Emilia Callero: Distilling and Designing

Did you think of yourself as a creative kid? What does creativity look like for you these days? 

I have a lot of memories as a child of my parents coming home from parent-teacher-conferences and giving me the feedback that the teachers told them.  One thing was always present, “They say you’re so creative!” As a child I didn’t quite know what that meant, but it started to become part of my self identity.  

I am a creative person.  

The process that started young for me was imagining what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I come from a large Italian/ Irish Catholic family, so the options presented to me were mother, nurse, teacher and college professor (like my dad).  From a young age, I was put in the bureaucratic lane and not the creative industry lane. 

But this creative lane was so intriguing!  I can remember going on trips to the Oregon coast as a child and reading the “About the Artist” blurbs typed on crisp white paper below paintings hung at restaurants.  One side of myself would ask, “Could this be me?” and the other would respond with, “No, it’s too hard to make a living.” 

This was a theme throughout my life, in high school and through college, where I didn’t listen to the deep rumblings inside, “Could this be me?” as I walked past the art room in high school.  “Could this be me?” as I sat in the architecture library watching friends build little models of future homes. 

It wasn’t until I was in graduate school for Public Administration (hello most bureaucratic degree ever) that I learned of this thing called social media. Enter Instagram into my life.  What I saw on Instagram changed my life. I witnessed an incredible amount of women who created businesses for themselves in creative fields that they had no degree in: from fashion, to graphic design, to ceramics, to interiors.

At this time I was also going through the painful process of infertility.  After my third miscarriage, I found myself crying on the bathroom floor.  It felt like the only thing that was going to prevent a major depression was if I listened to my creative rumblings.  She asked, “What do you really, really, really, want to do?” I said, “I want to be an interior designer.”

I started to share my home on Instagram.  People started asking me to help them with their homes.  I cut my hours in half at work to focus on starting a legitimate business and 2017 I quit my job entirely and I started working for myself as an interior designer!  My business was born: Emilia Interior Design and Decor.

And then, more births happened. In November of 2018, I gave birth to my first child, Oliviana June.  In January of 2022 I gave birth to my second child, Lucca Krist. 

Today my business feeds me creatively.  I feel so lucky that I get to work in a field that inspires creativity and forces me to expand my artistic expression.  It also is teaching me that I am an artist.  Yes, I consider myself an interior designer, but that is just one of the colors in my palette that I can paint with.  I also can write, draw and paint—and these practices have become more and more important to me.

I am a creative person. 

How did motherhood change your creative practice? 

Before I became a mom, I didn’t have a “creative practice” because I had time to indulge my creative whims at any given moment it seems.  I had energy and space to stay up until 12pm making a collage for a friend because I just felt like my soul needed it.  

When I became a mom, the big shift came in my perception of time.  All of a sudden, I had to “fit things in.”   I didn’t want to have to negotiate which things could “fit” in my life. I wanted to be able to do it all: be present with my kids, workout, visit my clients, have date nights, travel, grow my business and binge watch TV.   It’s like all of a sudden, I was going through a deep distillation process.  If an activity didn’t rise to the top it has now been relegated to the “maybe someday when I’m retired” part of the list.  

I learned two things during my distillation process: 1) I need to be creative. If I don’t have a project I’m working on, work or personal, I feel depressed. 2) When dealing with time, it’s quality not quantity.   There is magic that can happen in what I like to call “micro- moments.”  I don’t have an hour to sketch or play with watercolors, but I do have 5 minutes.

Motherhood changed my creative practice, because now I have a creative practice.  It’s a non-negotiable. Whether it’s 5 minutes or 60 minutes, I need to tap into this source of personal rejuvenation and my kids deserve to have an inspired mom. 

What do you do when you feel burnt out or filled with doubt? 

I sleep.  I rest.  I go for a long run or hike. I turn off all my devices and I get into major contemplative mode.  My burn out is usually rooted in lack of rest, lack of quiet and lack of time to digest and metabolize all of the things that I’ve seen or experienced in the recent weeks or months. 

What do you hope your kids will learn about creativity from you?   

I hope they learn to use their creativity as a spiritual guide.  We all have stories to tell and I hope that they can use art and their creative spirit to nurture their wounds and make sense of the crazy world that we live in. 

I hope that they can see and feel the value in creating for creating sake. I hope to teach them that you don’t always have to be productive or produce something for the eyes of social media.  Creativity is vulnerability and I hope to instill a sense of comfort in expressing vulnerability through art. 

If there was a movie version of your life, who would you like to play you and what story do you want her to tell?

I would want Natalie Portman to play me.  It would be a story about the positive side of social media.  It would tell the story of women, fed up with the options that society is offering them, who leave the corporate or government world to start their own economy and work culture.  It would be about how art and listening to our creative rumblings is one the strongest tools we have to combat patriarchy and systemic oppression. 

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Emilia is a self-taught interior designer that currently resides in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico until August, when she will return to her home in Portland, Oregon.  Prior to designing full-time, she worked alongside nonprofits dedicated to women’s social and economic development in Mexico, Peru, and India. Her time learning from these communities inspired a deep connection with the power of color, textile, and fabrics. Throughout her work, there’s a common theme of color to tell stories and illuminate the symbolism in people's lives. She is the mom of Olive (5) Lucca (2) and is married to Jake. You can find her on Instagram @emilia_decor and learn more about her work at emiliadecor.com.

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If you enjoyed this post, please forward it to your favorite creative mothers. And if you’re a writer on Substack, consider recommending Nebula Notebook, so your readers can join this warm community too.

PS—The fastest way to grow as a writer is to book a manuscript critique or a creative coaching session with an expert.

My clients get agents, sell books, and win awards. They also learn how to find ease and joy in the creative process, so they can keep going when life gets hard.