Chapter one of the physical storefront era: completed

This October, I paid off my physical storefront in Holly MI. I officially own the building! I’ve been selling woven jacquard tapestries, art prints, woven tote bags, pillows and more on a seasonal basis there. My revenue has skyrocketed and my vision for my career has expanded tenfold. Let’s talk about the last 3 years and my journey establishing myself in this chapter of the art business.

Adding an art business to my art business

You could say I stumbled upon the opportunity to buy another existing art business by being in the right place at the right time, but anyone who has stumbled upon an opportunity that they took a hold on was also the right person.

I had been selling my own art for years now, online and at shows. I had been working Renaissance Festivals around the country under another artist for a year and a half.

I wanted an in.

And I had all the skills and experience required. The “in” simply looked different than I thought it would. Fabric art was involved – an art genre I had almost no experience with. 

Because of this, I almost rejected the opportunity. 

If you want the full scoop on my decision to buy the tapestry business, you can listen to episode 28 and episode 29 of the Artsy Friends Podcast. I detail everything in the months right after it happened, when it’s still fresh.

Of course I ultimately accepted the deal: $51,000 for a building at the Michigan Renaissance Festival and all the equipment and inventory and contacts existing for Tapestry of Ravenstone. The payment was to be collected over the course of 3 years, equalling $17,000 per year. 

The first year 

There are many reasons you could also say I was the wrong person for this opportunity. Chief of all would be that I didn’t live anywhere. 

At the time I signed the paperwork, I was mailing the contracts from my airbnb in Florida, where I was staying with my boyfriend for an undefined amount of time while he was there for work. We had been there 5 months already. 

We had been traveling full time for about two years — for fun, for working festivals out west, in a tow-behind RV or in hotels, sometimes separately and sometimes together, depending on the job. 

But now that the paperwork made it official, I needed to go back home. 

Joey took a plane to Texas and I drove up to Michigan a few days later. I was headed to my parents’ house, where I would live for the next 7 months. 

At my parents’ place, there was room enough for some of the inventory I had purchased from the business but not all of it. I went to the previous owner’s workshop and picked up loads of raw fabric, strap handles, sewing needles, clothes pins, push pins, an iron with ironing table.

All of this I stored in a spare bedroom. My granny lived in the second spare bedroom. For 7 months I slept on the couch. Thankfully Jim was cool enough to let me pick up the rest of the equipment at an unspecified later date. The sewing machine, tables, and other large equipment would have to wait until Joey and I had our own place again. 

From a lifestyle standpoint this was actually fine. My standards aren’t very high, especially considering I had been living out of a suitcase for the past few years. Plus spending so much time with my granny during her last year was an era I’ll always cherish. 

But from a business standpoint, this arrangement was sort of a nightmare. 

I really needed access to all the equipment to run the business as usual. And I didn’t have that.

On top of that I didn’t know how to sew. And I couldn’t spend time practicing while the machine was still at his studio.

Worst of all I didn’t have enough existing inventory to make it through the first season. Soooo I had to come up with an alternative solution quickly.

I decided I would order pre-made tapestries wholesale, and sell them at the festival retail. While a great idea, this ended up also being a nightmare. Not very many suppliers exist for this sort of thing, and half of the ones that do, don’t sell to America. There were also an incredible amount of price issues, quality issues, shipping time issues, language barriers, and outdated websites to maneuver. 

Because of this, I had to start a giant spreadsheet to keep track of all this information, where I had gotten samples from and etc. The recordkeeping became a nightmare of its own. (But I think that’s just my Type B personality speaking.) I was creating systems as I needed them, and it was during such a time crunch of deadlines and limitations that I felt like I was in a pressure-cooker.

Immediately I began researching where I could have custom jacquard fabric woven of my own paintings as well. Many designs I was trying to source were in such limited quantity that I knew I’d have to supplement with something. Besides, you know I LOVE creating new products featuring my original paintings. This took more time than I anticipated, but turned out to be a great help. When they finally arrived, it was mid festival, and my stock of everything else was running embarrassingly low. Customers loved them, which was a lifesaver for my morale, my budget, and my storefront appearance. 

The festival is only 7 weekends long, but the demand is so high during that time that a whole year is needed to prep for it. I had spent 4 months seriously prepping from a disadvantaged standpoint. 

Afterward I understood why ordering premades had not been the business model before and I knew that as soon as I had the sewing machine and a studio of my own I would start to move away from it. But it was a good temporary fix for my supply problem. The quality was good, the customers were happy, but I couldn’t offer all the stock from previous years which left some disappointed. And it caused my profits to be dangerously low (read: nonexistent) which would carry a lot of issues into year two.

The second year

Technically the first year that A Cup of Cloudy acquired Tapestry of Ravenstone, it operated at a loss. Meaning I invested more money than I made. 

That’s all fine and good, very typical for businesses at their startup, except I knew that Tapestry of Ravenstone was a 15-year old, usually profitable business and I was completely blowing it. The learning curve, money curve, lack of housing curve, whatever curve you want to call it, was really cramping my visions of being a rich artist. 

Thankfully I’m a chronic optimist. So I kept going.

Before the second season, we got married, bought a house with space for an art studio, got the rest of the equipment, and started focusing on growing roots.

I began sewing. Jim even taught me over a few sessions how to make everything, both at his studio and in mine. I wasn’t as fast as him, but I was getting good. 

I planned to ramp up the production of tapestry pillows, which Jim had offered a scarce amount of, because they were easier to make and I personally love them. Plus, I knew they’d make the storefront look fuller when tapestries ran low in stock. This went well, and now I even offer the tapestry pillows online.

Tote bags, on the other hand, I largely neglected. These sold at an equal price point to pillows, but take 3x the amount of time to produce. Tweaking the pricing is always an ongoing process. But at this point, I decided to simply decenter tote bags. I wasn’t fast enough for them yet.

A month after we were finally settled, the Consew got jammed. Like, really jammed. (I learned later on that this is a common problem with industrial machines after you transport them – like a piano, it’s gotta be retuned.)

Repair was needed. I took videos to my local sewing shop. They said, “sorry, the only guy who worked on commercial machines passed away last year.” I called Jim, but he said it only jammed once and he paid a guy a lot of money to fix it. I consulted Youtube, which didn’t have any examples of my model. 

I started tinkering. Trying things that looked similar on Youtube. A month went by. I needed to be making product. I felt like a mechanic. Naturally my actually-a-mechanic husband was off in North Carolina on a job. Eventually I figured it out, after pulling much of the innards apart: it was a piece of lint. (insert 1000 eyerolls here.) Putting it back together meant I had to reset the timing and voila, the Consew 7360RB-1 was good as new. I was so proud! I had learned a new skill in the process.

The time I lost looking for a house, moving in, getting the equipment moved in, learning to sew, and fixing the machine ate up a lot of the time I wanted to be making more jacquard tapestry products, paintings, and other artwork to sell. 

The same problem was creeping up on me: lack of supply and approaching deadlines. 

I made more jacquard tapestries based on my original paintings. This time, I started earlier and had them available for the whole run of the fair. My butterfly bell pull tapestry became the number one bestseller! I’ve never felt more motivated to continue on with the jacquard fabric art than after these numbers came in. It’s really cool to sell historical artwork, it’s more satisfying to sell my own. 

I also ordered more premades. I borrowed money from my sister for the supply that would get me through the first weekend at least. 

With these two solutions plus being able to sew and make tapestries from the raw fabric, I improved on the first year a lot.

The second season still passed by much like the first: low stock and low profits, but I had more happy customers and was able to pay the payments for the year with more wiggle room, which I used for supplies and bills around the house. 

Hardships are part of the process

The thing about people who aren’t inside your art business is they don’t see how much you’re struggling with deadlines, cash flow, supply chain, or anything else like you do as someone inside the art business. Thank heavens for that.

But that’s why I’m writing this blog post. So you can be aware of what it really takes to run a physical storefront at the beginning, at least to some extent. 

You can be aware that after the first year, I neglected to put aside enough money to pay my sales taxes. So I owed the state of Michigan thousands of dollars, which I had to borrow from my parents, and pay back with the money I made in the second year. 

You can be aware that every weekend of the second year I slept at my cousins’ house, who lives much closer to Holly, MI. I was arriving at 4am in the morning after a long Friday night of working and driving, only to wake up at 5:30 to head to the festival to open up shop. I was hardly sleeping or eating or cleaning the house or doing anything except working.

You can be aware that during one weekend, my dog got hit by a car and died. My very best friend in the world. The next day I went in to run the shop and put on a cheery customer service face for 12 hours because I had no employees to fill in for me. 

These are NOT unusual or extraordinary hardships. 

Everyone who is dedicated to something will have to remain dedicated through mistakes, loss, and less-than-ideal circumstances.

The third year 

Season 3 came in hot with new challenges. The roof on the building got cited for a leak and I also needed to get several large and growing trees cleared from the property. 

Owning a physical storefront is all fun and games until you realize you have to clean it, landscape it, and do large maintenance projects on it. 

Truth be told, I saw the leak in year 2 and didn’t fix it because I didn’t have the money. Well, year 3 approached and I still didn’t have the money, but the leak got bad enough that the city noticed and issued me a citation.

I was hoping to wait it out until after year 4, when I knew I’d have an extra $17,000 to work with at least. But the water damage had other plans.

Again I borrowed money. I got enough to buy materials for the roof and to hire a company to come and remove the trees, which were growing in between my booth and the neighboring booth, threatening the foundation of both buildings.

The tree removal went smoothly. The roof did not.

There was enough money for roof materials but not a roofing crew. So, we became the roofing crew. By “we” I mean mostly my husband by himself. Of course we enlisted the help of my dad, who called off work for a day. We also enlisted the help of another skilled friend, but he had broken his hand recently, which put a damper on things. I helped, but at most I was scraping tar for hours, cutting boards and handing tools up a ladder. “Bitch work” is still work and I’ll take it if the job is getting done. I am not a roofer lmao.

The biggest damper of all was the previous construction done on the building. Nothing was square. And nothing was up to code. (This makes sense when you realize the festival actually predates the establishment of the city itself.)

Anyways after a gruelingly hot and complicated project done by a crew with little roofing experience, the roof was complete. I posted a before and after video here. 

After the maintenance and repairs on the physical storefront, I felt prepared for the season.

By the time the third season started, the booth was beautifully upgraded, I had managed to sew more woven tapestry stock than ever before, I had made a brand new original tapestry design (totaling 5 so far!), and I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. I slept at my cousin’s again, worked around the clock, broke sales records, and had a great year. My new original tapestry design became the new number one best seller. 

I paid my debts back for everything I borrowed. And finally I paid the last $17,000 check to Jim. 

And Tapestry of Ravenstone is officially owned by A Cup of Cloudy.

Lessons learned through grit

Struggling through this art business transition taught me a few valuable lessons that I’m going to pass on to you the easy way.

Excellence is in the details: Pay extreme attention to detail so you can make less mistakes. Neglecting the details means cutting corners (on purpose or on accident). Those corners can be cut from the quality, the customer service, your revenue, your bookkeeping – a corner somewhere is getting cut if you’re not paying extreme attention to detail. 

Some mistakes are not preventable by awareness alone, because you need money or people to fix them. That’s where determination and resourcefulness come in. When you can, improve. I love to say “start as you mean to go on” but if you cannot, then switch to how you mean to go on as soon as possible.

Ask for help: This journey has taught me to swallow my pride and be willing to look like a failure on the outside while building something great. (If you think I sound dramatic, YOU try being 29, moving back in with your parents to sleep on their couch, not having a day job, and taking on an additional $51,000 in debt with no guarantees.) But what I looked like on the outside mattered less than the vision I saw for my future. 

Asking for help with my living situation, help with money, help with storage space, help with labor – all of these took being humble. I wouldn’t necessarily say I had this quality before. 

It’s comforting to my pride to know I can always pay them back in favors or in money. Or in the case of my husband, homemade dinners and forehead kisses. And the bond I share with the people I asked for help ultimately grew stronger because being vulnerable and having someone to lean on is what true community is all about.

Long term strategy over everything: I take pride in my work and I won’t allow it to suck even if it takes more time. Overall I wanted to share this because a lot of artists or business owners underestimate the length of time you have to “work for free” to make a lot of money. It’s in quotations because I charged for all my art, but all the revenue got rolled into the business. I didn’t buy new clothes or jewelry or buy my family Christmas gifts with it. I put it back where it came from to keep the source intact.

It’s a long game strategy. Meaning the short term is suffering. But often the short term strategies come with long term suffering. So I want to focus on long term positive results, no matter the short term cost.

These three years I made bigger and bigger revenue, but my profit was continually rolled into bills and investing in the business. I’ve never made so much money in my life. And yet: during this period I was late on my mortgage, I skipped important weddings, and stopped traveling the way I used to. My focus was on growing the art business and making the physical storefront work.

If you’re considering going all in on your creative business, it might take years to see big results. And that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re in progress. Don’t quit!

Physical storefront plan for 2026 and 2027 

Firstly, I’m celebrating. It’s a huge accomplishment to purchase an asset like this for my art business – one that’s going to help provide A Cup of Cloudy with stability and roots for the future. I’m celebrating the new sewing skills and weaving knowledge I’ve gained. I’m celebrating the person I became in the process. And every year I’m still in shock that I’m a full-time artist (since 2021).

Mostly I’m celebrating that I now have a waaaayy different vision of my future than I had 3 years ago. My dreams are 100x grander. I’m not ready to give my blueprints away yet, but the next two years include new original designs, buying a new weaving loom, new improvements in the building, and hiring help. There are a lot of supplies I need to reup on and my finances are still tight. But I have more options now. 

And maybe I will treat myself with a new pair of earrings or a trip to Art Basel Miami 😉

Because I deserve it after all of that.

I hope this article was reassuring to any artist or creative or business owner who is also in the thick of it. Especially if you’re interested in having a physical storefront someday. It’s messy and chaotic for us all! 

Cheers!!