Meet Chelsey Farnum from Studiowurk...
I’m an art educator and interdisciplinary artist who loves to experiment and transform materials, as well as find the humor in things. I’m a massive goofball and love to laugh and spend time with friends. I’m also a major animal lover. Part of my art business is painting custom pet portraits. My husband and I moved to Cleveland last September from Denver, Colorado.
My journey as an artist has been a bit of a balancing act. During my last three years of teaching art in public school, I taught half-time and built my business half-time. Now, in year four, it’s my first full-time year, and it feels both energizing and overwhelming. The mysteries of running a business still befuddle me!
This will be my first Avant-Garde show, and I couldn’t be more excited to share my work with the community. Observing the world around me or experimenting usually inspires me to create. An idea for a new piece often comes from either something I’ve seen or just messing around with materials. I’ve found that having a loose idea of what something should look like really works for me—it’s a play between my idea and the limitations of the materials I’m using, and I really like that balance.
I’ve always loved making things—drawing, sculpting, and more. I guess I was lucky enough to go to art school and learn a wide range of methods and techniques. My drawing ability actually got me some (rare) positive attention from my peers at school. There was somewhat of a blackmarket trade of goods in elementary school, and drawings of Garfield in the '90s served as valuable currency!
When I get an idea I really like, I try to make at least three of it, exploring the different possibilities within the idea. Sometimes that will lead me off on a tangent if I discover something unique. When I don’t have commissions in the queue or anything to work on, I love experimenting with the random things I hoard in my studio—an elementary art teacher habit! I really love trying to make my own tools or using materials in an unconventional way.
In five years, I’d love to see myself expanding my commission work to some bigger projects, like art installations or mural painting. I’d also love to expand the portrait portion of my business into people, not just pets.
Meet Antoinette from Ace N Spades...
Ace N Spades is a mother and daughter owned company that makes and sells hard candy edibles. We have been in operation since April 2023.
This will be our first Avant-Garde show, and we are so excited to share our creations with the community. Giving back to the community by providing candy that can help with pain, sleep, and anxiety as well as tastes good is our inspiration to continue to make more.
Our creative process is pretty straightforward. We mix everything together, let it boil, then put it in trays for it to sit for 30 minutes. After that, we break them out, bag, and label.
In five years, I see us having our own kitchen and warehouse to make the candy and ship it out. Our message is that edibles are not just gummies, and hard candy tastes and works so much better.
Meet Nicole Anderson from Cole's Candles...
My name is Nicole, and I was born and raised in Cleveland with my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my two sisters. We were a very active household, bouncing around from swim practices to dance classes, basketball, softball, tennis, and so much more. I graduated from Kent State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Education. Aside from Cole's Candles, I work at the Cleveland Clinic downtown full time within Imaging.
What I enjoy doing in my downtime, aside from candle making, would be that I love to bake and cook new recipes, take nature walks, have movie nights with the family, and go to trivia nights weekly with my friends.
I started candle making back in the Summer of 2023 when I took a single class with my cousins. I really had a great time during the session, and what I had learned in that class stuck with me, and I quickly fell in love with it! A few months went by, and I decided to take what I had learned to make homemade gifts for my friends, my family, and my co-workers for the holidays. I had different holiday scents that I thought would work well for making candles, but based on a questionnaire I created and the answers that I received, I was able to create a scented blend for that specific individual so their gift was custom made and truly designed just for them.
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After the holidays in January 2024, I received a lot of positive feedback from the people that I had gifted my candles to. I was so proud that I was able to create something homemade that really made people happy. One month later, I decided to take a leap of faith and create my own individual candle-making business and have worked at a few farmer's markets and craft fairs in the Summer and Winter of 2024.
This will actually be my first Avant-Garde Art and Craft Show, so I feel truly honored to be able to participate with so many talented crafters! I hope that this show will be the first of many that I will be able to participate in the future.
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What inspires me the most is having the creative freedom to bring scents together into beautiful blends that bring people joy. Another unique thing about candle making is that there is not just one candle scent that I have made that people tend to favor more than the other scents. Everybody's sense of smell is different, and so it is nice to see that there truly is a scent out there for everyone!
Funny enough, I usually find my inspiration for making new scents in two ways. The first way is by walking through the grocery store and seeing items that I think would mix well into my candles. Another way I get inspired is from dreams that I have each night. I will dream about different ingredients, get the scent profile in my dreams, then I will wake up and immediately write it down in my journal so that I don't forget.
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At Cole's Candles, our mission is to spread a little kindness. It is my wish that my candles help to send a little faith, hope, and love to you and to the ones you cherish. I genuinely believe that all we need to bring positivity to the world is to spread a little kindness.
Meet Keisha Berkley from F.O.C.U.S...
My name is Keisha Berkley. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. I graduated from Cleveland State University, and I currently have my own online business, which consists of me helping consumers reach their health, beauty, and fitness goals. One of my many passions is art. I love to create different paintings and drawings based off real-life people, situations, and sceneries.
This will be my first Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show, and I am so excited to be a part of it! Things that I’ve been through in the past are my inspiration to create art. Also, living life, going outside, looking at nature—things such as trees, the sky, and the sunset—inspire me as well.
My creative process is simple. I typically would put on an audio or turn on my TV, then clear my mind. Sometimes I think of different persons, places, things, or nature to paint or draw. I search different things up for ideas or paint an object that might be in my household.
In 5 years, I see my business thriving. I see myself having a large fan base and customer base for my art. I also believe I will be able to have paintings in art galleries, and some will be able to be auctioned off for large amounts of money.
The messages that I want others to understand about my work are that anyone can start or create art. Also, that they can do anything they set their mind to.
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