By Courtney Balestier, Contributing Writer
Meet Danielle Nyland
Danielle Nyland is an artist whose work does not fit neatly into one category. “I paint what I’m interested in and what I like, which happens to be a lot of different things,” she said. To name a few: horror-influenced scenes, ‘80s-inspired neon color palettes, beloved pets, and her native Greene County, Pennsylvania. Hers might be the only portfolio where you’ll find a nightmare-inducing ghoul, a sweet puppy portrait, and a bucolic mural painted on a replica Liberty Bell.
Yes, really: Nyland’s picturesque rendering of Greene County’s history as a coal producer was selected for America250PA’s Bells Across PA, a semiquincentennial project featuring artist-designed bells all over the state. It’s exciting exposure for someone whose goal is to support herself full-time with her art. After recently leaving a full-time job, that’s exactly what Nyland intends to do.
To build the skills she needs to take her art business to a new level, Nyland joined Bridgeway’s Alliance for Creative Rural Economies. ACRE’s mission is to bring more creativity-driven economic development to Western Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia, helping creative entrepreneurs sustain and scale their businesses while also strengthening their communities.
“Before ACRE, I was flying by the seat of my pants,” Nyland said. “At first [my art business] was a side gig, so if I wanted to do something and didn’t, I didn’t really stress about it. Now, I want to build my creative practice in a sustainable way so that I can support myself with my art.”
Through ACRE, Nyland has been working closely with Bridgeway Business Assistance Specialist Autumn Edmiston to strategically grow her business, making improvements like new branding photos and boosted search engine optimization on her website. Edmiston also provided trackers to help Nyland measure the effectiveness of retail events like Steel City Comic Con, which can involve long days and a lot of travel.
“We look at things such as her actual cost of goods and how she’s charging her time, then identify how she can improve,” Edmiston said. “Through our coaching sessions, I have witnessed her growth not only as a creative professional but also as a business owner. I see her reaching out to teach at various facilities. By having a better understanding of her costs and how to maximize buying potential, Danielle is committed to building a sustainable, full-time business that allows her to support herself through her art while continuing to inspire and serve her community.”
Working with ACRE has helped Nyland turn her big ideas into tangible results. “Autumn has helped me hammer down and create feasible action plans and helped me think of new ways to approach things,” she said. For instance, she’s exploring additional websites or portfolios to present her varied interests, so that she can showcase the full diversity of her talents. As her business grows, Nyland also wants it to be a catalyst for community involvement in the arts.
“I’m hoping to incorporate more art locally as my business grows, maybe teaching classes so I can bring more art to the community,” Nyland said. “We’re very rural here, and there are not a lot of opportunities.”
Her dream is to acquire a small building in Greene County where she can open a gallery space, arts workshop, and store that supports other local artists—especially, she said, “the weird artists who struggle to find places.”
Learn More
Curious to learn more about the ACRE program? Read A Letter on ACRE, Adam Kenney’s reflection on the program from last fall, or visit ACREpartners.org.
About Courtney Balestier
Courtney Balestier is a writer whose work focuses on the intersection of place and identity, particularly in her native Appalachia. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Joyland, The New Yorker online, Lucky Peach, the New York Times, Saveur, Oxford American, New York, Wired, and others. Her writing has been anthologized in The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell (Ohio University Press, 2019) Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing (UGA Press, 2014) and nominated for a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award and a Pushcart Prize. She is also the creator and host of WMFA, a podcast about why and how we write.