Her Story
About Janna
I am the founder and lead artist at Papercraft Miracles, an eco-friendly handmade paper art company that I started when I was a college kid. I came up with the idea when I was about 19 because I wanted to be an artist and I didn't want to be broke. I did it as a side gig for a very long time while working other day jobs, but after I had my first son, I got pushed out of my job because they wouldn't allow me to work from home and didn't pay me enough to cover healthcare and daycare. So I quit my job to stay home with my son, and as my husband said, it's fine, we'll figure it out, just stay home and do your book thing. And I did the crap out of my book thing. I had had a business plan on my shelf since I was in college, so at the end of 2015, after about 12 or 13 years of it collecting dust, I pulled it off the shelf and never looked back. I've been doing it full-time for 10 years now. My main area of expertise is creative problem solving. We get a lot of weird, wild, one-off custom order requests, and we say yes when other companies say that's not possible. We have this really unique way of meeting with people, hearing their story, and getting them to share things about who they want to reach and what they want to create, and then we figure out how to make that vision come to life. I get up in the morning and I say, I get to go to work today. The coolest part is that other artists get paid to make art all day because of me.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Janna
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to doing things because I can, not because anyone is going to make me. My mom told me that in kindergarten on the first day when I told her that kindergarten was boring - if you're able to do something, do it. Don't wait for permission, just do it. That advice has guided me throughout my career. I also think the secret to success as an artist is knowing how to work with people - it's social work. There are a lot of artists who make art and sit in their studio all day and wonder why no one buys it from them. You gotta go out there and shout it from the rooftops and be like, I make this awesome art, do you want to see it? Here's how much it costs. You gotta put it out there. A lot of artists are kind of shamed into not doing that, and then they don't make any money, and they can't take care of themselves, and they end up doing something that they don't love. I knew I didn't want to do that, life's too short.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received was from my mom, who told me in kindergarten on the first day when I told her that kindergarten was boring: Do it because you can, not because anyone is going to make you. If you're able to do something, do it. Don't wait for permission, just do it. That advice has shaped my entire approach to my career and life.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The most important values to me are about how you affect change, how you help other people, and how you operate with kindness. Life isn't about how many awards you get or how quote-unquote successful you are - the things that measure your success in the world is how do you affect change, how do you help other people, and how can you help as many people be restored back into their own connection to themselves and the world and their environment around them and their community. I also believe deeply in interdependence. Running a business that's sustainable is not just something that is taking care of the planet, but it's also looking at where your supplies come from, taking care of people, paying your staff a living wage, treating people like people, and really investing in your community around you. That's why the forest works - because they rely on each other to survive. Humanity, for some stupid reason, has decided in the last couple hundred years that we don't need each other to survive, and that's why we're all suffering so hard. When women lead, the whole world wins.
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