These women are doing it for themselves
Grace Bonney’s book about successful women highlights the business side of creativity
Grace Bonney started her blog, Design*Sponge, at 23 and it quickly evolved into a business.
The lifestyle blog, which covers art, design, interiors and travel, can teach you how to make DIY wooden planter boxes and pet name tags but also how to DIY a business, with advice for working from home and overcoming failure.
Twelve years later, Bonney, who lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, is releasing In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from Over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs, a collection of Q&A interviews with women who also run their own shows, including Neko Case, Roxane Gay, Tavi Gevinson, Christy Turlington, Carrie Brownstein, Mary Lambert and Issa Rae. Bonney, now 35, was always interested in the business side of being creative, but said she found she was hearing the same stories and seeing the same faces over and over in the media: startups with family or angel investors run by young white women.
“I really wanted to see women of colour represented, LGBT women, women over 40, women who are differently-abled. I felt that wasn’t happening and I decided if I wasn’t seeing it out there, maybe I could put that together myself,” Bonney said in an interview.
The resulting book began as a Postit note list of women she found inspiring. It shares the business insights of diverse women from the U.S., as well Mexico, the U.K., Nigeria, Italy and elsewhere — artists, designers, writers, musicians, chefs, bakers, beauty entrepreneurs, curators, directors and makers.
“My goal was to have any young woman or an older woman, later in life, open a page and have herself reflected,” said Bonney, who chose not to have her own photo included. “I felt like my voice and my picture and my opinions have had plenty of airtime.”
The women featured are involved in solo operations, family businesses, small companies, part-time gigs and second careers. “Being able to see all those different vantage points makes the idea of running your own business less intimidating,” Bonney said.
Among the lessons she gleaned: stop dreaming of a future nirvana where work-life balance is possible, and know handling mistakes or failures can be just as important as dealing with success.
In the book, Bonney asks one of two sets of general questions about childhood and lessons learned the hard way. The Star put some of the same queries to Bonney herself. What’s the best piece of advice you have received?
Let go and really embrace the idea that no matter how experienced you are in your business, the hurdles are always there and they get even more complex — but the reward of getting through them gets more fulfilling. Is there a certain mistake that led to success, eventually?
Most of my mistakes come in the form of team management. Early on I made the mistake of thinking I had to be friends with everybody. I was so concerned with people feeling comfortable and supported I never asked for what I actually needed. When I ultimately realized that being direct and assertive and telling people what I needed, it created an easy, clear work environment and it’s flowed a lot better since I’ve become more direct. Is there a tool, object or ritual you couldn’t work without?
It sounds boring, but my iPhone. I do everything from my phone. I do all our social media, answer emails, record videos. I could live without my laptop but not my phone. We had to not use that answer for a lot of people. It was like, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone over and over again. What does the world need more of?
More listening and less talking.