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Meet Pamela Holley of Glamuur in Vinings North Fulton

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Holley.

Pamela, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Art has always been a part of my life and I grew up in an environment where my family encouraged and supported me to be myself. As strange as I have been through the years finding myself as a creative. I grew up with not a lot but my mom always made sure it was more than enough, she taught me about hard work and how to strive for more and better unapologetically. I started drawing at a very young age and in elementary school, only second to Math, I loved ART. Drawing and being creative always felt natural to me because I have a big imagination. The first things I recall drawing was Manga, Anime, and SpongeBob characters from drawing books, my mom bought me, I am still an anime lover to date. My mom raised me her best as a single mother of three but it wasn’t easy for her or us growing up. I always turned to art as a way to express and cope throughout life and recall always turning to poetry even now, recently in adulthood, in the toughest parts of life. With age, my perspective of art and its various forms grew and being more connected to my paternal side of the family. I developed a deep appreciation for Fashion though my Nanna. I always loved fashion and insisted on dressing myself since I was a toddler so I’ve been told by my parents and grandparents. I always utilize fashion as a reflection of who I am currently as the ever-evolving creative.

I remember my first set of fashion sketches were in 2008 and my grandmother is a very amazing seamstress and gave me my first ever sewing machine. I actually never used it but it sparked the desire to be a designer. I started watching Project Runway with my heart set on being a designer, so after high school, I started in that path. My mom and I made the sacrifice for me to attend college and I received very well appreciated and loved training in literally almost every art form at a very costly, but it was a blessing to my confidence as an artist to be around so many other young creatives and the amazing professors I will never forget who helped mold me into the artist and entrepreneur I am today. My professors were tough and I loved it, they believed in me more than I did at the time and pushed my potential to levels, I am so thankful now. Through college, I did the typical waiting tables for chain restaurants, and I learned customer service skills and interpersonal skills that help me daily networking and in every aspect of my business.

During college, I stumbled into a love for marketing knowing it was a necessity, I took it seriously and during my first visual communications class, we were introduced to graphic design and I made my first company logo and I feel in love with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop from there, I wouldn’t pick up the graphics part again until later but the seed was plated already having a thing for numbers and data from my love of Math and Statistics. I geared more towards the marketing side and was determined to intertwine it into my future business endeavors, I went through a lot of ups and downs after college and ended up quitting the restaurant jobs in the hope of starting off my own business, since I have had my ups and downs, victories large and small, went homeless, back to my moms and all around it seems but in it all, I learned and I grew and I stayed with it and wouldn’t give up when I wanted to.

I took my marketing skills and turned to social media promo doing a series of nightlife events under a brand I created with my best friend Karwin Strictly Royal, we had much success and up and downs but it wasn’t my cup of tea and it begins to feel like a job I hated. I wanted to enjoy people and music having fun but that wasn’t it. So again, I took a leap of faith and quit that. During a moment of trials and tribulations, I met a lady named Joy who is now a very close friend, she was looking to start a law firm which is now Justice Atlanta Inc and needed Marketing, she gave me my first every Marketing gig and with that, a wealth of confidence. From there, she loved my work and introduced me to several business owners and helped me along the way with funding and making wise choices and really just telling any and everyone I did marketing even when I was too shy to do so. I began to land more marketing clients which gave me the confidence to do it on a larger scale because it was so natural and I enjoy it. Marketing makes me happy as weird as that sounds. I love being a part of other’s dreams becoming reality and I love helping people grow as I grow to do so, it just feels right. When I kicked off my marketing, I received an overwhelming amount of support and a complete turning point for my business.

A year ago, I incorporated graphics and the support and invoices began to pour in, I didn’t even realize I was good at graphics until I started doing it. I just enjoyed it and had the desire to create beautiful art. I see each graphic I do as a piece of art and I want my clients to not only love it but feel it. And I use it again as a way to express. I launched Glamuur Inc officially in 2018 as the parent to company to house all the many creative expressions I am curating into brands from marketing to events, to fashion, to prints and paintings. SO last year, I got all my confidence together and began publicly promoting my marketing and graphic skills instead of just doing word of mouth and referral business towards the end of the year, I started to incorporate more art at the site of my social media growing since my main goal has been to be what we know now as a creative. So, the idea kept coming to me and people kept proposing to do a Sip and Paint event and to get one together but it just wasn’t coming together.

Eventually, God’s plan prevailed and the opportunity came and with beautiful ease to start a Sip and Paint Event and with an edge that gave me some marketing leverage. I combined my marketing skills with my event skills from doing the nightlife parties, made myself a flyer and began promoting my new love child Paint x Pleasure back in April. It has been a ride rewarding and tough but molding me into a better artist and businesswoman. I am busier than ever and a little sleep deprived but I am doing what I love and making money doing it so I am successful in my opinion. I made my little girl dreams come true and I have a few more to conquer. This year, I was blessed to see a sign, I did go up on a car lot in South Carolina who contracted me to do their marketing and branding for their Grand Opening. I have been blessed to do some graphics I love, for people I love from family to followers and supporters from social media to local business owners I admire. My next endeavor as I do my marketing/graphics and the events roll on I, plan to launch t-shirts in August which will feature some of my paintings and cool graphics made by me. Apparel is where my plan started as Glamuur Apparel Company in 2010 but the timing wasn’t right.

Thanks to the events and just the major change in marketing and commerce, I now have a social media presence where I can actually sale the T-shirts plus, I just feel the timing is right. Society is shifting towards expression and creativity and I am riding that wave the need to heal and be heard is here and what better way than through art, it’s been my lifeline, my comfort, and my refuge. Now, it will be my foundation and along with my work ethic and I plan to be a creative mogul earning off my God-given creativity and inclination for art. I believe art deserves to be supported and being an artist shouldn’t mean choosing a lower standard of living or “the starving artist” over a career job or corporate life. So, I will work my hardest to curate a multi-stream income from my creativity with prints and paintings to follow T-shirts with the ultimate goal of owning a marketing firm, art gallery, and apparel store. I thank platforms like you for giving our dreams faces and voice.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The journey hasn’t been smooth but it has been a refining fire. I have struggled with everything from the confidence to continue to have to choose between business expenses and personal do to lack of funding. I have been homeless and had to go home to my mom maybe twice defeated and depressed. For a long time, I chose to stay in a relationship I knew was toxic and my business suffered greatly at the cost of it until I let it go and magically I reshifted my focus back to my business in the past two years I have experienced such growth. I still struggle now with finding a balance between business and life and family and a sprinkle of fun. It’s 3 am now as I answer this because this is the time I have, lol. I probably drink way too much coffee and me and my friend coined the term “breatharian” when we choose to eat air to make sure we have enough cash on hand to operate, from going to college, I have major student loans which is killing my credit and I wasn’t so responsible at times and sometimes financial hardship hit hard so my credit was suffering, I began repairing it a little over a year ago and it was increased miraculously, so I pray to be able to secure better funding for the business. The main struggle I feel was confidence in my ability. I met a lot of obstacles in life and went through things that often left me feeling defeated, unworthy, and insecure and that caused me not to believe in my self and the things I have been blessed with but now I look at those parts of my life as refining fires that brokenness was filled with a desire to just be a better person, the best person to be love and light to people to just love through art, the type of love having to heal deep places make you seek.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Glamuur – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My company is Glamuur Inc and launched officially in 2018 as the parent to house all the many creative expressions I am curating into brands from marketing to events, to fashion, to prints and paintings. It is my love child choosing Muur as the spelling instead of traditional with being a spiritual reference to a belief system I like, Muur, being my little touch of black girl magic. I decided the name Glamuur early on in high school taking from my nickname Glam and merging it with my stop on the spiritual journey at the time. Since 2008, I have used the name in several variations as I would start then restart and fail and get up and rebrand finally landing on the simple Glamuur Inc in 2018 and making a new logo to solidify my official launch into marketing and merging my new spiritual understanding of love and magic into the brand. The company’s bread and butter come from our sale of graphics ( flyers, business cards, logos) and marketing services, including social media management to writing marketing plans, branding/rebranding small businesses. Just this year, launched a series of Sip and Paint events that have been successful under the companies subsidiaries Atlnightz and Strictly Royal creating a new minor trademark for the company Paint x Pleasure. We are proud to be woman-owned and family operated with love my only other full-time employee is my sister Lashay who I couldn’t do any of this without her constant hands-on support and encouragement. She works just as hard as me, her own brand Beautiful Bling Tings, she is launching it as we strive to always exceed expectations and do it with style and grace. I feel like what I noticed has been an advantage for us is our work ethic and level of professionalism to be young entrepreneurs I think it just really wows people that young black girls from the not so nice part of life can conduct ourselves at the level we do. It has been a major winning point for me with clients and patrons and also my willingness to go above and beyond for my clients and patrons who come to my events. I believe strongly in showing love and support to other business and their owners and I believe that love comes back to me and contributes to my success as well.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
My next plan is to launch a series of capsule collections featuring apparel and T-shirts, as I do my marketing/graphics and the events roll on, I plan to begin with t-shirts in August which will feature some of my paintings and cool graphics made by me. Apparel is where my plan started as Glamuur Apparel Company in 2010 but the timing wasn’t right. Thanks to the events and just the major change in marketing and commerce, I now have a social media presence where I can actually sale the T-shirts plus I just feel the timing is right. Society is shifting towards expression and creativity and I am riding that wave the need to heal and be heard is here and what better way than through art it’s been my lifeline my comfort and my refuge. Now, it will be my foundation and along with my work ethic and I plan to be a creative mogul earning off my god-given creativity and inclination for art. I believe art deserves to be supported and being an artist shouldn’t mean choosing a lower standard of living or “the starving artist” over a career job or corporate life. So, I will work my hardest to curate a multi-stream income from my creativity with prints and paintings to follow T-shirts with the ultimate goal of owning a marketing firm, art gallery, and apparel store. I thank platforms like Voyage for giving our dreams faces and voice.

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Kemet Alston | Kemet Alston Photography

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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