In the early 2000s, Danielle “Elle” Billing (she/they) grew up in Enderlin, ND, pursuing creativity through sewing, music, and theater. After getting degrees in education, she moved to Idaho where she was a teacher for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. During that time, Elle developed chronic health issues that cause migraines and severe fatigue. In 2018, she started painting and printmaking as a way to manage her worsening health. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. Elle said, “Burnout, chronic illness, and disability forced [me] to reorganize [my] life around care, rest, and artistic expression as a form of self- and community care.” She moved back to Enderlin to better manage her health, foster her art practice, and assist in caring for an aging parent.
To help cover monthly bills, Elle took a part-time job in grain inspection but knew she needed additional funds in order to grow as an artist and business owner. Therefore, Elle decided to make 2024 “The Year of the Big Ask” by researching and applying for additional types of support. Through her efforts, Elle received a Professional Development grant from ND Council on the Arts (NDCA) and was chosen to receive an Arts Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities. Most importantly, Elle built a network of supporters, in part by communicating her needs to her employer and by creating a virtual meeting space for fellow disabled artists called Spoonie Studio.
Elle began her search by looking for ND state grants and discovered NDCA’s Professional Development grant program. The program offered six rounds throughout the fiscal year, providing up to $1,000 for North Dakota nonprofit art organizations, educational institutions, individual artists, and arts educators to engage in arts-related learning activities. Elle submitted an application titled, “Body of Work with Connie Solera.” The proposal was designed to be the second phase of a mentorship program called “Paint Fearless” with teaching artist and mentor Connie Solera.
After engaging in weekly mentoring sessions along with check-ins with an artist cohort, Elle’s project resulted in 12 paintings (some pictured above) that were shown in an online group exhibition. Elle’s reported outcomes included, “I deepened my connection to my artistic practice. I clarified the way I write and speak about my process and my work. I developed more precision in asking for specific types of feedback from peers and mentors. I developed skills in promotional activities, such as artists talks, interviews, virtual launch parties, marketing emails, physical promotional mailers, and discussion panels.” Elle’s mentor, Connie Solera said it was the “best work I’ve seen from [Elle]. It is intimate, vulnerable, and beautiful. It’s breathtaking.”
The next grant opportunity arrived in Elle’s email inbox. As a follower of Arts Midwest, a regional arts organization that provides support for artists and organizations in the upper Midwest, Elle saw an article in their newsletter that announced the Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities. Offered annually 2023-2025, the grant program was designed to celebrate the exceptional work of disabled Midwestern visual artists. Every year, nine recipients received $3,000 each to support their artistic journey, with no restrictions on how the funding was used. Elle said, “I had considered applying for the award in 2023, but I didn’t feel like my portfolio was robust enough to submit [until 2024].”
In the application, Elle submitted previous works, including those created during the mentorship sessions with Connie Solera. Inside the essay portion, Elle wrote, “I am interested in exploring concepts of memory, gender, and identity. I am reconstructing the western feminine literary experience through mixed media with a focus on vintage texts and artifacts. I create paintings through an iterative process I call Spiritual Archaeology. I layer my personal experiences between literary influences and contemporary media, using mixed media and bold marks. My influences stack up on a common theme and as I scrape back what I have layered, I am able to excavate a singular truth about my Self and my place in the world.”
The most important ‘ask’ for Elle was more personal. Elle said, “Asking for help [from friends, family, and employers] is hard. Asking for help as a high-performing, perfectionist workaholic is hard. I wish I had asked for help so much sooner than I did.” She reasoned, “Anyone can become disabled at any time, and if we’re lucky, we’ll live long enough to see old age start to limit and change our abilities and capacities. Creating the mutual networks of care we need - before we need them - is going to save us a lot of strife down the road, because our neighbor is going to come through in a pinch a lot faster than overdrawn systems.”
Elle stated, “My current part-time job is with grain inspection. My supervisor has been incredible, providing me with alternative lighting and checking in frequently so I can budget my daily energy to match my expected workload. I am well-supported. I can sit when I need to sit. I don’t have to lift anything heavy and I’m not expected to work if I have a migraine. My supervisor even got me a special lamp [that was on sale]. Adaptations and accommodations are possible with some creativity.”
Elle’s network includes a virtual gathering space she created called Spoonie Studio. It provides a meeting space for disabled and chronically ill artists to “come together to create and share their work without the pressures of productivity culture.” Elle stated, “The disability community is glorious, ingenious, and resilient as hell. I started my career as a teacher and an ally to the disability community and now I am disabled. This community has given me so much, and the way I prefer to participate is through mutuality and reciprocal care.”
Lastly, the biggest motivator in Elle’s network is a deaf Australian Cattle Dog named Winkie. (Elle uses sign language to communicate with her.) Elle said, “Both pain and fatigue are huge motivation-killers. I would honestly be content to stay in bed with my dog for most of the day. Lucky for me, my dog is a working breed and she is only content to stay in bed for so long before she gets squirrelly. She’s really good about keeping me moving and keeping me on a schedule.” Elle’s business, Elle and Wink, was named after their close partnership.
To summarize, Elle’s Year of the Big Ask not only includes researching and applying for funding opportunities, but it also means reaching out to friends, family, and employers when she needs help. Elle said, “If I have learned anything in the ten years since I got sick, it’s that we need each other. We need each other. We need each other.”
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Danielle "Elle" Billing Bio
Elle Billing (she/they) is a mixed-media artist who creates through the lens of her lived experiences as a disabled queer individual. Her first career as a reading and language teacher influences her studio work through the use of found texts – dictionaries culled from thrift store shelves and discarded books from personal libraries. Elle layers personal experiences between literary influences and contemporary media, using high-energy marks of paint, ink, pastel, and a healthy dose of scribbles and handwritten text. As her influences stack up on a common theme, she begins to peel back what has accrued, excavating a singular idea about the Self and one’s place in the world.
Find Elle Billing on Facebook - Elle & Wink Art Studio and on the web - ElleAndWink.com.