazing scents (with scent-free, baking soda free, and vegan options too). Their holistic approach to product development extends to their packaging as well, where the company selects earth-friendly options—always.

To support her business, Jennilee invests in technologies that complement each other:

• Combined point-of-sale (POS), inventory, online store (Shopify)

• Email marketing platform (Omnisend)

• Customer wishlist tool (Wishlist)

• Marketing design tool (Canva)

• Content scheduling (Meta Business Suite)

Many of these tools integrate well (specifically Shopify, Omnisend, and Wishlist) which makes setup easy and customer-friendly.

Jennilee finds that her current social media content scheduler has integrations that don’t function well, which means she has to manually post content some of the time. Her productivity suffers as a consequence because she finds it much easier to batch and schedule posts for future release.

We have a long and deep conversation about the role that AI plays in business, in society. Whether it will be known in future history as a boon or a bust, AI tools are firmly embedded in many people’s workflows today. In her business, Jennilee writes original marketing copy and occasionally uses AI assistants (such as ChatGPT) to help organize her thoughts.

When asked about the advice she would give other creatives just starting on their business journeys, the answer comes immediately:

“Know your tools really well!”

Being in business doesn’t require that a business owner have advanced degrees in programming, design, or marketing, but a basic understanding of these skills will serve immeasurably. It may be that it makes sense to contract some of these jobs out to others with more experience. However, going through the initial learning curve of learning how to use the tools is a boost to leadership confidence and means owners are able to successfully execute all areas of the business in a pinch.

Jennilee is inspired by the many women entrepreneurs in her community. Blair Voth Miller is a partner in some of Saskatoon’s best known restaurants; Nikki Hunter is an entrepreneur at The Green Vanity in Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada); Melissa Squire is a self-taught, sustainable fashion designer in Saskatoon.

To start a business, as these women have, is to make a change in the world—building something new where there didn’t used to be anything. The business may or may not be unique, or even successful, but it does have the power to change the life trajectories of its owners, of its customers, of others it impacts.

Making change in the world doesn’t have to happen in large leaps. It usually happens gradually as small and incremental tweaks. Small changes over time amount to a big change; individual changes over a population add up. Jennilee offers shyly that she shares these beliefs, that hope for the future begins with one small decision to do things differently.

Jennilee’s favourite local haunt is a new place in Saskatoon: The Edit Boutique. Started in 2024, this business is dedicated to the principles of circular fashion and provides a highly curated vintage shopping experience.

Thank you so much, Jennilee, for chatting with me and teaching me a bit about your business! To follow along with Green Tree Beauty’s journey, catch Jennilee on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

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I drive through Davidson, Saskatchewan (Canada) on the highway, heading north to Saskatoon. Along the road, I spot something unusual: an old-fashioned black buggy parked in a field with large white letters painted along the side. Antiques! A parade of handmade signs soon appears one after the other, tugging at my curiosity. When I see the sign encouraging me to turn off the highway, I follow it. Home can wait an hour or two.

What I find is nothing short of magical: a cheerful and bustling place in the countryside that inspires you to stop a while, take your time, and wonder at times past.

Erin Kinder is the owner and operator of Kinder Surprises Antiques and has been in business for 11 years. What began as a small business occupying a single repurposed barn on the acreage has grown to encompass several out-buildings (including a church!) and three additional staff members. Today, the business is operating at its peak with great products and an amazing team. Over the years, Erin says she has become better at investing in pieces that her customers love, which has streamlined her business.

“Every year since we started has been our best year!” she says with pride.

Erin comes from a family of crafty and creative do-ers. Her parents ran a gas station in Davidson and her mum owned an antique shop years ago. They were willing to try anything and didn’t worry too much about failure, she recalls. In business, they inspire her to this day.

Kinder Surprises Antiques is presently supported by the following technologies:

• Combined point-of-sale (POS), inventory system, and website (Shopify)

• Sales via live video (Facebook Live)

• Rural internet access (Starlink)

Erin has encountered a few technical challenges with setting up her antiques business on an acreage. She has attempted to sell antiques using a Shopify-backed online store during the COVID-19 pandemic, but found the product ultimately limiting: it is designed more for selling t-shirts where you have 20 of the same design rather than one of a kind items. “It was a mess,” she says ruefully. Instead, she has found significant success with selling her items online on regular Facebook Live events. Reliable access to the internet in her rural community to power these systems is also a challenge, even though she has subscribed to Starlink.

I ask about the role of AI in her workflow, and Erin smiles: “It’s been a godsend!” She uses ChatGPT to help her research antiques and their histories. Without this technology, she would be restricted to rare books and niche websites, both difficult to find and time-consuming to parse.

When asked about advice for creatives looking to start their own businesses, she replies:

If you think [starting your own business] will be easier than a 9-5, it won’t be.

There are so many different skills required to successfully navigate a business today: product development, design, marketing, and technical know-how—just to name a few. The learning curve is steep and requires patience, practice, and flexibility.

Erin also recommends getting to know the resources available to help small business owners: often it is possible to apply for grants, and other support is available through organizations like WESK.

In addition to running her successful business, Erin can be found lifting heavy weights at BarnYard Fitness in Davidson. The fitness facility is run by locals Chiara Traversa and Tory Allan, and recently won the community’s 2024 Business of the Year award for their investment in the community and dedication to excellent service.

My chat with Erin draws to a close, and I spend some time browsing in the main barn alone. I am immediately drawn to the shelves of pink Mosser glass dinnerware, and my imagination takes flight.

Thank you, Erin, for spending some time with me and teaching me a bit about your business! To find out more about Kinder Surprises Antiques, check out the business on Facebook and Instagram.

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The table is decked with an orange check tablecloth. Large windows let in the sunny, fall morning. The dogs are snoozing fitfully at our feet and mugs of hot tea warm our hands. I’m sitting in my dining room with Sheila Maithel and we’re talking inspiration, transformation, and the Saskatoon food scene.

Sheila owns and operates Protagonist Design, an art and design business that she runs online as she travels between Atlanta, Georgia (USA) and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada). Through her projects at Protagonist Design, she aims to promote curiosity, kindness, perseverance, and playfulness. Her most recent project certainly inhabits the intersection of these themes.

Sheila is presently working on offering a jewelry line inspired by kintsugi—the Japanese tradition of repairing broken pottery with lacquer and gold. The thought behind this practice is that brokenness can be made whole rather than discarded; the cracks can be celebrated as a natural history of the piece instead of hidden. Sheila applies this philosophy to her own human experience, choosing to believe that times of profound heartbreak in her life deserve to be transformed. She believes that the moments that crack us open might actually make us stronger, not weaker. Through this project, Sheila lovingly makes visible the cracks in our lives, and “honor[s] life’s battle scars and character-building moments.”

The inspiration behind Protagonist Design began in 2013, when toy startups started to produce gender-neutral toys and action figures. Inspired to develop toys that were motivational and educational, Sheila decided to try designing her own action figures of heroes from world culture. Her first figure was of Durga, a warrior goddess in Hindu mythology. With 10 independently moving arms, this is one of the most sophisticated figures in the world. Engineering it was an opportunity to hone her 3D modelling skills.

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Sheila was in India visiting family and studying different art forms. She took an interest in temple jewelry—miniature representations of the figural sculptures found in Hindu temples. This led to an enduring interest in jewelry-making. She had developed the skill of using software to model objects in 3D with her work in action figures, and a new technique was born: using software to model jewelry.

Sheila later worked with friend Ishan Khosla and the Typecraft Initiative to produce Protagonist Design’s first line of 3D modelled jewelry: a series of English alphabet pendants. Ishan is a kindred spirit, passionate about studying and preserving traditional embroidery styles in Barmer, India. Knowledge of this art form is disappearing from the region because of the ongoing geopolitical tensions with neighbor Pakistan. The team at Typecraft Initiative designs typefaces based on original embroidery and printmaking by local artists. What is a bleak situation—the loss of traditional knowledge and techniques—became a source of transformation, creativity, and beauty through their work.

When I ask who inspires her in business, the answer comes almost immediately: Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the Patagonia clothing and gear company. Sheila admires his decision to donate the company to a trust to preserve the business’s environmental conscientiousness. As a brand, Patagonia is easily recognized, well-known for superior quality and craft, and guided by a strong moral compass—all things Sheila aspires to be. Her father and grandfather have passed away, but continue to inspire her with their dedication to strong ethics and commitment to quality work.

When questions of ethics arise these days, the topic of AI isn’t far behind. I ask tentatively whether AI has found a home among the tools she uses and Sheila laughs. She has experimented with using AI image generators to illustrate her project ideas but most seem to fail spectacularly at capturing what she imagines. As well, Sheila values transparency and authenticity. When using images to communicate, she prefers to work with original photos.

Protagonist Design is presently supported by a number of other technologies:

• Custom domain (Shopify)

• Crowd-sourced project funding (Kickstarter)

• Drawing and graphics (Procreate and GIMP)

• 3D modelling software (Fusion360, now known as Autodesk Fusion)

• Manufacturer (Shapeways)

• Private community of supporters and promoters (WhatsApp)

In building skill in these technologies, Sheila says her strength lies in her curiosity; it gives her the ability to successfully learn and navigate through new systems.

The advice Sheila would give to new creators starting out?

Launch when you’re still embarrassed!

She paraphrased Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, referencing his well-known saying. On this they agree: there is more to learn by doing than by imagining.

As we wrap up our discussion, Sheila reveals she is an unabashed foodie with an interest in international food and a bias towards the “new, weird thing.” Her favourite place to go in Saskatoon at the moment is Petra Market—an international grocery, bakery, and butcher shop—where customers can order delicious Mediterranean-style baked goods to go.

Thank you, Sheila, for taking the time to teach me about your business and share your amazing story! To learn more about Protagonist Design and its kintsugi-inspired jewelry line, check out the project’s Kickstarter campaign.

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Writing and the Internet have been working hand in hand since the technology was created. I wrote online for the first time as a pre-teen on an early Angelfire website that my friend and I collaborated on, publishing fan-fiction for our favourite book series at the time. Fortunately, the writing tools available have evolved since then!

In this article, I discuss the importance of one tool for writers of all kinds and delve into two options available for getting one started.

Email Lists

An email list is a list of email addresses corresponding to people interested in receiving content from a writer in the form of an email newsletter.

It isn’t necessarily an obvious pick (it wasn’t at first for me) but, of the many tools out there to support writing, an email list should be considered one of the most vital.

In the world of traditional book publishing, having a large, healthy email list of active readers means that a publisher will see a book proposal as a safer business decision. The book could be amazing in its own right but it will seem riskier if the writer can’t demonstrate there are people already interested in engaging with their work.

There are additional benefits to an email list in contrast to social networking platforms. Readers are more likely to reflect on and engage with content if it arrives in an email inbox rather than as a post on Instagram or Facebook. Keeping an email list separate from social media platforms also means that content is delivered directly to subscribers instead of being subject to each platform’s feed algorithms.

There are many tools out there to easily implement an email list. I will go into detail about my experience with two. MailerLite is an inexpensive email marketing platform; Substack is a popular hybrid newsletter publishing and social networking platform.

I began building my own personal email list using MailerLite on the recommendation of a few peers. It was the first email marketing tool I have ever used and it did everything I would hope of this kind of platform:

• Drag and drop email templating

• Email scheduling and publishing capabilities

• Basic analytics reporting that tracks email open rates

• Ability to export (and back up) email list subscriber information

• Integrations with common tools

In addition to purchasing a monthly MailerLite subscription, I also purchased a custom domain name (GoDaddy) and built a simple website (Carrd) with a subscribe form that integrated directly to MailerLite.

It is a requirement in Canada to accompany each newsletter with a physical mailing address. In order to avoid using my family’s home address, I also purchased a PO box address. This is purely optional.

Initially, the tool seemed to do exactly what I needed it to do, but there were a few pain points as well.

I work on my art and creativity projects primarily on an iPad, and the drag and drop templating feature didn’t work at all on this system. There were workarounds, but I found that using MailerLite’s alternatives made my emails look consistently wonky and my compositions error prone.

I had the skill to easily navigate setting up a simple website at a custom domain with a form that fed into an email marketing tool but, to me, it felt like there were more moving parts than necessary for what I was using. I didn’t need more integrations or automations—I needed to write.

I came across Substack while I was comparing options for replacing MailerLite. I had seen the platform before but truthfully didn’t know much about it. I signed up for an account, began creating my first publication (Substack’s term for combined blog and email list) and ended up migrating my email list to Substack within the week.

Substack works by combining the functionality of a blog, an email list, and a social networking site into one platform. Each time a writer publishes a post, it is emailed to their subscribers and appears on the publication’s blogroll. There is also the option to write “notes”, which appear in other writers’ feeds. This serves as a social networking component.

It is a very well developed platform with a lot of bells and whistles:

• Post composition and publishing tools work on my iPad

• More advanced reporting on traffic to posts as well as email open rates

• Website, subscription form, and email list are built-in, no need for other tools

• A way to monetize writing with tiered subscriptions is also built-in

• Free for writers to use

I kept my PO box and custom domain name (both optional) to continue using with Substack, but was able to quickly ditch the old website and contact form.

There are a few struggles with using this tool too. Substack’s beauty is in its simplicity, but it comes at the cost of flexibility.

Theme options are limited, so every Substack publication looks generally the same.

There are also limited ways to monetize writing beyond the tiered subscription model, where those that pay expect more and deeper content. An alternative for readers might be to pay per article instead. The platform is free for writers to use and charges 10% of subscription fees to paying readers, which is probably why the tiered subscription model is so rigidly enforced.

Substack also does not support many (maybe any?) integrations with other tools such as third-party website builders. This means that, for example, writers cannot have their own websites where their posts can be displayed outside of Substack.

Conclusion

For my current goals, Substack proved to be a better fit than MailerLite. It combined the separate tools I was using previously into a single interface, minimizing tech headaches so I could focus on creating content instead.

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In the future, you can catch business- and technology-focused content here, such as:

• Interviews with small business owners in a variety of different industries

• Deep-dives into the skills required to use different technologies

• Side-by-side comparisons of similar tools

• Troubleshooting common problems

I also provide tech services for small business owners seeking hands-on support. Please feel free to get in touch via my website: jessiehelfrich.com.