Follow Your Gut and start here
An intuitive journey to trust yourself in art and business
Hi there!
Are you a creative tired of gut-wrenching advice about your art and business?
I get you.
I’m sick and tired of it too and that comes from someone who’s been a professional independent artist for nearly a decade (with a couple of kids along the way too).
If there’s one thing I know to be true when it comes to life as a working artist it’s this:
→ The more you are able to block the noise and listen to your own gut, the greater results. This is true for both your artistry and business.
The industrialised culture is obsessed with compartmentalising, not only regarding what one can and cannot do, but also what one can and cannot think and feel!
It’s madness.
What’s worse is that the longer we allow the conditioning to guide us, the more we internalise it and the harder it is to break free.
What Follow Your Gut can do for you
Follow Your Gut is a paid newsletter where I dive into the intersection of the artist life and business from personal experience. A space where multiple things are true at the same time and nobody can tell us otherwise.
You know… The extreme vulnerability hangover after sharing your art combined with absolute triumph for the same thing. Or, the horror when nothing sells and you feel like an utter failure, while also being proud that you’re putting in the work because… well.. you cannot not do it! When art is engrained in your DNA there’s no option but to keep going even in times when it feels like the world is against us (especially when it feels like the world is against us).
Behind the scenes:
I ran this publication for 16months with 98% of all writing being publicly for free. It worked wonders to build a readership, but it scattered my focus on what really matters: To keep writing words that matter for people who care (you?!).
I’ve run the course of the experiment of being Mrs Nice Gal and putting my heart and soul on display (I am still pretty nice though). So I decided to stop following what the general culture in creative business seem to endorse: Send your work out to the universe and hope for the best.
I don’t want to hope. I want to own.
As an artist and writer, I am the agent of my own journey and will no longer hand it over to the mercy of tech giants. Period.
Truly…
I just want to do my shit, in the way I know best.
This is your invitation to join me on that journey
I’ve successfully paid my bills with my art and writing for nearly a decade primarily thanks to email. To say that email marketing (proper email marketing, not the “publish to Substack and hope for the best”, is how I have sustained my career and built a family at the same time).
After some deep dive into the public vs. private email functions here on the Substack platform (early 2025), I got the answers to the value-discrepancy problem that kept growing with the initial 16mo.
I am henceforth operating this as a regular newsletter. Consider this a public statement that I am NOT writing “A Substack”, nope not my vibe. I don’t want to give my agency to a platform and I believe we owe it to our art to separate our work from the tools we use.
What this means for you as a reader on a practical level:
This means that I will send emails both publicly and privately directly to your inbox (not only through the app). If that feels uncomfortable for you, then I give you all my respect and hereby advise you to not subscribe.
The majority of public posts will be paywalled, but I will most likely share large chunks as previews + throw in free reads whenever the urge hits (the intuitive way…).
For free reads, I will primarily focus on private emails so be sure to get on there if this journey sounds exciting.
Who am I?
My name is Elin Petronella, I’m a Swedish artist and writer who’ve been at this for nearly a decade. In the past 10 years I’ve lived in 9 countries and birthed two children apart from thousands of artworks. I speak 3 languages on a daily basis (English is not my native tongue and I see it as a super power), nor do I plan to ever live in my birth country again (ooops).
Over the past decade I’ve grown an audience of 500k+ across Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube, which propelled my work in ways I could’ve never foreseen.
I wrote a couple of articles about it:
I’ve officially published 2 books so far (more in the pipeline)
Mindful Embroidery traditionally with McMillan (2020),
Self-published When Will You Get A Real Job as an ebook (2019/2024).
I’ve also hosted and partaken in art exhibitions, worked for Luxury brands such as Hermès in Paris and currently run an online Embroidery art Academy where I teach thousands of creatives the power of thread and needle (You can take my free beginner’s class Going Knots here).
Ps. I used to host a podcast show for a couple of years, but have ended that venture for reasons I may write about here.
Most recently, I’ve also added an online embroidery art magazine “Embroidery Wanderlust” to the repertoire. It used to be hosted here on Substack, but in the name of independent ownership I decided to move it to my own site (you can read the brief reasons here).
A free readership to Follow Your Gut will give you access to whatever essays and articles I decide to share with everyone.
A paid readership means that you’ll get a first row seat on the journey of what it means to Follow Your Gut in arts and business.
This includes:
Access to ask me questions
Insights based on a decade of experience operating an art business online while mothering toddlers 24/7
Deep-dive into how email marketing can become your golden asset
Further reading:
You can browse the general archive here to get to know my writing more
For more details about the paid readership, I’ve made you a directory via this link
Oh!
And one last thing… Because we’re supposed to be bold with our operations aren’t we?
In the past year my private mentoring practise with 1:1 support has exploded in interest and I’m eternally grateful for the trust. Maybe it’s something for you too?
→ Learn more about 1:1 mentoring on your terms by clicking this link here
Sending you much love,
Elin