Couple's Near-Fatal Crash Sparks a Sweet Creative Breakthrough
(Image via Everyday is a Holiday)
Aaron Nieradka and Jenny Heid, aka Jenny Holiday, have been making art together for over 20 years, but a harrowing accident in 2003 ultimately changed the course of their creative path.
The two have been sweethearts since high school in New Jersey, where he was voted Most Artistic, and she got the Craft Award. After they graduated in 1994, they restored antiques together, did the New York Gift Show, painted murals commissioned by country clubs and faux finishes on the walls of estates along the Jersey Shore. By 2001, they opened a store in Red Bank, GB Home, where they hand-painted furniture and art. The pair seldom parted, painting around the clock. Business was booming. Then, on the day they were moving into a studio space, Nieradka ran an errand in their van. Hours later, Heid got a call that he was dying under a bridge.
It took Nieradka over three years and seven surgeries to recover from the crash. The couple went from working at breakneck pace to scrimping through their savings, with Nieradka confined to a hospital bed and one table in their living room. One night Heid brought home cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, which lifted their spirits––and sparked creative insight.
“We thought, why don’t we just paint these happy cupcakes?” Heid tells Yahoo Makers. The cupcakes were all yellow cake with buttercream frostings in pink, aqua, and minty green. In the sprinkles, they added rhinestones. The couple made them into prints and sold them on Ebay. They couldn’t paint fast enough to keep up with the demand.
(Images via Everyday is a Holiday)
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“We love bakeries. You go into a bakery and it’s always there for you,” says Heid. “Aaron felt lucky to be alive and we felt lucky to have a second chance at artistic success. We said to ourselves, every day is a gift and we should celebrate it like a holiday. And not only that, but we should celebrate ‘the everyday,’ meaning simple sweets like cake, cupcakes, cookies and donuts. We even tend to work in the early morning hours––like a bakery!”
They closed their store, renamed their venture Everyday Is a Holiday, and focused on making vintage American bakery signs, reproduction boardwalk signs and all kinds of confections using wooden die cut plaques. They’re inspired by the die cuts you’d see hanging behind a 1940’s or 50’s lunch counter at Woolworth––the classic image of the slice of pie on a plate or ice cream sundae. The duo even added a contribution to the “Keep Calm” merchandise with a Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake sign. (They substituted the cupcake for the crown.)
“We paint the things that most make us happy. Lots of donuts,” laughs Nieradka. Donuts are their best seller. They’ve shipped big orders to retro-American-themed bakeries in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and various countries in Southeast Asia. “It’s amazing how widespread the love is for vintage Americana,” he says. “After all of these years together, Jenny and I have really found our niche.”
(Image via Everyday is a Holiday)
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He explains their process: They photograph a sugary treat, then they do an actual painting with acrylic paint on canvas. Next they scan the painting, make prints, cut out the prints and trace them onto ½ inch thick pieces of wood, then cut out the shape with a saw.
“Every piece is sanded smooth before we adhere our prints to the wooden shapes, seal them and finish off the edges with hand painting so that the design carries over to the sides of the piece. When the plaque hangs on the wall, it looks like a dimensional object,” he says. The backs have brackets attached for easy hanging. “The pieces are labor intensive but because they are mixed-media––a combination of prints and hand-painting, we can price them affordably, so that more people can enjoy them.”
(Images via Everyday is a Holiday)
Their book on art journaling, Mixed Media Masterpieces with Jenny & Aaron, was published last year, and their blog of lifestyle stuff, occasional art and home projects, tutorials and recipes, gets plenty of attention. But the couple credits Instagram with much of their current success. “On Instagram we feel like our collectors can not only see our artwork, but also how we make it. And they can catch glimpses of what we collect, what inspires us, things we eat, places we go. We like that the connection between artist and collector runs way deeper now more than ever,” they tell Yahoo Makers.
Their smaller die cut plaques arrive by mail in a pink bakery box with a couple of pieces of salt water taffy thrown in, paying homage to the boardwalk of New Jersey. They wrap the art in pink tissue paper, sprinkle confetti in the box, then tie it with traditional red and white baker’s twine. It befits a couple on the other side of tragedy, who knows how it feels to receive a gift.
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