Finding Your Pocket of Peace: A Creative’s Guide to Pivots, People, and the Power of a Good Team
This article was generated by AI using the transcript and show notes. I hope you enjoy!
In the dynamic and often chaotic world of creative production, there are specialists who master a single craft, and then there are the rare, multifaceted talents who have seen the industry from every conceivable angle. Ande Fanning is firmly in the latter category. As Style to Set host Callie Blount describes her, she is a “rainbow, a myriad of many different creative roles,” having worked for over two decades as a production designer, prop master, art director, set dresser, wardrobe stylist, content producer, writer, and editor.
Having been both the editor-in-chief making the final call and the on-the-ground stylist executing a vision, Ande possesses a unique and profound understanding of the creative process. In a heartfelt and wisdom-packed conversation with her longtime friend Callie, Ande shares her incredible journey through the publishing and freelance worlds, offering invaluable lessons on navigating career pivots, the grief of losing a creative dream, the art of leading a team, and the essential practice of finding your “pocket of peace” amidst the storm.
The Magazine Dream: A Foundation in Storytelling
Ande’s creative journey began with a love for writing, coloring, and painting. Growing up with a father who was a coach, her childhood was a blend of disciplined schedules and creative freedom—a combination she is now very grateful for. She initially thought she would become a storyteller through broadcast journalism, but after one class in college, she knew it wasn’t the right fit. She pivoted, leaning into English literature, art, and photography, and fell in love with magazines. Publications like Southern Living, with their beautiful marriage of visual art and written text, spoke directly to her soul.
This passion led her to a small, family-owned publishing company in Birmingham, Alabama, where she started as a writer and assistant editor. She “grew up with the company,” riding the wave of success as they launched a hit new magazine. This small-team environment was the perfect training ground. It gave her the opportunity to wear many hats, to try, fail, and learn on the job. “I'm like mucking, mucking out the stables and clearing the background and helping set the table and working with food stylists and photographers,” she recalls of one outdoor shoot. It was here that she fell in love with the hands-on work of producing and creating content.
The View from the Top (And the Fatigue That Comes with It)
As Ande climbed the ladder, she eventually found herself in the role of editor, the “head honcho” at the top of the creative pyramid. In this position, she was the ultimate decision-maker, the final approver of all content. While she loved working with the incredible freelancers and photographers on her teams, the role came with a heavy burden.
“When you're at that top tier, you're making so many decisions so consistently and there's a lot of fatigue creatively that comes from being the ultimate decision maker,” she explains. She was stretched across numerous projects, and the constant pressure began to take its toll. It was a demanding life that made it difficult to even take a vacation. This experience planted the seed for another pivot, a move toward a life with a different rhythm.
The Gift of Grief: Losing a Dream and Finding the Courage to Pivot
One of the highlights of Ande’s editorial career was a magazine she helmed called
Fresh Style, a project she describes as a dream version of what she wanted to do. It was a publication filled with inspiring, fun, and interesting content, and she believed it was what she was meant to do for the rest of her life. But after a successful run, the publisher decided to go in a different direction, and the magazine was shut down.
The loss was devastating. “At the time I felt like such a failure,” she says, admitting she was grieving the loss of her dream. But in the midst of that pain, she learned a powerful lesson. Her family, friends, and network of creative colleagues rallied around her, supporting her and speaking life into her. This community gave her the courage to try again, and about a year or two later, she made the decision to step into the world of freelance styling. The experience taught her that even in failure, there is an opportunity for immense growth and a new beginning.
The Freelance Leap: A New Rhythm and a Chance Encounter
Ande’s transition from a full-time editor to a freelance stylist was a deliberate choice to lean into the things that gave her joy and to find more “adventure in the great wide somewhere,” as she says, quoting Belle from
Beauty and the Beast. Stepping away from the top of the pyramid meant learning when to speak up and when to be quiet and listen, but it also offered a welcome reprieve from the relentless pressure of being the final decision-maker.
Her freelance career launched with a moment of pure serendipity. She was having lunch with a former colleague who was giving her a tour of his new office space when they ran into one of the producers. Her friend introduced her as a newly freelance stylist, and the producer’s eyes lit up. “He said, ‘Oh, that's great. Our stylist, who's been on this particular client for quite a while has just turned in her notice and we were looking for a new stylist,’” she remembers. It was a perfect "right place at the right time" moment, a grace of God that led to one of her biggest and longest-running clients for the next seven years.
The People-First Producer: The Art of Building a Cracker Jack Team
Ande’s extensive experience on both sides of the creative hierarchy has given her a profound appreciation for the power of people. She believes the heart of all her varied work comes down to her love for people. When she’s in a producer or decision-making role, her primary focus is on assembling the most “dynamic cracker jack, you know, top shelf kind of team that we can”. She learned early on from a mentor that you don’t have to know everything yourself; the key is to surround yourself with people who are excellent at what they do.
When she’s in a more hands-on role as a set decorator or art director, her focus shifts to listening—not just to what is being said, but to what is being communicated “in between the lines”. It’s about absorbing the story and translating it through the physical world of props and sets.
Domination Formation: How to Thrive in Creative Chaos
The creative world is often one of controlled chaos, and Ande has learned to be nimble and agile in the face of the unexpected. She recounts working on an indie film where the basement they were scheduled to shoot in flooded not once, but twice, forcing the entire team to pivot and completely reimagine their plans on the fly.
Her go-to mindset for these situations comes from a bike tour she took in Paris years ago. The guide instructed the group to ride through the chaotic, multi-lane traffic in “domination formation”—a strategy that essentially meant you just had to get in there and go. That memory became a powerful reminder: “You can do hard things”. She knows that on set, like on the streets of Paris, sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, trust your team, and pedal forward into the chaos.
Finding Your Pocket of Peace: A Strategy for Overwhelm
While she has learned to thrive in chaos, Ande has also developed crucial strategies for managing the overwhelm that is an inevitable part of both work and life. She calls it finding your “pocket of peace”. When things get intense, she knows it’s a sign that she needs to take a minute to step away, get a drink of water, and regroup.
This practice became especially important during a recent challenging season in her personal life, when she was grieving the loss of her husband's father while also navigating a move and a fixer-upper home renovation. She found a therapeutic outlet in what she calls “grief painting”. The act of painting her staircase green gave her something to do with her hands and a project with a clear start and finish, which was incredibly helpful on days that felt uncertain. It’s a beautiful example of how the tools of an artist can also be the tools for personal healing and finding a moment of peace.
The Ripple Effect of Beauty
At the end of their conversation, Callie asks Ande what beauty means to her. Her answer is thoughtful and deeply inspiring, rooted in a book she loves, Madeleine L'Engle's
Walking on Water. For Ande, beauty is about resonance and creating a “ripple effect”. “When you're putting something that you care about and love and that you find beautiful out into the world, you hope that it finds the right person on the right day,” she says.
It’s about leaving places better than you found them and being intentional with the gifts you have to share. She believes that beauty is always out there “for the having, you know, and for the enjoying,” but it requires us to take the time to go out and seek it. Ultimately, her career is a testament to this philosophy. Through every pivot, every challenge, and every creative endeavor, Ande Fanning has not only sought out beauty but has created it, leaving a ripple effect of inspiration, kindness, and exceptional work in her wake.
