WEBVTT
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you know.
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I would say, if you're a creative and you're you know you've been creating, but let's say you haven't really gone out there and sold anything or tried to sell anything or do any marketing, but you want to, you don't be overwhelmed by it, don you want to?
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You know, don't be overwhelmed by it.
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Don't try to do everything at once.
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Don't think that, oh, I have to have a website, I have to be on Instagram, I have to go to the networking events, I have to go approach galleries.
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Those are all tools that are out there for you, but you are the one in control.
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You are the one who decides what you're going to do and and take it step by step.
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You know, a baby step open up an Instagram account, start putting your, put your pictures of you working on your process, or just just that baby step and that's what I think that's what's important is to not get so overwhelmed that you're just like you're frozen.
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You know, a deer in the headlights, I can't, I can't do any of this.
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And then you go back into your hole and you just, you know you create wonderful art, but we're not seeing it.
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So You're listening to the the Love of Creatives podcast.
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I'm Maddox.
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And I'm Dwight.
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We're the Connections and Community Guys, and today we're joined by our featured guest, andrea.
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I like to be here.
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Thank you, it's so wonderful to have you here.
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I'm sorry I spoke over you.
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What were?
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you saying?
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I was just saying I'm very happy to be here, I'm excited for the conversation and please tell us how to pronounce your last name.
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Yes, so it's a French name.
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My husband is French.
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There's a whole story about how we met, but so there's a trick.
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If you divide it into three parts, the first part is like a lamb, and then in the middle is er, and then the last part is like the past tense of sewing.
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So lammer, sewed is how you pronounce it.
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That makes it easy.
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Yes, I'm so glad I tried to pronounce that People get tripped.
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on the last part.
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Yeah, I get suede or soddy, but it's sewed like the past tense of sewing, lammer, sewed.
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I would have said lammer sawed.
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Yes, we get that too.
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Yes, close, but not accurate, and I wanted to be accurate, Thank you.
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So, andrea, tell us a little bit about I mean, we know a little bit about you, but tell us who you are and what you do.
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Sure, sure.
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So name is Andrea Lamersaud, you got that all good.
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So I'm the owner of Art on Main, which is in Dallas, and we are in Old East Dallas.
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So Art on Main is it's hard to classify.
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I can't say it's just a gallery, I can't say it's just artist studios, it's an artist community.
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So we have 6,500 square feet and we're on Main Street, close to right where it turns into Columbia, and we have 22 creatives who make their home, their creative home, at Art on Main, and then we have gallery space as well.
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So it's all kind of intermingled together and we have ongoing exhibits, solo exhibits, group exhibits, but from the artists that have studio space there and also artists who are in Dallas.
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I focus primarily on Dallas artists because I'm a native Dallasite.
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So it was always my dream and my passion to open up a space that would pay tribute to all the wonderful talent that we have in Dallas.
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It's very unique.
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Thank you, I haven't seen anything else like it, so when did you open?
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that.
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So we opened in 2022.
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In December, we opened up the studios to the artist and then in January, we had our first exhibition in the gallery.
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So now we're going on our third year.
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We're just coming into our third year, which is, to me, just fantastic.
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You know, when you start a business, you're on pins and needles, you know, is it going to work?
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Just fantastic.
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You know, when you start a business, you're on pins and needles.
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You know, is it going to work?
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Are we going to?
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Will people come?
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And boy, have people come.
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It's just been amazing.
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I, like I said, it's been a dream of mine for a long, long time to build this community and open this community and, through a set of circumstances, it all worked out and now it's just I can't wait, wait to get, wake up in the morning and go to work.
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It's, it's incredible.
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Well, congratulations.
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Thank you.
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Yes, what an achievement I'm I'm, I gotta say I'm at that I'm a little shocked, you know, I just it.
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We've been in there multiple times and it's so established that I was expecting you to say, oh, we opened in 2000, or you know, it's very, it's full.
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Yes, yes, and every time I mean occasionally we have an artist that moves or goes to another place and literally within a week I've filled the space.
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It's a much needed space for the community because, as you both probably know, artist studio space is scarce in Dallas and you know, people are constantly looking for it.
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I wish I had a whole other building because I would fill it.
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So it's nice to be able to provide as much as I can to the artist in the area.
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And what space is available is usually just out of sight, expensive, out of sight, yeah it's crazy, it's just crazy.
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And the owner of the building his name, is Tom Ross.
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He's an artist as well.
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That was an integral part of why we were able to do what we've done is he was very passionate about making it a space that was easy for artists to get to.
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So the rent that he charges me is a fair rent and I, in turn, can charge, you know, a fair rent to the artist.
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It's not an exorbitant amount of money.
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So that was a huge part of how we're succeeding.
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What a beautiful arrangement.
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That's amazing.
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Wow, how fortunate for everybody concerned.
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Yes, yes, and so right now, my schedule is full for the rest of 2025.
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We have at least one usually two exhibits per month through the end of December scheduled already, so it's exciting.
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I just got an email letting me know that you've got something happening this Saturday evening.
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That's true, it's a watercolor exhibit, yes, and we're worried about the weather, but it seems like it's going to be sunny on Saturday.
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We would be there, but we already have plans that evening.
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Well, don't worry, we've got lots, lots more coming.
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Yes, absolutely.
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So I thought we would lead off with something that I'm hoping will be fun.
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Sure, what is your favorite story about community and how it impacted your creative journey?
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story about community.
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Wow, that's a good one.
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I, I would have to say I have a lot of favorites, but I'll focus on this and you can go into some detail here.
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Just elaborate on this.
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Okay, so prior to opening Art on Main, I was at the Mixed Creative Space, which is a space in the basement of a church on the other side of White Rock Lake.
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It's in the middle of a neighborhood and I was managing a creative space there, working with the church.
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So we had artists and artist studios and we had a place to have a gallery space in the middle of the church Well, not the church itself, but in the lower level of the church.
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But long story short, we were just getting started and COVID hit and so we had to really shut down everything.
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But I kept communicating with people, because we got some artists in and then we had to stop and the church shut down.
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And so I kept communicating.
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We did a lot of things visually, we did some Zoom meetings, we did some education things on Zoom.
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We started to build this community kind of virtually and also with the people that were there, and then, when COVID finally went away, we were able to open our doors again.
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It was wonderful because we'd already built that community virtually and you know the ones that were there and then we were able to kind of open it live.
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Well, we'd already established connections, we'd already kind of you know, bonded with each other.
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And then the people who wanted to come in, who couldn't came in, and it was just this wonderful experience to see everything be able to bloom.
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That does sound like wow, you pivoted, you know you were throwing a curveball with and you pivoted and made it work.
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What was it that enabled you to do that?
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Because not everybody would be able to pivot that easily.
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Well, I'm a very once I get an idea, I'm kind of a I'm bull.
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I just keep going and I want to make it happen.
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And we were just getting this started and there was just no way I was going to shut down.
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We could have, we could have just said, well, we'll wait till it's all over and then we'll see what happens.
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But I'm like, you know, zoom was there, which was we talked about it earlier is just a godsend and we were able to see each other and talk to each other.
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But, you know, be safe.
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So I just kept going and and and worked with other artists.
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That was the thing.
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Some of the artists that were there were very community driven as well, and we came up with some.
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A lot of the artists were like okay, how do we market online?
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You know we can't go to an exhibit right now.
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How do we?
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How do we market our work out there in in the virtual world?
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So we came up with, you know, educational events for that.
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You know, here's how you could do this and that, and do it all virtually.
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So you just keep going, you keep taking it day by day, and and you don't give up.
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That's always been my motto and that that's kind of what I think led to the success of Art on Main.
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Is I just I keep going and if it's a passion for me and I really want to happen, then I find a way to make it happen.
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I'm going to pick your brain for a little bit of wisdom here.
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Okay, we talk to a lot of creative people just out and about when we're going in and out of galleries, and we talk to a fairly significant percentage of people that say that they create in isolation.
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You know, sure.
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And yet in every episode that we have recorded of this podcast thus far, the creative that has come in as the featured guest has talked about the varying communities that they're part of and what an important part it has been in their journey.
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Sure, you seem to have pulled that off, and I'm wondering for all those people that don't understand the value of community.
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They're siloed, they're working in, you know, solitude, sure.
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How do we as in Dwight and I, but you as well, or any other person that is community-driven the way we are how do we communicate effectively to them so they really start to understand how valuable community can be to their process?
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Sure, well, I think it's a lead by example.
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I think you need to figure out a way to show them you know, you can talk to them about it all you want, but, you know, show them what it's like to have that community.
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And that's why I'm always inviting artists in.
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We have artist talks and studies and things like that at Art on Main, and a lot of people come and we just kind of let them see how it works.
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And I think you know, learning from, from seeing, I'm a very visual person.
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Um, everybody that I've talked to that said, oh, you know, I normally work alone Well, not everybody, but a lot of them say, well, but I really do see how this community could be, could be something that could help me.
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And we have artists at Art on Main who are very they're very isolationist in their approach to their work.
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You know they go in their studio and and you leave them alone, and then when they come out, you know, then then yeah, if, if you know they want to be collaborative with the community, then they, then they come in there and they're a part of it.
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But we respect their, their creative process.
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For example, myself I'm an artist and when I'm making my art.
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I don't want anybody in my studio.
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We have drapes, we kind of have an open concept.
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So I close my drapes and I'm in there and I'm just in my little cocoon and people know, you know they can knock or whatever, but they try to.
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You know, let me have my zone, and so I think it's just a combination of it's like Nemo the clownfish, you know how that scene where he was kind of going in and out of the plant, he would go out and look and go back in and go out and look.
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That's kind of the way I see it.
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You know, you go in your little plant and you make your art, but then come on out there and be a part of the community and you'll see that wonderful, colorful, amazing world that's out there waiting to support you and help you.
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I really want to call out that what you're saying here is it's not an either or it's an and Definitely Because there are some people that really need that quiet solitude so they can focus.
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But then there's all the rest of your creative process.
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That isn't about writing or making art.
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It's all the things that go along with it that operates your business and gets your art out into the world.
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I love the and concept and you just really clearly pointed that out.
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Yeah, it's definitely not a black and white.
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It's definitely a gray.
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There's time when you want to be with your community and learn from them, and then there's time when you just want to be by yourself and do your thing.
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Yeah, yeah, I think we can all appreciate how we have different seasons.
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There's different, different modes that we need to go in to fully, to fully express and to actually allow ideas to germinate.
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Very much so I like that analogy of the seasons Definitely.
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So I'm really curious about how it was that you of my thing and I love to read I was a voracious reader, and then I did love just to create visual art, did that, you know, through high school, and I also played the flute, so I was in the marching band in high school, so there's always been some type of creativity around me.
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When I got to college, I decided to go more the business route.
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I went to SMU and got a degree in business and, specializing in marketing, went into the corporate world for a long time worked at TI, texas Instruments, and I worked for a telecommunications company.
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That's how I met my husband.
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We were both working for the same company.
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At the time he was living in California and I was living in France, so that was a little switcheroo that we did.
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But but the I?
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What happened with me?
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How I got to where I am today and not in the corporate world.
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And now where I am is in 2014, and this is a pretty heavy story, but I do want to tell it because it's a part of my part of my life and part of my story.
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So we had taken our daughter, who's now 23, but at the time she was about to go into that eighth grade um to the one direction concert.
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They were in town and it was sunday night.
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She's supposed to start her school the next day, like start at eighth grade the next day, and um, when we got home, it was about 11 o'clock, our street was blocked off.
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We I don't know why I jumped out of the car because we couldn't get anywhere.
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My husband was the car, my daughter and I just ran and I rounded the corner.
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Our house was in a circle and our house was just in flames, just totally in flames, like to the point where now the fire.
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There were six fire trucks that I could count and they had the water arcing down into the middle of the house.
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So we lost our home, we lost our pets.
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We had three dogs and two cats and a turtle, and they all perished.
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It was a devastating experience.
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And so you know it's at that point you're, you're in shock, you're numb, you're just trying to, you know, figure out what you're going to do.
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So, little by little, we started to figure that out.
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But one thing that I needed cause my daughter took it the hardest.
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She had a lot of issues mentally after that.
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Um had to had to do some in and out, patient um to deal with everything, and I needed I was trying to help her.
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I stopped working for a while and just helping her.
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But I needed an outlet and I needed something to do that would help me heal, in addition to be able to help her.
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And so I started painting.
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I started making art just on my dining room table at our apartment that we got.
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We went to a high rise downtown because we didn't want to live in a home, in a house structure anymore, but I kept doing it.
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I kept doing it and at the time the Continental Gin was still there.
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It was a big I don't know if you guys know the Continental Gin big two-story structure with artists in it size of a football field.
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A good friend of mine, walter Hoffhines, he's a lawyer but he's also an artist.
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We've been friends since 1994.
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He said you know, get off your dining room table, come over here he's got a studio space, or had a studio space there and make some art.
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You know, we've got a big studio space, come.
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So I'm like, okay, so I did, and I kept making art, kept making art, and then I started selling a little bit of it and I'm like, oh well, this is kind of cool.
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So it just sort of just start to snowball and I had a solo show.
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A good friend of mine owns a restaurant on McKinney and Avanti restaurant had a solo show there, sold most of the work, and so I kind of just started being an artist and I went back to work I was working for a marketing agency, so I was still doing that, but the art was there and so little by little, I started thinking, well, how can I?
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How can I?
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Because I like the corporate world.
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But I was just kind of like what can I do here?
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So I thought, well, maybe I could help other artists with their marketing.
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So that's what I did.
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I was painting.
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And then I started helping some artists with social media.
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I learned how to build a website, my own website in Squarespace.
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So I started helping other artists build websites.
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And little by little I didn't really need to do the corporate marketing anymore.
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So I stopped and then I just kind of did my art and the marketing for artists.
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And then that's when I um, I had we left the Continental Gen because they closed and I I got an artist studio space.
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Um, after several other spaces there's more story there, but I don't want to take too much time I got an artist studio space at the mix and then they said well, with your marketing background, maybe you could help us.
00:19:46.932 --> 00:19:52.888
And that's how I started to do managing that space and those studio spaces and having exhibitions there.
00:19:52.888 --> 00:19:57.586
So that's kind of a shortened version of how I kind of got to where I am.
00:19:57.961 --> 00:20:03.792
And then in the early part of 2022, I was working at the Mix and I got a phone call.
00:20:03.792 --> 00:20:06.929
First I got an email from a commercial real estate broker.
00:20:06.929 --> 00:20:12.529
Her name is Hayden Sage and she said hey, I found you through Google.
00:20:12.529 --> 00:20:20.297
I have a client who is Tom Ross, the owner of the building that we're in now, who has this space and the space, the building that we're in now, who has this space and the space.
00:20:20.297 --> 00:20:21.961
The building was built in 62.
00:20:21.961 --> 00:20:29.506
The second floor has been a pool hall, it's been a bar, it's been a dance club, it's been a venue space.
00:20:29.886 --> 00:20:31.029
You don't want to do any of that anymore.
00:20:31.029 --> 00:20:32.661
It wants to turn into an art space.
00:20:32.661 --> 00:20:34.344
She said would you come over and look at it?
00:20:34.344 --> 00:20:36.948
I said, well, yeah, sure, I'll come over and get it.
00:20:36.948 --> 00:20:41.134
She said he wants to get someone in the art world's opinion about whether it could be an art space.
00:20:41.134 --> 00:20:42.194
I'm like sure.
00:20:42.194 --> 00:20:56.005
So I go and I get there and I climb up the stairs to to this big kind of open space and all I can see was this big bag of windows with light and downtown Dallas staring right at me and I went.
00:20:56.005 --> 00:20:58.428
I could I barely even gotten up the stairs.
00:20:58.428 --> 00:21:00.451
I'm like, yes, this could be an art space.
00:21:01.231 --> 00:21:11.724
So that's kind of where the conversation got got started and we talked a little more and then they kind of both looked at me and said, well, would you consider making it an art space?
00:21:11.724 --> 00:21:20.412
I was like, whoa, okay, well, I don't know, but that's where the conversation got started and I thought about it.
00:21:20.412 --> 00:21:24.530
We said, well, yes, I would if this is what we did.
00:21:24.530 --> 00:21:44.445
And I told them my dream which is the way it is right now, basically of artist studio space, of gallery space, of a community for artists and a community for people to come and meet those artists and see their work and to really to really support the east dallas arts community.
00:21:44.445 --> 00:21:45.648
He's like, okay, let's do it.
00:21:45.648 --> 00:21:49.281
And so that's kind of where we went.
00:21:49.281 --> 00:21:52.008
And in the middle of that, um, I was.
00:21:52.228 --> 00:21:58.907
I had been selected for an artist residency in france, but covid came and so I had to be pushed off to 2022.
00:21:58.907 --> 00:22:06.662
And my residency was going to be in the middle of when we were doing the build out of Art on Main, and I was like, oh God, I'm gonna have to cancel again.
00:22:06.662 --> 00:22:10.859
And my husband's like, no, you're not, I'll work, I'll help, we'll make it happen.
00:22:10.859 --> 00:22:12.221
You go to the residency.
00:22:12.221 --> 00:22:18.811
So I went in September for this monthlong residency and so I was oh, did I freeze?
