Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#307: Gina DeSantis (Ceramic Artist) (pt. 1 of 2)
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Gina DeSantis. She’s the lead creator behind Gina DeSantis Ceramics—the company she founded in 2013.
She began her ceramic studies at her local community college and by 2006 earned her MFA from Kent State University. Her works are in 400 retailers throughout the US such as Uncommon Goods, Anthropologie, and McGee & Co.
Gina is the embodiment of persistence and lifelong learning, so if you or someone you know needs inspiration to power through a tough time, make sure they hear this interview! https://www.ginadesantisceramics.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and.
Nick Petrella:I'm Nick Petrella. Gina DeSantis is with us today. She's the lead creator behind Gina DeSantis Ceramics, the company she founded in 2013. She began her ceramic studies at her local community college and by 2006, earned her MFA from Kent State University. Her works are in 400 retailers throughout the US, such as Uncommon Goods, Anthropologie and Magee Company. We'll have Gina's website in the show notes so you can read more about her and shop from her beautiful inventory of ceramic pieces. It's great to have you on the podcast, Gina.
Gina DeSantis:Thank you for having me.
Nick Petrella:Why don't you describe your journey from the time you earned your mfa in 2006 to founding your company in 2013?
Gina DeSantis:um, the short answer would be it's a non-linear journey. The long answer would be I worked a lot of jobs that had absolutely nothing to do with my degree, which I think is common in the art field. You kind of scrap by and find as many jobs as you can to pay the bills. For me, the first job out of grad school was as a visual merchandiser, which I have no educational training for, but managed to pull off with my art background. I then moved into the nonprofit sector as an assistant for the Orange Art Center in Pepper Pike. During this entire time, I was also teaching for Art House, a nonprofit in Old Brooklyn, teaching ceramics and kids classes and then doing the same in Pepper Pike. So I got laid off, you know, during the 2008 push as well, I also worked shortly as a marketing assistant for Zoya Nail Polish. So it was a lot of jobs that weren't really what I wanted to do. I was doing art shows on the weekend. I had my studio set up, I was starting to get more clients and in 2013, I had the opportunity to acquire a second studio space for a classroom, and that is when I decided maybe I can quit my day job.
Gina DeSantis:I simultaneously did a wholesale show in Philadelphia in 2013. And that is when I started working with Uncommon Goods. They came up to me the last hour of the last day at this show, where I was doing horrible I hadn't even made my booth feedback and they said oh, we love this mug with like a wood carving. Would you personalize it? And I said, sure, why not? Not, because at that point I was just done.
Gina DeSantis:I was stuck in the city with no money and, um, they came back later with the forecast for a thousand sets to sell at Christmas and, for the first time in history, a forecast was correct. You know, you always think of the weather forecast and it's 50 50. So I made 2,000 mugs by hand, um, while running this classroom space, and then realized in June of 2013, as this is all going on, that I was using the money from my artwork to pay to drive to my day job. I was being paid that badly that I was like all right, well, I have nothing to lose at this point. You know I'll waitress if I need to, or just work in retail. So that's when I quit.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, and so why did you wait that long? What? What prompted you to start then and say not a couple of years earlier?
Gina DeSantis:I was always at it, you know, making artwork, teaching. You know I was constantly hustling and busy, but I think the landscape started to change. I think, you know, social media is a blessing and a curse. It was Instagram didn't exist when I was in graduate school. Etsy was finally, you know, kind of off the ground. Handmade shows were making a comeback, but not in the typical, you know, art festival way and the very much the handmade maker back into craft. So I think the timing of all of that was a perfect catalyst just to get my business off the ground. And you know, a lot of times too, you don't, you're not, you're told you can't do it. You know you teach college in the day, you, you know, work on your artwork at night, and that was kind of how things were done and that was a shift that was happening when I was in graduate school. But it took all those jobs and those accumulation of those skills to really help what I do now.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah, that's also maybe what the timing of the, the uncommon goods, purchase too. I mean, what sort of all of that happening at the same time, right?
Gina DeSantis:Exactly and to be completely upfront, I mean, I was an artist making, you know, just over 20 grand a year and that forecast alone was $34,000. So right there, one order, one forecast was more money than I made in a year at two jobs. Yeah.
Andy Heise:Well, and that that was that's sort of my, that was going to be. My question too is was there a? And maybe, maybe that was sort of the impetus for it? But I'm also wondering was there a point in time, maybe after that, that you were like okay, I think, I think this is going to work, I think this ceramics business could, could actually go, could go.
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, I think you know I've worked with them this entire time and I think having that account was the. It was the Kickstarter I didn't need to do. I didn't have traditional funding. I had funding from one family member for my pottery wheels for the classroom. Other than that, every bit of funding I ended up finding was my own. It was organic or money I earned, so it really subsidized me getting the rest of the business off the ground. And I think that is the biggest hurdle. You know, because I'm constantly told well, you're more of a business person than an artist. You should be applying for business grants. You know I've applied, for I have a few loans that I've received and I have some grants I've won. But it's not as easy as people think. Oh, you're going to write a grant and you're going to get it.
Nick Petrella:It's not how it works. Sure, and do you still have those loans, or are those those have since passed?
Gina DeSantis:So my loans included ECDI, which is a micro lending company, um, they work with a lot of small businesses. I highly recommend them, um, but getting a business loan was harder than um doing the paperwork for a mortgage on a house, so that's something I think people need to be prepared for when you're starting a business. I luckily had about three years of paperwork to show him, um, and I have an accountant, which is the best investment I think a business needs to make, because I'm able to walk in with all my paperwork from him and look like an organized human being, even if I don't feel like it. Competition called Bad Girl Ventures, which is now rebranded as Aviatra Accelerators, but I want to loan with them.
Gina DeSantis:And then I did do an SBA loan during the pandemic because the interest was so low. And then the other thing I love is QuickBooks does capital. So if you need some quick capital you don't want to put a wholesale show on your credit card I use QuickBooks. They know how much money I make each year and they know how much they're willing to fund me, and the interest is so much lower than a loan. So right now, all I have left is just a tiny bit on the SBA loan, which is where I'd like to be in the next year or two, is running a business without very much debt, with everything that's going on in the world.
Andy Heise:Oh yeah, that's great. Yeah, I was looking at ECDI and it is a community development fund, so and that's really I'm glad you brought that up, because those are really interesting little pockets of funding for small businesses. I know the one here in Kansas City we have. One specific portion of that community development fund is for artists. It's called ArtCap here in Kansas City, so those are fantastic resources for emerging small businesses to get some working capital.
Gina DeSantis:Exactly, and I don't think most small businesses know about them, because how they work for anyone who doesn't know is they pull together your loan from multiple banks so they average that interest together. So you might not be able as a new business, to get 500, you know, or $50,000 from a bank, but you may be able to get it from five and they merge all that together and make it really helpful. They've done a lot with the Cleveland businesses especially, so I kind of knew them through bad girl ventures yeah, and that was a big help.
Andy Heise:Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned competitions too, because those are fantastic sources of funds that, again, are pretty, pretty common nowadays in most major cities. And just you're in Cleveland, correct, correct? Yeah, again, like so, cleveland, you know. Whatever cities, most cities have those types of competitions in some capacity, whether it's through the EDC or the Small Business Development Corporation. In this case, it was through a bank. Is that what you said?
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, this was through multiple banks.
Andy Heise:Multiple banks yeah.
Gina DeSantis:Okay, yeah, that they reach out to. And then you know, with Bad Girl Ventures that put us in touch. We worked with business advisors of Cleveland, which is a group of former business people who volunteered their time to help you with your business. That was valuable. They taught us how to do a pitch for our business. They helped us with our accounting. They showed us how to do an accounting spreadsheet to show natural growth and acceleration and expenses. So there were a lot of things that when I was in school we did not have any professional practices classes, Right, so my professional practices was making mistakes from 2006 to now still to this day, Sure of course, learning from that and jokingly calling my business a plant Not going to do that again.
Andy Heise:What not to do? What I'm not going to do Because it didn't work, no, it didn't work.
Gina DeSantis:Time to move on, and on to the next thing, and hopefully I don't screw this one up. So that's part of it, and to Andy's point.
Nick Petrella:There are a lot of competitions and different development groups, even in small cities.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Nick Petrella:You know so getting people getting the work to stay there, and it's kind of segues into the next question here. So you on your website you state that your works are proudly made in the USA. Why is that important to you and do you think that has helped you win some of these small grants?
Gina DeSantis:I think that you know the integrity of the pieces. My pieces are higher end. They cost a bit more. Not everyone is going to spend forty eight dollars or more on a mug if it's mass produced in China and I employ three people and I'm you know they assist in all steps. So if you get a mug made for me, I probably threw and trim that mug. There's a chance my assistant put the handle on it and there's a definite chance that they fired everything and glazed it for me. So everything you know touches my hands. But it goes through a process in the studio where I'm helping other artisans get better at their craft. I help them get their businesses off the ground. One assistant was able to get a studio in our building down the hall through networking at the space. So you know it's part of keeping everything in Cleveland and creating jobs, not just being a self-employed artist but actually creating opportunities for people that didn't exist when I was just finishing up school.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, has your process changed since that initial order was from uncommon goods?
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, it changes again through trial and error. You know, the classroom space closed in 2020 during COVID, and I just never reopened it because I was able. A lot of wholesale shows went digital and that's when some bigger accounts like Anthropologie McGee Company and Shop Amber found me. So I was able to get, you know, kind of put pause on the classroom and realize the classroom space was hindering my ability to market my artwork, and that is when I was able to truly, you know, hire employees to help. I always had, you know, interns, work, trade assistants, I had contract instructors, but for me, you know, I had to learn what I could delegate, and that was really challenging because I want the integrity of the artwork to be there, I want the quality to be there, and you're buying something handmade, but the realization is I can't produce the amount of work people want me to make, right, which is a good problem to have.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, absolutely, and that's what made me that prompted the question, because if you're still doing that, it's a lot of hands-on work. Even now you have a few more hands. It's fundamentally stayed the same.
Gina DeSantis:Exactly.
Andy Heise:Yeah, and you're not you're not using molds or anything I mean everything is hand?
Gina DeSantis:I don't know the terminology for it. Yeah, everything is hand thrown or hand built. I'm not a mold maker. There are some ceramic artists in the country that do molds, it's no. It's no less or more of of a craft. It's just a different way of engineering, sure, so it just it's not how my brain works. I can throw quicker than I can pour molds, because that's how I work. Um, other people see what I do and they're like oh my god, no, I'm doing a mold, but we use, you know, for trade, for trades and that sort of thing.
Gina DeSantis:we use templates okay, yeah we have cutting tools for handles um. Every ball of clay is weighed before I throw it, so there's a system of organization. Yeah, amazing, yeah.
Nick Petrella:Let's have one more follow-up question. I see on the website you do have one collection that's partially produced in Hong Kong. What prompted you to work with another manufacturer and why did you select that particular manufacturer?
Gina DeSantis:So this started with the mugs from Uncommon Goods and the problem was I could not. So these mugs are thrown, a handle gets put on them, they're carved, they're bisque fired, they're personalized, they're glazed, they're fired again and they're shipped. So for me and my studio to keep up with that, we would be doing nothing else. You know it's slowed since the inception of working with them. It started with a thousand sets at Christmas. Now it's probably more, anywhere between three and 500 sets at Christmas, just based on, you know, retail sales and trends. But it was physically impossible to maintain the integrity of those pieces in that level with a catalog. So I started working with I found a slipcaster in Texas woman named Chris. She did a phenomenal job and it's not easy to find slipcasting production studios in the United States. I looked, trust me, you know you have some people like Mud Shark on the West coast that are amazing, but their price points don't really fit. At that point I should be pouring myself. I don't have that kind of structure Again. I'm not a mold maker. This is not what I do. This is not my expertise. So I worked with Chris for years. Unfortunately, chris passed away from cancer and her business partner decided she was not going to be doing production, she was just going to be doing mold making. And that is when I started working with another Kent State graduate to be doing mold making.
Gina DeSantis:And that is when I started working with another Kent State graduate. So Aaron Swank, who was working for Klein and Reed in New York, had moved back here and Eva Kwong from Kent had connected us and he started working on my mugs for me and then his business took off. So we at that point I had already established this vase collection in porcelain, and part of the reason is I work with a lot of dark stoneware clays and to switch back and forth between clays is a lot more work than people think, because we recycle everything. We use Different glazes fit different clay bodies. So the porcelain I was like. You know, I have this vase collection with this very foamy creator glaze. This is a great thing to because of the demand of it to have mass produced.
Gina DeSantis:So I started hunting for companies and I found one that I loved, and so they. You know I have friends too that work for Energizer Battery and she kind of helped me maneuver working with overseas companies. So I found one where I thought you know their company ethics were lining up with what I do, and that's when I had to reach out to them to make the modes, the. You know, uncommon Goods was on the fence with it. Everything's still hand painted here, but there's just no way I can produce those. So that was kind of how that formed and again that realization of what can I physically produce in my studio. I don't necessarily want to run a small factory. You know there's some artists that do and kudos to them, like East Fork Pottery for example. They're amazing. I love everything they do. I don't know that I want to do that, but like God, they figured out how to manufacture a United States. That's so cool, but that's. I don't want to run a factory, I want to be an artist. Yeah.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, and that that answers the follow-up question I just thought of when you were speaking. Is, you know, would it be worth your time to learn molding and set that up? But you just have zero interest in that.
Gina DeSantis:You know I would. I would pay someone, I would hire a manager for that and someone with that skill set. Um, I know, I know how to make a piece for a mold, but I I have no attention span for that. Um, that's just not how I want to spend my time and I have to again go back to delegating how. What's the best use of my time? Um, in the studio. And also, you know, I'm at my age. Now too, I'm not working 60 hours a week anymore. I can't do that. That was cute when I was 30. It's not as fun when you're 44.
Andy Heise:Sure, absolutely. So can you break down your sales channels for us? Do you know what percentage you sell in person, online and wholesale, for example, and if there's others that I'm forgetting or not including in that mix?
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, so one thing we haven't included is when the classroom closed.
Announcer:I did. I was able to acquire a fourth studio space. I joke, I have.
Gina DeSantis:I have the Gina DeSantis wing screw factory in Lakewood but I have a membership studio space. So this was kind of born out of the classroom for people. First of all, during COVID we couldn't have a lot of people in a space. We had two people working at a time and now we're up to four and that's the max at one time. But it's for people who want to work in clay but don't want to invest in all the equipment, okay, there's no education, it's you have to know what you're doing, you have to be a good community person and know how to clean up and know how to make artwork. But you can come in for a monthly fee. We sell you clay, we do all your firings, that sort of thing. So that is probably one fifth of my business at most.
Gina DeSantis:Wholesale is definitely the largest. That is because of working with Uncommon Goods, with working with Sundance Catalog. I'm on a website called FAIR. That is a wholesale channel. That's connected me with a lot of stores, restaurants. We do a lot of shipping. I do drop ship with Anthropologie, so all of my work is sold through their website, not in their stores. So we do all the drop shipping for them. So retail is probably. I would say, retail is probably, I would say maybe only 25% of what I do. I would say, you know, it's probably 25% retail, 20% member studio and the rest is wholesale. Right now I'd like to be doing more retail because you know you're making more money.
Gina DeSantis:But having work at all these stores does build confidence in people coming and shopping your brand. We do open studio sales throughout the year. Those are huge for me because I have a good following. Anthropologie has led to, you know, really great customers coming to my site. They're, you know, certain stores have a clientele that understand the nature of handmade goods. There's still going to be people that walk into my studio and go $48 for a mug and that's fine, you know I can, only it's not even perfectly round, I know.
Nick Petrella:Right, those aren't your customers.
Gina DeSantis:Exactly, and I've slowly collected artwork throughout the years. It's the same thing. It's an investment. I know what I'm buying. But yeah, if you open my cabinet you're probably going to find a generic mug or two. We're not all exempt from that, but you know, you have to kind of find your, find your, your people. And I've learned my largest clients are in California, which is hilarious because I've never been there, born and raised in Ohio. I'm not sure what it is about my aesthetic, but it's warmer it is warmer there, so more expensive.
Nick Petrella:Revenue streams. Those are all your revenue streams and I'm wondering did they grow organically or did you have a plan to roll them out at a specific point?
Gina DeSantis:They were growing organically. I, you know it's been up and down the last two years, just with everything going on with the economy, the last two years, just with everything going on with the economy. Covid was a wrench. I managed to. I think COVID 2020 was the first year my business did not grow at all. It just kind of stayed the same. And then, you know, I've it's been up and down. Buying patterns have changed since the pandemic. You know there are people still spend a lot more time at home, but I would say when people shop is different. I think more people shop closer to the holiday. I think that you know there's some people that are redecorating, spending a lot of money, but you know it's not as predictable, wholesale wise anymore.
Andy Heise:Yeah, while we're on that topic of, you know sort of how things have changed over the past few years, especially post pandemic, like post pandemic after the, you know the the onset of the pandemic in 2020. What, what sorts of changes to your business have you seen in terms of either production costs or materials or those sorts of things?
Gina DeSantis:Well, you know, my largest expense is my staff Okay. Well, you know, my largest expense is my staff Okay. I have three part-time employees and to me, the hardest part has been we, including myself. We have had no raises in two years and that is just, unfortunately. You know the reality of it. Like this year, they were able to get a bonus check to help with what money I'm trying to make up the money they've not gotten.
Andy Heise:When you have it, maybe you can Right yeah exactly, and with wholesale.
Gina DeSantis:So there's wholesale shows, typically not always, but tend to be February and August, but there's some scattered throughout the year. So you can plan on a lot of people shopping January, february and July, august for their next seasons. That has changed. It's all over the place. I can have no wholesale sales for two weeks and then get slammed. I can have no wholesale, you know, and I have a minimum of $200. That's, you know, to me that is the amount of pieces you need to have a nice representation of my work and sample it. But that doesn't mean that's all people are buying.
Gina DeSantis:So you know, I had one company this year that found me and bought my stuff for their influencers, in addition to using it for their skincare products and that sort of thing. I'll have restaurants, so it can be no orders and then a $3,000 order, a bunch of little orders and then a $10,000 order. You know summer's always slow. We plan for that. We get organized so that you know we always. You know we had all our Christmas ornaments made by June, wow, and made a ship. So we, you know, we just kind of learned to work. What sells best, what items are selling best and how do we amp that up.
Nick Petrella:Yeah Well, you'd have to. I mean because the retailers need it sooner.
Gina DeSantis:Exactly, it's just different cycles.
Nick Petrella:You have the customer cycle. You have three different customer segments, right, You've got wholesalers, you've got the retailers and you have the actual customers coming in. So you have three different cycles.
Gina DeSantis:Correct. And the thing with wholesale is, a lot of times if a new store buys from you, they maybe don't realize you're not carrying all this inventory. So there's certain products I have inventory of. There's other things, like mugs, that we can barely keep in stock. Oil cruets have been the new mug this year. So there's certain things I have ready to go, like the ornaments. I have this many. If you need them, buy them now. But certain items you're going to have to wait for. So that can affect order patterns too. Some people are happy if I'll ship what's ready and then ship the handmade portion that's not prepared yet. So that is probably the trickiest part is and people, when they go on your website and they see who you sell with, they have an idea of how big your business is and how many people are behind it and it's like, no, it's mostly just me and three part-timers yeah who are all working.
Gina DeSantis:You know there are two of them are selling their own artwork and one of their other jobs. So it's not like this. You know, huge factory, this isn't um. You know again, this isn't like a around the clock. I'm not crate and barrel, you know that sort of right, you know, you know along those lines.
Nick Petrella:I'm wondering if you have an order say it's a thousand dollars, it's mixed pieces Do you wait to ship until all the pieces are ready or do you divide up the order?
Gina DeSantis:Depends on the customer. Okay, so I had one customer that ordered a hundred of one item and they said should I order 50 now and 50 later? I said no.
Andy Heise:Give me your, your money now. I'll send them to you when they're ready get your order in.
Gina DeSantis:So you're in the queue. You know orders are made as they are received. And get that in and we'll ship you 50. When they're ready we'll ship the other 50. So you can. You know, because they were using it for a skincare product and they needed to do their holiday photo shoots for their site. So you know you're under their deadlines. Um, so it depends on the customer. If you work with Sundance Catalog, you have a window to ship the order. If you don't ship it, they cancel it. You have to pack things a certain way. Some companies will want you to box things individually so that they can ship them out the way they arrive.
Nick Petrella:Yeah.
Gina DeSantis:So it's different for everyone. It depends on the customer.
Nick Petrella:Do you charge more for that? Because that's less they have to do. Yeah, okay, yes have to do.
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, okay, yes, yeah, that's included in the packaging cost. So that's my might be why, if you buy my mug on shop amber interiors, you're paying a bit more, but you're also, you know, we've had to ship it to them. We have it individually boxed for them. So we've done a lot of work, a lot of material involved with that yes, and a lot of manpower, yeah yeah it can take two people eight hour shift to pack a crate of 100 pieces. If we're doing it that way, yeah, wow.
Nick Petrella:And how do you do that? Do you put bubble wrap? You use tissue? What's that look like?
Gina DeSantis:we try to use as little plastic as possible. Okay, it's not always doable. Certain things have to be wrapped in bubble wrap if you want them in one piece. And, uh, we use honeycomb paper, which is like a newsprint paper, and we have a machine that actually shreds cardboard to make honeycomb cardboard. So when I get an order of clay, I order two to four thousand pounds of clay, so that's every 50 pounds. That's a box that we're recycling, we're using for packing materials. We try to use all fresh boxes so that nothing gets damaged and they're sturdier, but we use biodegradable packing peanuts. If we use packing peanuts, um, but there's certain things that have to, you know, and if you get plastic in one of my orders, it might be because we're recycling something someone sent us right, yeah, you're reusing it yeah, yeah I have neighbors that just bring me packing peanuts and bubble here.
Gina DeSantis:Use this I know you will, because they don't want to throw it in the trash. So we try to. We have a lot of stuff that's donated that we try. That helps us keep the cost down of shipping but also, just you know, makes less of a footprint. Cool that way that's great.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, it is so. I have artists who take my classes and I'm wondering what the barriers to entry would be should they choose to have a similar studio. Is it difficult to get started?
Gina DeSantis:I think now it's a lot more expensive, so that's going to be trickier. I think studio prices are going up, like everything else. Just cost of living is more expensive. So I know a lot of people that have studios, but they're sharing them. They're sharing that space to get their business off the ground and I think that's probably one of the largest barriers. I think funding is going to be your huge barrier. I think it's easy for people to get loans, but I think you need to be smart about them. I think you need to. You know, take a business class, talk to people who are in the business and really weigh the risks and how much time you want to put into this. You know, um, you're never I don't want to say you're never truly off when you're running a business. You have to, you know, learn to walk away from your phone. There's always a perceived emergency in your emails, but you have to really realize that there's certain times a year, like christmas, I work a lot more yeah I tell my friends and family nice to know you.
Gina DeSantis:See you on Thanksgiving dinner, see you at Christmas dinner. But I'm working Now in the summer I have a lot more time because orders are slow and the way we work is a little different. So you know, I might work a 30-hour week in July, but I might be working a 50-hour week in December if I have to. I might be working seven days a week, but it's not full days. You know, this weekend I spent the last Saturday and Sunday morning editing 400 photos for social media. So right, but I sit there with my cup of coffee and I get that done. So you know it's my time is spent differently. So you have to really realize the time that goes into running a business too. Do you want it to be full time? Do you want it to be part time? Do you want it to be full-time? Do you want it to be part-time? Do you want it to be a little extra income?
Nick Petrella:I have a follow-up question on those corrugated boxes that you use.
Announcer:So I'm wondering.
Nick Petrella:well, I'm just thinking of trying to look into the improving the margin. Maybe that's great. So I remember this was a long time ago and I don't even know why. I remember this but I was in a grocery store and they had giant pallets of cardboard. That's what you do on there we're just throwing it away, we're getting, we're going to recycle it or whatever. Have you ever gone with to other businesses like that? So maybe grocery stores or people who use a lot of cardboard and just would they donate that? Because if you have that, really funny.
Gina DeSantis:We've actually not done that yet, because we had someone in our building move out and they left three pallets of boxes oh there you go and two years later I'm still shredding these boxes. I even had people on like facebook groups like I'm moving, I need boxes. I was like please don't go buy boxes, just come to my studio. So once we're through those, I would consider it absolutely. I was just wondering but it's.
Gina DeSantis:Yeah, someone just threw away three pallets of boxes I can't even imagine how much that costs them and we are happily using it to pack your artwork right now. That's amazing.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's great. I did a. I did an Ikea kitchen this spring and talk about cardboard, Holy moly.
Gina DeSantis:Yeah.
Announcer:Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please subscribe. Visit arts entrepreneurship podcastcom to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast. You.
