RUSTIC WILD ARROW

Story by Sara Hilton | Photos by Rustic Wild Arrow

“Everyone always asks, what is Rustic Wild Arrow?” says Holly Blain of her business name. “I was working with wooden barn wood signs at the time, which were rustic. My daughter was starting to crawl around so we called her our little wild one. And the arrow? Always point the arrow in the direction you want to go.”

Blain sits at her dining room table. On the far wall is a large, chippy kitchen cabinet. “When I found this,” she says, “It was dingy and pretty disgusting. I bought it out of someone’s barn. I cleaned it up and now it’s this,” she says. “I think it is so much fun to see beyond the nasty and the dirt.”

Finding beyond what seems to be a theme for Blain, a Brooklyn native who started her career in the dental field. However, the arrow was not pointing in the direction of teeth. When her daughter was born, Blain decided to stay home. “My daughter was a great napper,” she says. “So I decided to take advantage of that time.” Blain had always been crafty, so she began making and selling hand-painted signs. She occasionally posted home décor along with her signs on her Instagram page. A company noticed her decorating talent and asked to do a collaboration with her. “From there it started,” says Blain. “I kept getting more collaborations. Painting was getting more and more difficult. It was hard to paint with a young child around. It got to the point where it just wasn’t working.” So she shifted to home décor, styling her home and sharing pictures. Blain had found what was beyond painting signs.

The timing was perfect. “It was just about when influencers started taking off,” she says. While at times, companies pay her to style and share their products on her Instagram, a great deal of her business has now become staging and photographing products for companies to use themselves. “Companies send products to me,” she says. “I stage their product, and they use those photos in their catalogs and websites and on their social media pages. It’s a smart idea. They don’t have to spend the time staging, and they also get more than just a product image to share with their customers.”

Last year, an editor from Better Homes and Gardens spotted Blain’s work and invited her to be a part of their farmhouse style edition. They needed Christmas photos. “It was February,” she laughs. “So we did Christmas again in February. My UPS guy had to think we were totally crazy.” A crew from Better Homes and Gardens spent two days photographing Blain’s home. “I found out that the crew had just got done shooting Joanna Gaines’ home,” she says. “I joked with them that going from Joanna to me had to be quite a downfall.” Yet there had been no downfall. When one sees Blain’s work, it is evident that she can hold her own, evident that her work deserves the success it has found.

A year ago, Blain wanted to do something a little different for one of her product contracts. “We had wood, so we built an open structure that I call the pergola,” she says. I plopped our old dining room table in the middle of it, and I styled the products.” Blain’s only future plans for the pergola were to enjoy it with her family. However, once again, Blain found the beyond. “I posted a picture of it, and that was all it took,” she says. A photographer saw the picture and asked if she could rent Blain’s pergola as a site for a photo shoot. “From there it just took off,” says Blain. Now, each season, Blain styles what she calls her photo garden and rents the space for photo shoots. “It gives me another excuse to decorate,” she laughs.

As she continues, she talks about her passion of trying to see objects beyond their original intent. “A vase isn’t just for flowers,” she says. “Think of all the creative ways you can use a vase in decorating.” She might as well have been talking about her life and her business. Sometimes a dining table plopped outside becomes a photo garden. Sometimes selling hand-painted signs turns into a home décor, content creating business. And, as she continues to find beyond what is, a few things remain steady and constant—her business and her life is always a little rustic, always a little wild, and the arrow remains pointing in the directions she wants to go. n

Barn sale!

The Rustic Wild Arrow barn sales are held several times per year and include many décor items used in Holly’s photos. Times and dates are announced via their social media pages.