Unboxed: Artist Chelsea Billingsley Crochets Black Stories Into Fine Art

Some people pivot onto new paths later in life. Others just know that an unconventional life is what they’re meant for.

Chelsea Billingsley, 29, has always been drawn to art. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she was a track and field star: fast, focused, and disciplined. But it was a seemingly ordinary moment in her high school homeroom class, when her teacher decided to teach students how to crochet, that quietly changed the course of her life. She traded in her spikes for a sewing machine and hooks and never looked back.

“It was almost like the puzzle pieces kind of clicked for me,” Billingsley says. “Tinkering away with crocheting just allowed me to tangibly bring these visions or things that I wouldn’t necessarily speak about to life. Art was always calling me. So, I figured, let me just follow this constant.”

She went on to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), arriving with a clear intention: to carve out a name for herself in the textile and fiber art space. The work has been as much an inner journey as a creative one.

“I’ve learned a lot of patience. Crocheting has also taught me how to surrender to the process,” she says. “A lot of times in athleticism, you know, ‘If I do this amount of squats, I’m gonna get these types of results.’ But with art and entrepreneurship, things are so unconventional. The ebbs and flows will send you through it. But I learned how to endure because the more you allow yourself to surrender to the process, the less you are focused on the friction. Because the friction is you and it’s the unknown.”

That sense of conviction also meant getting clear on what she was not willing to do and what she was here to say.

“I used to feel so intimidated in the industry because I’m like, I don’t want to make baby shoes. I didn’t come here to make blankets. I didn’t come here to make an applique for your couch. I came here to show you something and shift your perspective. To open your mind and eyes to what’s in my brain, and what could be for the future.”

Stepping fully into that vision required letting go of the life she expected. Billingsley openly shares that she had to grieve one identity to grow into another—the athlete, the conventional milestones, the stability of a 9-to-5, the freedom from other people’s expectations. But through that grief came clarity, and with clarity came the life she truly wanted.

“Growing up, that’s what is ingrained in you as a woman. You get the Black household, and you need to take care of yourself. Then you get a husband, kids, go to church, and do the regular stuff. You dream of the big wedding. But that was never my thing. I’m like, y’all dreaming of weddings, and I’m dreaming about exhibitions that I can put on and marketing strategies,” she says.

That focus has paid off. Billingsley’s portfolio spans feature collaborations with Air Jordan, costume design for rapper Baby Tate and R&B singer Lucky Daye, a crocheted BMX bike, and large-scale community art installations, among many others. A typical project takes four to six weeks, with her work ranging from $1,100 to $3,600 to start, materials included. After 13 years of honing her craft, she knows that recognition from major brands and cultural figures is simply the result of years of quiet discipline.

Her most recent work continues that thread of intentionality. A new collection called Curls & Culture pays homage to Black hair and traces the roots of her first encounter with art in her own community.

“With this Curls & Culture series, I was thinking about where I pinpoint when I began to see art in my community. It wasn’t necessarily in museums per se. It was at ’90s vintage hair shows,” she recalls. “My mom would put me in these hair shows with hairstylists that we knew. Going through these vintage hairstyles, I would think, ‘Oh my God, these are artists. Like, these are fine artists.’ So, for me, that is what this is about. It’s about embracing and telling that story through my lens, through the different hairstyles that I’ve seen. I mean, just within my art, it’s me sharing my own Black experience and taking up space.”

For Billingsley, taking up space has always been the point. Her work is a testament to building a legacy on her own terms, and to the quiet power of Black representation in a space that has historically had little of it.

“When I think about my journey overall, it’s been about shifting the narrative. That’s always what it’s been because so many times when I stepped into a room, people always told me what I had to do and how I had to look. And I would ask myself, ‘Why can’t I see this in mainstream media? Why can’t Black people dominate this? Why can’t I dominate this?’ That’s also part of this Curls & Culture series. Shifting the narrative of what it means to be a woman. A Black woman taking up space in this industry.”

Outside of her own projects, Billingsley teaches art classes to young students, hoping to spark in them what was once sparked in her. She has built an ecosystem of support around herself, including fine artists, musicians, producers, fashion designers. A community that keeps her grounded and inspired in equal measure.

And for anyone feeling the pull of a creative life but hesitating to leap, she has a simple message: the feeling itself is the answer.

“There is a quote by Dr. Howard Thurman: ‘Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive,’” she says. “I feel like when people start to question themselves, if they should follow a creative lifestyle, then that is the right answer to the question, because if you feel it, that’s all the yes you need to start.”

“A lot of times, we think that in order for us to start, it has to be perfect. But I feel like if you feel it’s this call on your life to do it, try it out,” Billingsley says. “We can ruminate on all the what-ifs and what could go wrong, but you will never find out if you don’t try. And don’t be afraid to start over. It’s okay to pivot as long as it makes you feel alive. I’ve kind of started over a little bit myself. I’m getting to know myself in a different way, creatively, and the more you get okay with failing and starting over, you’ll be okay with everything else.”