Is Leverage Your Art Worth It? Alumni Share Their Honest Results

🎧 Listen to this episode: Apple Podcasts

What actually happens when artists go through Leverage Your Art? Not the highlight reel — the real story. In this special roundtable episode, Stacie Bloomfield gathered seven alumni from across the globe to answer that question out loud. Painters, pattern designers, illustrators, stationery makers — all at different stages, all willing to be honest about what the experience was actually like.

The results were striking. Every artist came in with doubts — about their medium, their portfolio size, their readiness. And every artist left with something they didn't expect: not just a licensing deal (though many of those happened too), but a completely new way of thinking about their work as a business.

If you've been asking "is this worth it?" — this is the episode you've been waiting for. Here's what the alumni shared.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Leverage Your Art — Stacie Bloomfield's signature course on art licensing: how to build a pitchable portfolio, find the right companies, and land your first (or next) licensing deal.
• Side Hustle Society — The ongoing membership community for artists who want accountability, community, and continued growth after the course.
• Art Licensing Pitch Playbook — Stacie's step-by-step guide to writing pitches and reaching out to companies, even if you've never done it before.

HERE ARE THE 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

1️⃣ No Medium Is Too Niche — The System Works Across Every Art Style

Leverage Your Art works regardless of your medium, style, or specialty — the art licensing system Stacie teaches is about positioning, not aesthetics. The seven alumni in this roundtable span illustration, surface pattern design, stationery, and fine art, and every single one found the course applicable to their work.

This was one of the most common concerns alumni brought up before enrolling: "Will this work for what I make?" The answer, overwhelmingly, was yes. The principles that get you in front of a buyer's desk — a strong pitch, a focused portfolio, a clear brand story — are the same whether you paint watercolors or design geometric repeat patterns. The course didn't ask these artists to make different work. It helped them show the right work to the right people.

If you've told yourself your style is too niche to license, this episode is direct evidence otherwise. The diversity of these alumni's mediums — and their results — makes that argument hard to hold onto.

2️⃣ You Don't Need a Large Portfolio to Start Pitching

A small, targeted portfolio is more effective than a large, unfocused one — and Leverage Your Art teaches you to build the right body of work, not just more work. Several alumni admitted they'd been delaying pitching because they thought they needed more pieces. The course changed that thinking entirely.

Laura Sevigny said it directly: "I created stronger work because of the guidance. Waiting another year would have just delayed my progress." Megan Stringfellow took a single course design brief and turned it into ten different products — posters, tea towels, prints. The brief didn't just fill her portfolio; it taught her how to think about a design as a product line.

The mindset shift here is significant: your job isn't to make thousands of pieces before you pitch. Your job is to make a handful of pieces that speak clearly to a specific buyer. Leverage Your Art shows you exactly how to do that — and the alumni in this episode are proof it works with a modest starting portfolio.

3️⃣ The Pitching Formula Changes Everything — Even for Artists Who Felt Unready

Knowing how to pitch is the single biggest unlock for most artists, and Leverage Your Art provides a repeatable formula that works even when you feel unready. Before the course, most of these alumni wouldn't have known how to email a creative director, what to attach, or what to say. After it, they had a system.

Shirlee Fisher described the shift: her focus on pitching changed everything. She wasn't just making art anymore — she was actively getting it in front of the companies that could license it. That's a different game entirely, and it requires specific knowledge that most art education skips entirely.

Stacie Bloomfield built this pitching framework from her own experience — including her first licensing deal, which came from cold-emailing a creative director she heard on a podcast. The method isn't theoretical. It's the same system that built Gingiber into a brand with products in 1,400+ brick-and-mortar stores. For artists who've been making beautiful work and wondering why nothing is happening, the pitch is usually what's missing.

4️⃣ Community Is the Benefit Alumni Talk About Most

The lasting benefit of Leverage Your Art that alumni mention most often isn't a deal or a strategy — it's the relationships. The artists in this roundtable stayed in touch long after the course ended, and many credit the community with carrying them through the hard seasons of building a business.

Ashley Paggi put it plainly: "I grew up believing artists couldn't make money. This course gave me permission to believe otherwise — and the friendships I've made are priceless." That's not a product feature. That's a community doing what communities are supposed to do: reminding each other that this is possible, and showing up when it gets hard.

Side Hustle Society, Stacie's ongoing membership community, exists for exactly this reason — because the course gives you the system, but the community gives you the staying power. Artists who've been through Leverage Your Art describe the connection as one of the most unexpected and most valuable parts of the whole experience.

5️⃣ The ROI Is Real — Even If Your First Deal Takes Time

Every alumni in this roundtable would say Leverage Your Art was worth it — not because every deal came quickly, but because the framework, the mindset shift, and the community produced compounding returns over time. Licensing income doesn't always arrive on a timetable. But the knowledge that teaches you how to pursue it stays with you forever.

Stacie Bloomfield has now taught 5,000+ artists through Leverage Your Art, and the recurring theme she sees isn't overnight success — it's artists who kept showing up, kept pitching, and kept building until the deals started arriving. The alumni in this roundtable are at different points in that journey. All of them are further along than they would have been without it.

If the cost feels like a barrier, the question to ask is: what's the cost of staying stuck? Another year of making work that goes unlicensed has a cost too — it just doesn't show up on a receipt. The book The Artist's Side Hustle is a great lower-cost entry point into Stacie's framework if you're not ready for the full course. Either way — start somewhere.

MORE FROM STACIE

Follow Stacie's work and find all her programs here:
📸 Instagram: @gingiber
🎙️ Podcast: Art + Audience on Apple Podcasts
📚 Book: The Artist's Side Hustle (Hay House)

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Frequently Asked Questions About Leverage Your Art

What is Leverage Your Art?

Leverage Your Art is Stacie Bloomfield's signature course on art licensing — the system she used to build Gingiber into a multimillion-dollar brand. It teaches artists how to build a pitchable portfolio, find the right companies to approach, write an effective pitch, and start building licensing income from their existing work. The course is designed for working artists at any stage, from side-hustlers to full-time creatives.

Who is Leverage Your Art for?

Leverage Your Art is for artists who already make work they love and want to turn it into income — through licensing deals with retailers, manufacturers, and product companies. It's especially well-suited to surface pattern designers, illustrators, painters, and mixed-media artists who want to see their work on products without selling originals.

Do you need a big portfolio to take Leverage Your Art?

No — most alumni discover they were overthinking this before they enrolled. A smaller, more targeted portfolio is often more effective than a large unfocused one. The course helps you figure out which pieces to pitch and how to position them, so you can start with what you already have and build strategically from there.

Is Leverage Your Art open right now?

Leverage Your Art opens enrollment on a launch schedule — it is not always available. If enrollment is closed, you can join the waitlist at leverageyourart.com/course to be notified when it opens. While you wait, the Art Licensing Pitch Playbook is a great always-available resource covering the pitching side of the system.

What is the community like inside Leverage Your Art?

Alumni consistently call the community one of the most valuable parts of the experience. The artists in this roundtable — from Oregon, Canada, Australia, and beyond — stayed connected long after the course ended. Many continue together in Side Hustle Society, Stacie's ongoing membership community, where artists support each other through the long game of building a licensing business.

About Stacie Bloomfield

Stacie Bloomfield is the founder of Gingiber, a surface pattern design and art licensing brand she built from her dining room table into a multimillion-dollar business with products in 1,400+ brick-and-mortar stores. She has earned $500K+ through art licensing and has taught 5,000+ artists how to build real income from their work.

She is the author of The Artist's Side Hustle (Hay House), a Moda fabric designer, and the host of the Art + Audience podcast. Her programs — including Side Hustle Society, Leverage Your Art, and the Art Licensing Pitch Playbook — help artists at every stage turn their creativity into consistent income.