For this week’s career spotlight, Dear Normal sat down with Nancy Center to discuss her experience with turning her creativity into a business.
Since high school, Nancy knew that she wanted to go into brand photography. At the time, she described it as advertising, but she knew that she wanted to be the one behind the camera. Following this passion, she went to Lipscomb to acquire her general education credits then transferred to MTSU to gain experience in the advertising realm. Since MTSU didn’t have exactly what she was looking for, Nancy “created” her own major in order to gain the experience needed for brand photography. This major ended up being mass communications with an emphasis in photography and a minor in marketing.
With the desire to continue her experience in the photography world, she took any opportunity that she was presented with. She worked at Sears portraits, photographed Santa and Easter bunny sessions, and eventually got a job with the best portrait photographer in Murfreesboro. She did this for two and a half years, and every paycheck she got went right back into photography. At this point, photography was her whole life!
In the meantime, Nancy got a job as a secretary at her local church and then went on to work at State Farm for many years. Discovering her distaste for the corporate world, Nancy tapped back into her creativity and began taking pictures on the side, which eventually allowed her to leave State Farm and pursue photography full time. She photographed, weddings, babies, senior portraits, and “anyone that asked.” Now that the internet had become a tool for marketing, brand photography had become a lot more common than when she had first studied it. She recalls the only opportunities for brand photography in the 90s being in New York or LA. Now, the opportunities are endless.
Nancy saw an advertisement from a leather bag company, called Urban Southern, seeking a brand photographer. Their story of two cousins forming a business inspired her to reach out and write, “You have cousins? I have cousins!” and what she didn’t know when sending that message was that this was the beginning of beautiful partnership. She did a test photoshoot on 12th avenue with two of their new bags, and from there they would work together, become lifelong friends, and even score a couple magazine features that showed off Nancy’s photography. This went on until eventually the company was bought by a larger team with their own marketing department, so Nancy decided to use this as an opportunity to explore other creative avenues which leads to her current endeavor: Wild Chicory.
Wild Chicory has been an idea that Nancy has wanted to pursue for many years. It features all of her natural talents as well as the marketing and graphics tools that she learned in college, all working in harmony to make a creative business! The business is an online retail store designed to lift people up and foster a positive and eclectic community of amazing women! It is all about women discovering and using their gifts to lift up not only themselves but also each other. Her vision is for Wild Chicory to be a place where moms can come and work during school hours for a good wage and a flexible schedule. She eventually wants her storefront to feature all kinds of beautifully made art in all different kinds of mediums such as painting, photography, jewelry, shirts, you name it. Wild chicory will be a place to foster kindness, inclusivity, and creativity, and all of Nancy’s years of turning creative endeavors into entrepreneurial opportunities has led to this moment!
You can find samples of Nancy’s work below as well her personal and business socials here.
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