Hi there, I’m Elin Petronella

I’m a Swedish artist, writer and mother of two. Over the past decade I may have broken every box of how I was supposed to live yet I’m still standing.

My early twenties was about breaking through the noise around becoming a full time independent artist (like, can you really do that for a living?! I write about it partly in this book).

The second half of my twenties has been about uncovering the new layers added by motherhood.

It’s fascinating how the day you become pregnant, throughout your pregnancy and especially post birth, it’s as if the world tries to add every little unsolicited advice onto your plate. What happened with intuitive mothering (like intuitive artistry and business)?

Instead you’re bombarded with parenting advice, baby check-ups and everything in between only to be left hanging wondering if you can do anything at all.

The overlaps between the artist life and motherhood are enormous, which is why I’m so passionate to encourage everyone to KEEP DOING YOU.

There will always be folks wanting to bring you down or tell you that you can’t do XX right now due to YY. Most of the time, the ones dishing out counter-intuitive advice are those who don’t live their own dream in the first place. So let’s be careful who we take advice from (I learnt this the hard way…)

A woman taking a selfie outdoors, wearing headphones, a maroon jacket, a pink and white patterned scarf, and a pink knitted glove. She is smiling and has her hand over her chest, with a background of a grassy area, a fence, and solar panels on a hill.

Here’s what I think:

Life doesn’t end when you have children. If anything, it’s a new beginning and source of endless inspiration and growth for your creative life.

Over the past ten years, I’ve lived in 7 countries (Sweden, South Africa, France, Portugal, Montenegro, Slovenia and now Belgium, two without children and five with my husband and two daughters.

Fun fact: My second daughter was born on the floor in the kitchen in central Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, only three months after we first visited the country. We were never meant to live there, but our car broke down and a three week visit turned into a born baby and 7 months of our lives. I will have to write this story in more detail another time…

Some more business:y stuff…

  • I’ve tried every marketing strategy under the sun while growing a social media presence to 500k+ across platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube).

  • My first love as an artist is email marketing and it’s without the doubt THE reason that I’ve been able to pay my bills with my art throughout international moves and two babies.

  • I joined Substack in Nov 2023 as an experiment to see “if I still had it” and went from 0 to bestseller within 6 months. Fast forward a couple of years and I' got fed up with the bestseller badge as some “badge of honor” and decided to shift again and move everything in-house to this site elinpetronella.com

  • I’ve worked as a commissioned artist for luxury brands such as Hermès Paris and sold my artworks in exhibitions across Europe.

  • I’ve also taught thousands of students across the globe the art of modern hand embroidery through the Charles and Elin Academy. So if you’re into creative artsy stuff, I warmly invite you to go and check that out (including the Embroidery Wanderlust Art Magazine) here.

“Life is too short to not live it fully”