And You May Ask Yourself, How Did I Get Here?
If you’ve ever wondered "how the heck did Giulietta become a prop stylist?!" - this post reveals all.
If you had divined to me 10 years ago that I’d be a professional prop stylist working in the Washington D.C. / Baltimore area, I’d probably roll my eyes and say “yea right!!!” ....But it was in me, and now I am that.
If you don’t believe me, allow me to explain. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’ll always have your gifts. Even if you’ve abandoned them, told them they weren’t enough…they’ll always be waiting for you. All you have to do is visit them again.
HOW I BECAME A PROP STYLIST:
When I was ten, I believed I won the lottery because a family friend gifted me her old Vogue and W magazines. Turning those glossy pages one by one, I devoured what I saw. Alluring fashions, objects, brands called out to me. “Amazing!” I thought. “People can make art through images.”
From then on, if I wasn’t sketching or collaging from magazine tear-sheets, I used my sister’s faces as canvases. Applying makeup in quirky ways, fashioning outfits from my grandmother’s closet & concocting little sets to complete the look, I was hooked. I documented these shoots with a digital camera. Below are some nuggets from my later teenage years.
(Below are photos circa 2005 of my sisters, Sabina (far left & right) and Nadia (center) modeling in a shoot dubbed “Home On The Prairie” & other random photos. I did their hair, makeup, wardrobe styling and photography.)
When the time came for college, I had an equation: Fashion + Photoshoots + New York City = dream job
But there was a problem: not a single curriculum at Parson’s, NYU or FIT (or any that I could find on the internet for that matter) explained how one could major in the mish-mash known as Prop Styling. I was frustrated, but decided to select a path that would allow me to work at a magazine. A registrar at The Fashion Institute of Technology eventually advised that “Advertising & Marketing Communications” was the ticket, so that’s what I signed up for.
In my studies, I slowly realized that my major was heavily built on journalism vs. photo production. Even though I asked a number of professors how one gets to work in photoshoots, no one could provide a clear path. The only decent suggestion was to take a few photography classes. So I did. While I reveled in the process of creating & styling shoots, to my dismay, photography just wasn’t my thing (and still isn’t believe it or not!).
This is where I started losing my way.
“If photography wasn’t for me, and editorial work was apparently only about writing, then clearly I chose the wrong career path” I thought. In my final year at FIT, I swerved and went the route of Public Relations. It took 1 internship to realize I hated it. So I pivoted again. Thinking art was the solution, I enrolled & paid for an additional 2 years of college to get a second degree in Fine Art Management.
Over the course of seven years, I dove into what is known as the “blue-chip art world.” I worked as an executive assistant at two fine art galleries, for a private art dealer with celebrity clients & even managed the studio of a renowned sculptor. While something always felt “off,” this phase in my life was incredibly exhilarating. I had exclusive, museum-quality artworks at my fingertips (Pollocks, Miros, Picassos, Calders, Rothkos…you name it!). The clients I catered to were the top 1%. I felt important merely from being in the same room as these luxurious works and the high-powered individuals who could afford them.
At one point I bid on a $300K+ artwork for a client at sotheby’s. “chump change” my boss exclaimed.
Even though I wasn’t making art, I was smitten with the dazzling swirl of creative energy & ingenuity around me. There was always an artwork to see, a show to go to, or an artist to discover. At one point, Nate and I even ran an art blog called ‘GN8 Project’ to bring attention to young, contemporary talent across the US.
(Below are photos from when Nate & I had our art blog, GN8 Project. Artist pictured: Jessica Sanders | Photos, left, by: Arion Doerr, Right, by: Kyle Dorosz)
But then something happened. The private art dealer I worked for fired me for making some critical typos in an email to a high-level client (which I take complete responsibility for). This experience was a kick in the gut. I’m a perfectionist and natural people pleaser. It’s rare for me to get poor feedback, let alone have someone fire me. My confidence and self-esteem were severely bruised for years.
Fearing the immense pressures and repercussions of higher level positions, I moved laterally in my next job opportunities. Over time, the sheen of the industry began to tarnish. My bosses were constantly bogged down by immense societal & financial pressures. This often left them stressed and perpetually unfulfilled. The last boss I had was tyrannical; once threatening to throw his cell phone at my head, among other unsavory things.
I began seeing the sharp underbelly of the industry and it eventually grated me.
The year Nate and I got married (2014) was also my 10 year anniversary as a New Yorker & 7th working in fine art. I never thought I’d leave NYC, where I felt more at home than any place I’d known. However, when Nate suggested we move to Baltimore to buy a house vs. a space the size of a closet, it seemed like a no-brainer. There was a slight kink in the plan though: Baltimore has a microscopic fine art community compared to NYC. This meant I needed to change my career.
“If I can’t work in fine art, why not do something in sales I can do in any city? I’ve always wanted to learn more about wine - what if I became a trained sommelier?” Before I even knew it, I had devised a new equation for myself:
WINE + EXPERTISE = GOOD MONEY IN A NEW CITY
In the span of 8 months, I gave my notice to the art gallery, enrolled in the Intensive Sommelier Training Program at the International Culinary Center, became a Level II Somm, moved to Baltimore, bought a house & got a job in wine sales for one of Maryland’s leading beverage distributors. Phew!
(Photos below, from left to right: Me on graduation day with my Level II Sommelier certificate; a group of my wine classmates and I celebrating together; me during a trip to Sonoma & Napa at that time)
My new wine job in Baltimore was 100% commission. The client-base was “off-premise” — meaning that I sold to liquor stores, not restaurants, in a 40 mile radius. While I was actually decent at sales & making great money, the work was soul-sucking. I was on the road making sales calls for 5+ hours a day. Instead of tasting natural wines or chatting about the terroir in Alsace (which I geeked over), I scavenged dirty old liquor store basements for inventory. Every day was a monotonous scurry of counting bottles and advising clients on the hottest beverage deal of the week.
(Below: A glimpse into my sales life)
While many of my co-workers loved their jobs and will be life-long beverage sales devotees (to which I give them SO much credit for), the time I spent in beverage sales nearly decimated what passions I had left in me.
A few other things happened during that time that contributed my state of depletion:
Shortly after the upheaval in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, our home was targeted by an arsonist in the middle of the night — while Nate and I were inside. While we didn’t get hurt & the house sustained repairable damages (4 of our back windows got completely blown out), the police never found the person responsible. I got PTSD as a result; constantly paranoid that someone would target or hurt us again.
My grandfather, who I was very close to, passed away a few months later.
These events unleashed unfathomable tentacles of fear, anger & DEPRESSION that consumed me.
The “dark days” as I call them, were horrible. I drank a lot thanks to the copious quantities of wine at my fingertips. I’d cry for hours, lashed out at loved ones and had frequent panic attacks. In one particularly low moment, I hurled a full glass of beer at our living room wall in inexplicable rage - amber liquid and glass shards flying everywhere. I felt lost, alone and ashamed of what I had become. I convinced myself I was talentless and that no one could actually be happy professionally.
All this of course, was incredibly difficult for Nate, who unlike myself, was happy with his new job, co-workers and city (which admittedly, just infuriated me more). As he saw me transition from ‘hopeful somm with a new life’ to the shell of the person he loved, it pained him terribly. After what may have been the thousandth time I came home from my job, crying that I hated everything and everyone, that was it.
Nate told me “you need to quit your job. I don’t care if you don’t make any money but you can’t do this to yourself anymore.”
I quit that week. Over the course of the next few months, I did what I could to heal my mind and try to re-boot. I worked part-time at a local art gallery, read books & magazines, dusted off old sketchbooks, looked through saved drawings and clippings. I spent more quality time with family & friends. I began painting again, making wreaths, decorating our home. Slowly, I re-discovered who I always was: a girl who just wanted to make things with her hands, tell stories with her work, genuinely connect with the spaces, people & objects around her.
(Below: Circa spring 2016. Some happy watercolors & a spring wreath made during that time. Photo of myself in our bedroom with our new kitty, Mr. Whiskey)
The phrase “when life gives you lemons…” kept CIRCULATING in my mind. so in july 2016, Limonata creative was formed (limonata means Lemonade in Italian!).
There were 3 careers I was interested in because they aligned with what made me happy. They were: event design, branding (logos & websites) & styling. I couldn’t decide which path to choose, so against the advice of basically everyone, I took the dive and offered them ALL.
I designed a logo, made a website & printed business cards.
FYI: I wouldn’t recommend anyone try to juggle 3 different services at once. While it was an instant crash course in understanding what you do or don’t like, it’s a logistical nightmare for obvious reasons. Through trial and error (SO many errors!), I discovered that prop styling & all its’ facets energized me the most.
(Below, from left to right: A sketch of Limonata’s business card design; Sarah @ringosgirl, Amanda Gill, owner of Boutique 44 & myself celebrating our first event - Paper Pines & Cider; one of my first prop pulls; a photo from one of my very first shoots with photographer Tom McCorkle)
I felt overwhelmingly far behind in the field. I was 30 when I decided to give it ‘a shot’; I didn’t have a background in styling; didn’t have a portfolio; didn’t live in NYC/LA/Chicago; there weren’t any local stylists to mentor me. Despite all this, I pushed myself to connect with photographers to collaborate. It was terrifying. These were people who had been in business for years, and I was a lowly newbie. However, to my surprise, Iittle by little, a small portfolio started to form.
Over the next year, my client base expanded through word of mouth, Instagram and referrals. At a certain point I got noticed by Baltimore Magazine. An editor followed me on social media and invited me to conceptualize & style a photoshoot for their ‘Baltimore Home’ section. This blew my mind. I couldn’t comprehend how I suddenly got asked to do what I always wanted to do. The night I completed that shoot, Nate came home and innocently asked ‘how’d it go?’. I immediately burst into tears. The happy kind.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but NOW I know. THIS is what I was always supposed to do” I said with wet cheeks.
Things really started taking off from there.
(Below: my first published photoshoot with Baltimore Magazine. Art Direction, prop sourcing, styling & writing by: Limonata Creative; Photos by: Anna Reynal)
In 2018, I permanently shaved event Design and branding off from my roster, PURSUING prop styling & art direction full time.
Two years later, I’m still in mild shock I’m getting paid to tell stories through imagery. While I don’t have all the answers, what I do know is that listening to your gut and digging deep into the things you love can lead you places you never thought possible.
To whoever you are: please don’t suppress your talents. Don’t let fear of failure dictate your professional path. Don’t let age trick you into thinking ‘it’s too late.’ Don’t let the endless scroll of beautiful imagery you see everyday stop you from trying; of thinking you’re not gifted or original enough. If I can, YOU can. And if I believe, then you too, please, try to believe.
‘Going for it’ will be scary and yes, you’ll make many mistakes.
but in the journey you’ll also find beams of enlightenment; and when you see them, follow.
{Banner photo & blog portrait by Jennifer Chase ; Interior Styling in banner photo by Limonata Creative}
