CYOP #70 - Handling Favorable Press Coverage with Sarah Perez of Electric Sun Creatives
Welcome to CYOP Season 3! I'm very excited to kick off this new season with a four-interview series focused on those who are making physical products for a living. Sarah Perez of Electric Sun Creatives is my first guest and I had an opportunity to chat with her in her beautiful studio at the Warehouse Artist Lofts here in Sacramento, California.
If you're not familiar with Sarah's work, she makes really striking wall hangings and mobiles using driftwood (along with other wood products) and brass. In the interview, we talk through Sarah's recent press coverage through social media and how it's changed the way she manages the logistical side of running her business. We also go into her material choices, how she ended up making the products she does today and how she plays with limits to spark her own creativity.
Enjoy!
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Follow along with Sarah's adventures:
Today’s show brings to the home of Natalie Davis of the leather goods brand, Canoe, to chat about her career path, the growth she’s seen with her leatherworking business over the years and the magical land in which she creates—Austin, Texas. If you happen upon Natalie’s website, you may not realize that she also helps her husband with his business venture—a butcher shop and restaurant in Austin—and that up until recently, she was also a design professor. In the interview, we dive into all of her different roles and how each one feeds into her creativity in different ways...
Today’s show brings me to East Nashville to chat with Graffiti and Fine Artist Troy Duff. He’s a Nashville native who has created an incredible career around his art, but he’s also worked as a model and actor—he was actually part of that iPod silhouette advertising campaign several years ago—and he created his own clothing line as well. In the interview, we talk about why Troy made the move back to Nashville after his time in Los Angeles, what it was like getting into the graffiti art scene without all of the tools and resources that are available these days and how he diversifies his work so that he is truly a working artist...
Today's show brings me to the Burlington, Vermont hot shop (or blown glass factory) of AO Glass to interview Owner and General manager Rich Arentzen, who has been in the glass blowing industry for decades. During the interview, I learned more about how he got started as a glass blower and just how winding his career path has been. We also talked a lot about the importance of reaching out to others—even if it’s a little scary—and why craft, community, collaboration and financial sustainability have to come together to maintain a successful business...
Today's show brings me to the home of Katie Michels just outside of Chicago. I’ve been following Katie’s work for years and was super impressed as I watched her transition Off Switch, which used to be a gorgeous magazine, into an online shop full of cards, totes and other beautifully designed items—all of which she creates. During the interview, we talk through that transition and what it meant for her as a business owner, the meaning behind the brand “Off Switch” and how she’s moving forward with her big goals one step at a time...