Mary-Catheryn from Copper Corners Art joins us on location at her art showroom. She specializes in paintings of animals and creating unique pieces of jewelry. Learn about her journey to build a flourishing art business, including asking the opinions of strangers, building a customer base and finding your stride in the world.

Visit her at CopperCornersArt.com!

 

Transcript

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00:08 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m home. From finance to fitness. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson, with Consumers Credit Union. Today, we have something very special for you. We are on location at one of the most beautiful businesses, I’ve ever been in, and it’s beautiful because the passion of the artist is all around us, and she actually is with us today. Copper Corners Art, owner artist, designer, shipper, packager…

 

00:35 Mary-Catheryn: Shipper, packager. I do a little bit of everything.

 

00:37 LJJ: Thank you so much for letting us in today.

 

00:40 MC: Yes, thank you so much for coming.

 

00:41 LJJ: We are so excited to hear about your business and how you got here. Let’s start at the beginning, way at the beginning.

 

00:48 MC: Alright, way at the beginning. So, I grew up in South America, and so I was really close to nature, and animals, and especially cows. Cows were all over the place; they roam the streets freely, so they would fall asleep in our driveway and make me late to school because we couldn’t back our car out of the driveway, because they were cow was there. So, I always loved cows. And then fast forward 20 years, my husband Jordan and I, we moved to Florida and we had these huge walls that we needed to fill, and I couldn’t find anything that I liked. I looked and looked and looked and looked and finally, I was like, “I’m just going to do it myself ’cause I had paint… I’ve always painted; it runs in my family. Everyone in my family’s kind of an artist.

 

01:31 LJJ: Natural, innate talent.

 

01:31 MC: Yeah. And so, I went to Michaels. I bought all the stuff and I painted the cow ’cause that’s what I wanted to do, and so I hung it on the wall…

 

01:41 LJJ: The wall or like on canvas.

 

01:42 MC: No, I did it on a canvas, and then I hung it up and I absolutely loved it. Well, neighbors would come over to meet us and introduce themselves and so on, and one of the neighbors came and saw it and she loved it too, and she insisted on buying it. And she was like, “I have to buy this, I want this.” And I was like, “Okay.” So, I sold it to her, and then I painted another one. And then her sister…

 

02:05 LJJ: And so somewhere out in the world is the first original art.

 

02:07 MC: Yes, very first cow that was supposed to be for my wall. And do you know what? We still don’t have a cow at our house on our walls, still to this day. No, because it sold. So, I did another one and then her sister wanted it, and then my sister-in-law wanted one, and her friend from work wanted one. It just went from there.

 

02:26 LJJ: So, if you are listening today, I want you to close your eyes a moment, unless you’re driving, and picture a cow in the brightest, boldest colors that you just have this great expression on his or her face. Big, we’re talking… What was your first size?

 

02:50 MC: The first one was 3′ by 4′ feet.

 

02:51 LJJ: 3′ by 4′ feet.

 

02:52 MC: Yeah, so it was four feet wide.

 

02:54 LJJ: It’s a statement piece, there’s no question.

 

02:57 MC: It’s a statement piece, it’s what I do.

 

03:00 LJJ: So, in Copper, here at the location when you walk in, you’re going to be able to see the cow. But let’s look around. And what else do you see?

 

03:10 MC: Oh, it’s a whole menagerie of a zoo. We’ve got zebras, and ostriches, and sheep, and horses, and a little bit of everything.

 

03:21 LJJ: And jewelry.

 

03:21 MC: And jewelry. Yes, I come out with two collections a year. And they’re all based on pieces of artwork. So, for example, I have a scarlet cow, and two seasons ago I had a scarlet earring which was based on the colors of the cow, the look, the feel, everything.

 

03:38 LJJ: So, where did it bubble up? I get the fact that someone said, “Hey I want to purchase this. But then how in the world did it become… Holy cow. This is a business?

 

03:49 MC: ‘Cause I couldn’t keep anything on my walls. I mean I’d paint something for myself and it would go, and then I’d paint another one for myself, and it would go, and it just kept going, and then eventually I kind of turned it into… I always from the beginning, I always painted the corners of them in copper. I just did ’cause I liked it. I don’t know…

 

04:09 LJJ: That’s your trademark.

 

04:10 MC: That’s my thing; it’s kind of my signature.

 

04:11 LJJ: And that’s where Copper Corner’s Art came in.

 

04:14 MC: It is. But the funny part is, is the first house that we ever bought together, Jordan and I together being married, was on a street called Copper Corners. Isn’t that nuts? And so it hit me one day and I was like, “I always paint copper corners, the first house that we bought together was on a street called Copper Corners, and so I just kind of meshed it made myself my studio, Copper Corners, and then that kind of turned it into a business. Once I had my name, I was like, “Okay well, this is a business.”

 

04:42 LJJ: So, you’re a start-up.

 

04:43 MC: Yep.

 

04:44 LJJ: And a way you go. Tell me about some of the struggles that you’re seeing… To me, it sounds like it’s almost that you just have to produce a lot.

 

04:53 MC: I do. I have to produce a lot. Struggles? I’m short about 10 hours every day in the day. If I could only have 10 more hours in the day, I’d probably be good. I think that’s a struggle probably for anyone and everyone, but I guess, your day-to-day struggles. I have pieces sometimes that I’ve had in my head for two years, and I just don’t have the time to get them on to canvas. I guess that’s a struggle.

 

05:27 LJJ: Well, when you’re running a business, for anyone who is listening and they’re thinking to themselves, “Boy, I want to start a business.” Were there things that surprised you about actually running the day-to-day? Did you figure it out as you went?

 

05:39 MC: Running, I always ask for advice from people who are my complete opposite. So I’m more of a conservative type of person when it comes to spending money. I’m very, very conservative. Jordan on the other hand, is, he’s conservative, but he’s a little more risky, I’d say, so I always ask him. I’m like, “What would you do in this situation? How would you do this?” And he gives me a completely different opinion, and then I actually listen to it, and I always compare his opinion with my opinion and how that would work. We also talk to his uncle, has owned car dealerships for many, many years. And so, if I have a question with something I’ll ask him, because he’s definitely a risk taker, he’s… So, I always ask someone else who’s my opposite and get that completely different opinion on something, and I think that that really helps to decide if something’s a good idea or if it’s not a good idea.

 

06:41 MC: You also need to know if people like it. I think that’s a lot of problems with entrepreneurs for example, is they have this great idea in their head and they love it, love it love it, but it’s great for them. You need to make sure that you’re going to have clients, and you need to make sure that it’s going to sell and that you’re going to have customers, that other people really want it. So, I like to, if I do a painting that I think is really, really great, I will send it to my sister because she is so mean. And she will straight up tell me, “That is hideous.” Or “That’s absolutely stunning, I love it.” So, I’ll send it to my sister, I’ll send it to my mom, I send it to Jordan, I send it to my friends, and I’m like, “Tell me what you think of this, give me feedback. Do you like the colors? Do you like this? Do like that?” And then it’s usually pretty universal. If one person doesn’t really like it, none of them really like it, and I know it’s not going to go, and I need to fix it. I need to tweak it, and I need to make it better.

 

07:40 LJJ: So, it sounds to me like you have a really core group of mentors, whether they be family or others who have run businesses, who you listen to opinions. And I love the fact that they’re different than yours.

 

07:54 MC: Yes, I always want a different opinion, ’cause if I go someone who has my exact same opinion, I’m not really going to hit a broad audience. I need someone with a completely different opinion. And I’ll even ask strangers ’cause strangers will also tell you, like, “Yeah, I’m not interested in that.” They have no fear because they don’t know you, so they don’t care really about hurting your feelings. So, they’ll say, “Yeah, I really like this,” or “no, I don’t really like this.” So even if you don’t have a core group of people, go sit at a Starbucks and talk to people and ask people and say, “Hey, what do you think of this? Would you use this in your life? Do you like this?” And if 99 out of 100 say no, then you’ve got to tweak something; you’ve got to fix something. If 99 out of 100, say yes, then roll with it ’cause you’ve got something good.

 

08:41 LJJ: Well, something the good that you do have is right behind us, and that is a wall paper. So I’ll be honest, wall paper was a huge thing and then it kind of was like, “Oh my goodness, don’t anybody ever use wall paper.”

 

08:53 MC: Yeah, wallpaper before was tricky because once you put it on the walls, there was no taking it down. And I think that that kind of tainted a lot of people because they would move into a house that someone had wall papered before, and they would want to make it their style and they couldn’t get the wallpaper off the walls. Or they get it off and it would tear the walls terribly, and it just got this really bad stigma of, like, “Don’t ever do wallpaper because it’s terrible.” But no, wallpaper has come a long way since then. And I actually… Everything that I do is something that I would want in my own home. So I chose to work with a very specific paper that you get it wet and it sticks on the walls; you get it wet and it comes off. So, the old glue forever, never coming off, never being able to change messiness, I’ve kind of eliminated.

 

09:43 LJJ: How did you research and let’s explain. Your designs are on the wallpaper.

 

09:48 MC: It is. Almost every single wallpaper has come from a painting that I’ve done, and if it wasn’t a painting that I did it was a drawing that I did or pattern that I came up with. And I’ve actually collaborated with two other artists and added them into the wallpaper line ’cause I just love their stuff and I thought, “What a great way to collaborate.” But yeah, so it’s all basically artwork; there’s one right here, that it’s white flowers with kind of a black background, and it’s super textured, and when you have it over on the wall, it looks like I came to your house and I painted on your wall.

 

10:20 LJJ: Oh, wow.

 

10:20 MC: And so that’s what I really wanted, ’cause I had clients who wanted me to paint things on their walls. But they lived in California and I’m in Michigan. I have three kids, and I have things to. And as fun as it sounds, to hop on a plane and go paint someone’s walls, I just don’t have time to do it. So that’s kind of where I came up with the idea for the wallpaper.

 

10:38 LJJ: So, let’s talk about something you just mentioned. Three kids, running a business.

 

10:43 MC: Oh, my gosh.

 

10:43 LJJ: Now, you’re running your business alongside your husband, who we will be talking with later in podcasts, who runs an auto dealership and you’re in the same location…

 

10:54 MC: Yep.

 

10:55 LJJ: I mean it just keeps going and going.

 

10:57 MC: It does. Yeah. So, we have three kids, a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a three-year-old, and half of the time they’re here running around, and half the time they’re at home playing. But yeah, we wanted… I was looking for a location because our house was exploding, I was doing everything out of our house; we ship all over the world. We ship to South America, Africa, everywhere, and so we were doing this all basically out of my basement and it was taking over the whole house. There were boxes in the kitchen, it was just… So, I needed a space. Jordan was also looking for a space for his dealership. I was thinking of maybe going to Ada where they’re building up things a little bit more downtown, where you can… Where there’s walkable space, and we kind of thought about it and were like, “Listen, Jordan needs a parking lot. I need walls. So, if we could somehow make this work.” And we happened to stumble across this… Jordan’s grandma actually stumbled across this building. It’s three minutes from our house, two minutes from the kids’ school and we thought, “This is perfect.” We can have both of our things in one place; we can have the kids here if we need to have the kids here in summer vacation, which is right now. I’ve got the walls, you’ve got the parking lot, and we could probably save money by both being in one place and it just worked.

 

12:25 LJJ: Well. And you do have the system of the shipping and the packaging, that’s here too on-site.

 

12:33 MC: That’s all here. Yeah.

 

12:34 LJJ: So smart business decisions.

 

12:36 MC: Yes.

 

12:36 LJJ: You’re laughing, but they’re very smart business decisions.

 

12:40 MC: Well thanks. Well, it’s that same thing, it’s my conservative-ness. And then, Jordan’s little bit of a risk taking. This was a big building. I wouldn’t normally want to do such a big building. At first I’d want to something smaller, but it worked out.

 

12:56 LJJ: Well I’ll tell you Consumers is very proud to be a partner with you.

 

13:00 MC: Well thanks. I am, too.

 

13:01 LJJ: And we really love the fact that when you look at life the way that you’re looking at it, which is, “Hey we can make this work. We can use our passions.” And that’s what I think is the most incredible part of your story is the passion that you bring into everyday life.

 

13:20 MC: You have to have that in order to make something work; otherwise it’s very easy to give up unless you’ve got that passion and that drive, and then it works.

 

13:28 LJJ: Well, I’ll tell you, it works here for sure.

 

13:30 MC: Well, thank you.

 

13:31 LJJ: So, if you’re ever in the Grand Rapids market, you need to stop by… It’s Copper Corners Art, but all over the world.

 

13:37 MC: It is Coppercornersart.com.

 

13:39 LJJ: Beautiful website.

 

13:40 MC: Thank you.

 

13:41 LJJ: And as you heard, you can have something delivered right to your door. It’s pretty amazing. I’ll tell you what, Mary Catheryn, this was amazing. Your passion is just as beautiful as your artwork.

 

13:52 MC: Thank you, thank you so much.

 

13:53 LJJ: Thank you so much for letting us in your home.

 

13:55 MC: Yes, this is my home. Well, when the children are here, I’s definitely like a home.

 

14:00 LJJ: It, it is. Hey, Money, I’m home. From finance to fitness. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union, and we’ve got our producers, Jake and Aaron, and I’ll tell you what, you have a story you’d like us to share. We’d like to tell it. Money, I’m home. Consumers Credit Union.