From Vision to Venue Setting Up Our Studio

Ever wondered how to juggle a dream project while working a full-time job? Join me as I share the exhilarating highs and daunting lows of launching my very own art studio, shop, and gallery. With the incredible support from my husband and friends, I've been able to navigate this challenging but rewarding journey. You'll hear about the vibrant plaza filled with concert series and beautiful lights that inspired me to engage our community with free art kits. I'll also touch on the excitement of organizing classes and creative events, like a special night in the barrel room inspired by Chihuly art. Despite the hustle, we're aiming to open the studio by the end of July!

But that's not all! In this episode, I reveal thrilling updates from our new studio space and plans to host community guests who will share their amazing work. I can't wait to share images from our fresh setup and I’m eager to get your feedback on potential classes. Tell me about the make-and-take activities you've enjoyed as we craft offerings that will resonate with you. Wrapping up with a dose of positivity, I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I look forward to continuing this creative adventure together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

I am so excited to be back with Brutally Made. I had to skip another week because I am super, super swamped trying to open this door front this month. I'm probably not going to sketch today. Ilo Levy's prompt is sunglasses, which is darling. I think I'm going to show you some progress pictures as I talk to you about opening a art studio, shop and gallery while you work a full-time job and try to do everything else.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Oh my gosh, I would love to have some insight from anyone that is doing this and when I say this it doesn't mean the exact same thing that I'm doing Just pursuing a dream and trying to make something work while you also have a full-time job doing something completely different. It's a lot and I am aware of that, and I have had a lot of help from, definitely my husband oh my God, been a rock. He has been in the evening painting and assembling things and just kind of, you know, being there by my side almost every night. Sometimes I outlast him. He works a physical daytime job. He's the mechanic, so I hate to expect him to be there doing more physical labor. He'll jump in and help for as long as he can, so he has some time to rest. I also want to acknowledge the fact that he was dealing with some kidney stuff at the same time for like 50 days and he went through two surgeries. So it's been quite the yeah, and I was not. He was not there during those times. He was, you know, trying to recover. But I've been over there. I've had a chair building party and I paid people in pizza and just friends came together and helped assemble chairs that I purchased and pretty much just helping whenever they can or with everything cleaning and assembling and putting things together. It's just been, you know, a journey for sure, and I couldn't be where I'm at without them. So I really appreciate the friends that are family here. That's definitely the theme, because we do not live near family and they are quite a few hours away. So it's, you know, just Ben, brian and I.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Oh, my goodness, it's still very exciting and I still have big goals to be open by the end of the month, which is July 31st. So I'm hoping that'll be the grand opening. I do have commitments in the evening for a few different days that I would be open normally and, being a small business owner on my own, I'll just have to. You know, my own employee, the only employee. So I'll have to close and open, you know, here and there, until I think people will understand and I'll share it on social media and it'll be what it is. I can't stress about it. I don't really have the ability to hire anybody and it is just me working in this space. So I will make it work however I can.

Speaker 1: 4:07

But the plaza is just a hop in. There are so many cool things happening. The plaza has these beautiful lights I'll share some video of that where they're changing color and they chase one another through the whole tip top of the buildings all the way around and it's so pretty. So that was a nice improvement that they had created and the amphitheater concert series is going on now. Last night there was a concert and I warned my husband. I said, hey, we got to get to the plaza early enough to get a parking space because it gets packed and so, like clockwork, by 515, 530, that plaza is. I don't even think there's a space, it is full. And there were so many people there last night for the Boston Tribute concert. You know it was really good, they sounded great and there's a great concert coming up next Thursday with the Vendees. So it's just going to be packed. It's pretty phenomenal. It's just going to be packed. It's pretty phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 5:19

I've been giving out free art kits in the plain little art shack. I went next door to Bugsy's to get dinner, ordered some calzones. There were some young girls at the table behind me while I was waiting on the food I just popped over and said hey, there's some free art kits. If your little board's sitting here, please go get one. They're in the little house, little shack outside of the building next door I'm opening an art studio Help yourself and have something to do. So everyone got some and that was really sweet. But I'm happy to do that to share information about what's going on in the space.

Speaker 1: 5:54

I have the first classes scheduled, some teachers that have reached out wanting to have a class and organize that in the space. So August 6th is the wait, is that right? The 6th, 5th, 7th, 8th it's on my Facebook page. We have our first class and then another business in March reached out to me and asked me to organize something for kind of like awareness at their location about what I do and I said, sure, I can organize a creative night event. That was before I had my steak and I am still going to do it. It's going to be like one of the Chihuly bowls or lights. I'm going to make the steak-looking Chihuly art activity. You can buy a ticket and you can either get a bowl or a light, depending on which one you want, and make that that night at the barrel room. Then, uh, you get to take that home that night. They're pretty cool and, um, anybody can you know, make that. And so I've got a food truck lined up and really looking for any other creatives that want to set up that night, because car's gracious doesn't charge anything for the creatives to set up, just wants to have activities for people to. You know, know that's going on and stop in. So, yeah, still working on that, but that's the 7th of August, so the blanket must be August 8th. That's what it is. That night is the first class. I knew I would get it straight in my head, so I'll put it all in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 7:44

There's a lot going on, but, yeah, I just want to know how people handle things like this when they have a full time job. How do you get through prioritizing your evenings and weekends when you've got so many things that you need to get done and only a certain amount of time. I'm painting and doing the murals myself. I still have to lay my epoxy floor in the celebration room. I'm still ordering inventory. There's some things I can't control because inventory isn't in yet. It's still going to open.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Just going to, you know, make it work with what I have and I am really excited about scheduling classes and things to do for all ages. That's the neatest thing is like what I want to teach or who wants to teach with me, and I've got a couple artists scheduled for certain months for the gallery and looking for more and trying to reach out to some people who wanted to be kind of like lenders in the space and lenders in the space and we're asking them for their wholesale costs. I'd rather do that than commission. Commission is so hard to keep track of. I have a couple commission, I guess contracts with some companies and locations here and it's a big investment for me on the front side and I have to wait to have that returned and I don't want to do that. I want to buy from people, resell it and it's just a lot easier for me to keep track of. So I'm going to do that with a couple people. I've already talked to them and they're getting me their pricing and their you know expectations, minimum, stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 9:49

So very excited, very, very, very excited. I just wanted to share an update and let everybody know how it's going and show some images. And, yeah, I'm really excited about even recording from the new studio and having some community people on as guests to talk about what they do too. So, stay tuned. A lot of changes happening. It's all good because it is all beautifully made and I am very excited about it, so happy to share it all with you. So, take care, have a wonderful weekend and, yeah, I will talk to you soon. Give me a thought on what some classes I should try to offer. What have you done, what have you made and what have you done make and take wise that you've enjoyed? I'd love to have some insight. All right, I will talk to you later. Bye.