We recently had the chance to connect with Dani Gorin and have shared our conversation below.
Dani, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
Drawing and painting are definitely things that make me lose track of time. Often before I start in on a new piece, I’ll build up some anxiety and dread around it. I think I’m always worried that I’m not going to be able to perform to the level I’d like or sometimes I think I’m even just scared of the mental energy and effort that it’s going to take. But once I’m in it, I’m in it. I’ll sit down and tell myself that I’ll just paint for a half an hour or that I’ll just work on this part of the painting–and the next thing I know, I’m two or three hours in and I don’t want to stop. It’s in the quiet of those moments, when my brain has finally settled into a flow, that I feel like I can actually start to locate my deepest self.
I’m also able to access that deeper self when I’m writing or when I’ve been in nature for a long time. As a mom (and just a person moving through our modern society), I constantly feel so scattered and like I’m taking in input 24/7. I think what these three acts have in common is that they help pull me out of that. I’m able to focus my attention on one thing for a moment, and instead of receiving input, I’m letting something out. That’s really when I feel like I start to hear my own voice speaking to me again.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hi! I’m Dani Gorin, and I’m the artist and owner of Fox and Thistle Studio, a small art studio focused on botanical and wildlife illustrations. I work out of my little basement studio in Alton, IL, where I live with my husband and our two toddler-aged boys. I started the business in 2022, shortly after the birth of my first son. Much of my work is inspired by the plants and wildlife local to our region. This past year, I launched my Native Plant Collection, which highlights 12 flowers native to Illinois and Missouri. I recently made a wall calendar from this collection, which includes information on each page about the featured plant, as well as a little pack of native seeds on the back calendar. What I’m really trying to do is use my art as an invitation for my customers to lean in, to engage with nature. I see my paintings as a gateway to action. Maybe somebody buys a calendar purely for the beauty of the flowers, but then learns a bit about the plants and feels inspired to plant the seeds. And then maybe they tell someone about what they’ve planted. And so on. I want to make it easy for people to connect with the beauty around them.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
When I was in college, I interned at my university’s grants office for the entirety of my degree. I was lucky enough to have three incredible mentors throughout my time there, but my first mentor, Whitney, really seemed to know something about me that I don’t think I’d yet come to understand. I remember graduating and talking to her on the phone one day. I was telling her about how I was unsure what I wanted to do career-wise, but I thought I’d likely pursue grant writing. This was a career option I liked being able to tell people, because it sounded so practical. In a sense, I felt like it helped me justify my creative writing degree, like, “Look, here’s something that has a nice title and a decent salary that’s socially acceptable to do.” And I think I was expecting her to tell me that sounded like a great idea, but I remember her saying: “I think whatever you do, it’s going to need to be creative.”
I can’t remember now if she said this out loud or if it was implied, but the message underneath was this–to be okay, you’re going to need to live creatively. And she was right. In graduate school and in the years that followed, I tried working as an adjunct professor. It was a job that made sense, and I felt proud of being able to say I worked at University helping students. To be clear, I very much view teaching as a creative profession. But the chronic anxiety I felt while teaching often left me feeling exhausted and depleted. It was something I could pour myself into, but not something that necessarily filled me back up. I’ve thought a lot about Whitney’s advice in the years since starting Fox & Thistle. I think she knew I was going to try to pursue a traditional career path, and I think she also knew that that route wasn’t necessarily going to be the best fit for the way I move through the world.
Is there something you miss that no one else knows about?
I think those closest to me probably know this, but I don’t know that it’s something I’ve spoken about directly. I miss writing a lot. And reading.
My undergraduate and graduate degrees were in creative writing, so it was the thing I thought I wanted to do with my life. Right now, I don’t have enough time in my day to day life to write and read between parenting and running Fox & Thistle. And really what I miss is not even so much the act of writing or the act of reading, but how fully both used to engulf me. I spent hours reading novels and making up stories when I was a kid–and I had the same feeling then about writing that I still get now with painting or dreaming up parts of the business for Fox and Thistle. Honestly, I think I miss feeling obsessed about something I was writing. It feels a bit like one of my outlets has been closed off. Because now, when I sit down to write, I think the years of schooling come sit with me and whisper over my shoulders “do this. don’t do that” and it pulls me out of the flow I used to get into. I love that visual art has become that space of absorption for me, but I still sort of ache for that to come back to me while writing.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
I think one of the biggest lies I see people in creative fields being fed as that they need to pick a lane in terms of aesthetics or medium–and stay in it. There’s a really practical reason we’re given this advice. We are much more marketable and it’s much easier to create a cohesive brand when you do this.
It’s something I’ve worked to do, as well. However, I think that if you’re drawn to art or creativity in any form–you likely are drawn to a variety of forms of expression. I think, at its core, creativity is about play. And when we try to funnel ourselves, or keep ourselves locked it, I think we run the risk of taking away that element of play or not allowing ourselves to evolve. I think we need to dabble, to try new things, to throw spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
Wow, this is such a good question. I find a lot of comfort in my different labels–mom, wife, daughter, sister, artist. As someone who has struggled with self-esteem and self-worth, it can be difficult to untangle my personhood from the roles/titles I value. That being said, I think what would remain is my curiosity, my compassion, my desire to do something that helps or heals or makes a difference to someone or something. My love of nature. My silliness. My sensitivity. My perfectionism. I think all of that is who I am beyond my name/role/possessions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://foxthistlestudio.etsy.com
- Instagram: @fox_and_thistle_studio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoxandThistleStudio/
Image Credits
AJK Designs (Allison Goodrich)
Cavallo Creative (Serena Cavallo)
