Ashley Swartzendruber

I lived in Crawfordsville IN for my whole life before coming to Goshen. I came here in 2006 to go to Goshen College. During school, I met my now husband. We got married after graduating.

I’ve been a photographer since 2010 and have done weddings, portraits, and family shoots. Three years ago, I started taking up macrame, something a little more hands-on and started selling that on Etsy. During that time, I was pregnant with my first child, so I stepped back from my work. This is my first year without any weddings, but I’ve started picking up more macrame and moved to The Local in August. My husband works for Janus Motorcycles, so I’ve started doing some social media management and curation for them as well as a few other businesses.

Because Goshen is so small, at first it could seem like there isn’t much work to go around. But because of Goshen’s size, people are so much more supportive of your work. Goshen in general is really supportive of the arts. It could feel like it’s competitive, but it really isn’t. It’s a really supportive place to be with an artistic career, and it’s an affordable place to become an entrepreneur. Downtown events, Goshen First Fridays, it’s such a supportive downtown community. I think the neighboring towns are hearing about how cool Goshen is becoming. Goshen is small, but we celebrate art and community really well and really boldly.