Meet Erica Chadwick of ETC Creative

Erica, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I discovered photography when I was about 14, in high school when I took a photography class. My dad always had a thing for electronics and had a couple of cameras that I claimed as mine. I had always felt as though I was an artist, although I didn’t know how I was one because I couldn’t paint or draw. When I picked up a camera, something clicked. We had a workroom attached to the house and I made space in it into a darkroom where I developed film and prints next to the lawnmower.

I knew I had to be a photographer and studied art in college. I did my first year of college in Florida, where my family lived at the time, and it never felt right going to school in Florida. My grandmother was from England, my parents traveled a lot internationally, and I wanted to roam, so I enrolled in a semester abroad in Exeter, England. I fell in love with being somewhere where I saw, ate and heard new things every day. It was an artists’ dream, and I vowed to stay as long as I could. The college also focused students in on their field of study much sooner than American colleges, so I had more time to focus on art. My third week there, I met a tall photography student named Tom whom I spent just about every moment being with from then onwards.

All good things come to an end, and my student visa ran out, and I had to go back to the states. I knew I had to choose a large city to pursue photography and I had extended family in Chicago, so I moved here. Tom was still in England, and he looked for visa opportunities in the US. I started my career by being a photo assistant, trying to learn everything I could. Tom looked for a job in Chicago to get a visa, and it didn’t seem like it was going to happen for seven months. One day he called to ask if he could come to visit. We thought we’d have to split up after his visit because he hadn’t found work, but he gave it two more phone calls and got a job on the second call. A month later, he moved to the states. Around this time, I was being offered studio manager positions because I had a knack for organizing and production. After Tom was here a year, we married in the basement of City Hall.

In a couple of years, I became a producer, and around this time I started to realize that I wasn’t making art as much as I use to. I had a brain that was evenly split between being practical and all business and creative and whimsical. It’s a dichotomy that was confusing when I was younger.

It turns out that being fascinated with art and business is the perfect recipe for being an art agent. I can’t say I discovered it myself or even tried to pursue it. A photographer saw it in me and asked for me to represent his work in the advertising world, and we quickly grew together. After that, I added another photographer, had more success, and I was hooked.

Since then, I have built a photography and video representation agency and have continued to refine its voice. Tom and I have been married for 18 years now, he is a photographer and director on my roster of artists, and we have two children together.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting up a business is a tremendous amount of work and it takes a lot of dedication to be committed to sewing seeds for  what will come in the future. You have to continually convince yourself to stay in the game. I attribute most of my success with never, ever giving up. Other than starting up, The Great Recession taught me a lot of lessons. Since then, the wind has been in our sails.

Please tell us about ETC Creative.
I’m proud of what my business has become and that it is something that came from nothing. It’s here because I work at it every day and the people I work with trust my artists and our management and production teams to make their projects come to life. Any time a client raves about a job we’ve done, I’m a happy camper. I’m proud that I’ve carved out a place in the world that allows me to live on my terms, and that means lots of travel, flexibility in schedule and the ability to grow in whichever direction I choose.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Being outdoors; camping, hiking, exploring. Our neighborhood in Dubuque, Iowa had so many wonderful families and kids to play with, there was never a dull moment.