Meet Elbè Venter

Hi, my name is Elbè, and I am from South Africa. Before joining Immersion, I was a full-time mother doing freelance graphic design. 

Freelance design had its own challenges, but during Covid, it almost completely dried up. Thankfully, we were financially stable with my husband’s income, but I felt like I wasn’t doing so well emotionally and felt empty not having a consistent outlet for creating anything. 

My brother also got a stage 4 cancer diagnosis during Covid, and a year later, he passed away. During that season of witnessing my brother deteriorating physically was very hard. Hearing him speak about his dreams of their future and all the things he still hoped to achieve or do for fun was suddenly stripped away. 

In our last conversations, he reminded me that it is totally normal to try things and fail. He also spoke about his own dreams of doing something like making beautifully crafted furniture, not for money but for the love of being creative. His words made me realize that we are all on borrowed time, and while we still have breath in our lungs we should show up daily doing what we love. 

So, I decided to sign up for the immersion course. Looking back, I know that this was divine intervention because being part of such a great community of artists not only helped me to keep showing up creatively but also helped me cope with the grief of my dear brother.

It took me two and a half years to paint, draw, purchase an ipad.. start an Instagram page and make patterns over and over to finally say I am excited about my progress and journey. 

I recently collaborated with a small printing house to print my patterns on fabric, and we made scatter cushions, tablecloths and other small decor items. I registered a company and built a small e-commerce website. At the moment, I am learning how to handle a business with the help of my husband. I make a small profit every month and believe that, in time, it will pick up. My dream position is to work alongside interior decorators to customize patterns for the client’s needs and style. I have built up a large amount of patterns and I am grateful for the freedom I had in these few years to explore and enjoy the process of finding something I want to create more of. 

Bonnie made a big impact on my life’s journey because she is not just a teacher but someone I look up to and appreciate. She is not intimidating but humble and has compassion with young artists and creatives willing to learn from her experiences. Even now, I still like to revisit some of the lessons in the immersion course. So I still benefit from the course. I think if I hadn’t taken the plunge and signed up for that course, I would have missed out on so many things. The networking, contacts, platforms etc, that I was introduced to via Bonnie and her team is invaluable.