Urlifestyle Magazine October 2016 August 2016 | Page 30

Doing Your Own Thing
Interview with Michelle Farnsworth
by Nicci Johnson

NJ: This is our first time meeting! I love it! So, tell
me the history with Be Magazine, Chelle Chic and
doing your own thing all these years.
MF: I think this rings true for a lot of people. Not only
for women my age, especially people your age and
people just getting out of college. You think you go
to college and get a degree and that’s what you’re
going to do with your life. No, I grew up in the news
room. My mom was a television news photographer,
she still is for KFYR, Donna Martin. My mom taught
herself how to do that. Because my dad left us when
we were babies, with no money, the rent due and no
career, no nothing.

NJ: What happened next?

So she started at KXMB as a weather girl and they
said, “Well you really suck at that,” and she was
on the air one time. I even think there is a tape
somewhere of my poor, shy mother. And then they
said, “Well, how about a camera?”

MF: Yes, it was experience. One
of the first columns I ever wrote
that got someone’s attention was
called Lemon Chicken. It was
about making lemon chicken for
my family for dinner and how
much they despised it.

They gave her a camera and she taught herself.
My mom and my grandma for that matter have always been a role model to me. My grandma was an
ordained minister. So I kind of had these pioneering women in my life. That’s how I was raised. I wasn’t
born with a silver spoon in my mouth and so what. But I never thought I didn’t have anything.
Some friends and I were talking about that the other day – about growing up really poor. I always just
thought, “Oh my gosh, everything is so great and so big!” Then you go back and you’re like, “Whoa, we
were (poor). We didn’t have a pot to piss in.”
NJ: I can relate! I grew up th