Art as Continuation of What Was Started with Carli Cardillo

Carli Cardillo is an artist and small business owner carrying her grandmother's creative legacy forward by building Artdillo Eclectic, redefining women's work and making space for creators to be seen, valued, and supported.

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Artdillo Eclectic comes first for Carli Cardillo. It is her evolving art gallery and market, a home for wearable and functional pieces that hold story, collaboration, and a lot of color. From there, everything else in her life as an artist branches out.

Carli builds her life around making things and creating environments that feel alive with color and intention. Her work moves between art, education, and everyday life, grounded in family history and a real commitment to keeping creativity present and accessible.

Her story starts with her grandmother. Discovering her grandma’s artwork, Carli learned that her grandmother had once attended art school but left early to support her family. For women in art in that era, the talent was there, interest was there, but opportunity and support were limited. For Carli, learning this acted as a starting point for her inspiration in art. She is continuing what her grandmother did not get to fully pursue, and she is doing it in a way that centers women’s creativity rather than sidelining it.

What makes their relationship even more special is that it did not end with that one moment of uncovered history. Today, her grandmother creates for Artdillo, adding her own pieces to the space. The two of them get to share a studio conversation across generations.

As Carli kept creating, that connection to her grandmother and their shared making naturally led her deeper into studying art itself. Her background in art history, art therapy, and museum studies shapes how she understands the role of art. She is attuned to both the emotional side of making and the structures that determine what gets seen, funded, and preserved. Carli holds a B.A. in Art Therapy Preparation and Art History, with a minor in Counseling from Carlow University, and an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Lately, the biggest influence on Carli’s thinking hasn’t been a single piece of art or book, but her own experience as a handmade artist and business owner in a fast-paced, mass-produced world. She’s had to reflect deeply on the value of creating something slowly and intentionally and how to communicate that value to others. Since opening a retail store dedicated exclusively to handmade pieces, this challenge has reshaped how she sees and speaks about her work. Each piece feels less like a product and more like a reflection of time, care, and individuality. That shift has made her more confident in creating authentically, in sharing other artists' handmade work, and in slowing down to create more rather than chasing what’s fast or expected.

From those early memories of being proud of something she made with her hands, Carli has grown a body of work that includes jewelry, accessories, and home pieces. Artdillo Eclectic and her wearable art lines are extensions of that first feeling of possibility. What started as simply making things has become a consistent practice and a sustainable way of living a creative life.

Carli expands what we traditionally think of as art by building collections that live on bodies and in homes, treating wearable and functional pieces as deeply meaningful works in their own right. She shows up in community spaces, collaborates with designers, and brings her work into places that have not always centered women makers. Her presence in these environments quietly shifts expectations around who gets to be the artist, the designer, the one whose name is on the card. At the same time, she is redefining what it looks like to be a woman in the arts right now, creating her own paths through teaching, collaboration, pop-ups, and designing for real people. She embraces being many things at once: artist, educator, and small business owner, proving that women in art today can be self-directed, community-driven, and financially intentional at the same time.

Community is core to how she moves. In Phoenix, Carli cares deeply about women feeling confident in their work and their pricing, and in claiming physical and mental space for their practice. She is interested in more than just selling pieces. She’s working to change how people see and value handmade art… a way of answering the limitations her grandmother faced, and honoring the generations of women whose creativity once stayed in the shadows.

Carli does not frame her journey as an arrival. She sees it as an ongoing process, always learning, always adjusting, always open to new mediums, roles, and collaborations. The thread that runs through everything is simple: keep making, keep evolving, and keep the door open for other women to do the same.

If you want to support Carli and Artdillo Eclectic, you can share her work with your people, shop her pieces when you are able, show up to the markets and events she is part of, and keep choosing handmade art from women creators so this kind of practice can continue to grow.