Part 8: The Next Phase-The Bookmaker Collective

This is the eighth post in a series about how The Willa Workshops on willawanders.com came to be.

Part 8

It’s been a hot second since I published an installment and I need to collect myself before I move on . . .

I told you about The Willa Journals Course and how it was successful. What happened next is that I decided to release a bunch more mixed media art courses, but these were mini courses. I was gaining traction and I didn’t want to stop because it was fun. I was becoming more and more comfortable with the process of filming, editing and marketing online art classes.

Andrea from A Work of Heart Studio reached out to me asking if I would be willing to brainstorm some marketing ideas with her. Of course I said yes. A series of random events led to me visiting her brick and mortar store in San Jose, California shortly before the pandemic so we were a touch more than just Instagram friends at that point.

So Andrea has this incredible retail art store and workshops space in the Bay Area and at this point, no one is really leaving their house, which puts Andrea in a tight spot, having high rent on a huge retail space.

It doesn’t take long before the universe plunks this big, hairy idea in my head for a year long course in how to make handmade art journals. When I tell you that I don’t come up with these ideas, you have to believe me. Something deposits fully fleshed out ideas for things into my head. The whole thing, how it is going to run, who is going to run it, etc. etc. It all just comes into my consciousness all at once and I can either decide to ignore it or I can decide to act on it.

I told Andrea that I had a big idea and would she be open to hearing it. She said yes and that day we started planning a venture called The Bookmaker Collective.

Andrea had access to a bazillion art and craft supplies and the knowledge and capability to build kits for handmade book workshops. We just needed to find four other handmade book artists who were willing to take a risk on us and launch a year long endeavour.

Andrea and I hashed it out for a day or so and came up with four other instructors that we wanted to ask to teach in this new business venture. Everyone we approached said yes and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ali Manning, DeeDee Catron, Tiffany Goff Smith and Kristen Peterson joined Andrea and I for the adventure.

The Bookmaker Collective was incredibly successful. The team delivered six live weekend-long handmade journal workshops. Over 600 people registered to partake in the entire year long experience and many, many more participants joined in for one or more individual weekend workshops.

Andrea busted her ass to create a kit that was for sale for each of the individual workshops. The kits were amazing and receiving one was like opening up Christmas presents on Christmas morning (well, I’m assuming that’s what it’s like. I’m Jewish so I don’t really know, but that’s how I imagine it feels).

Each weekend workshop went off without a hitch. The books that everyone was creating in the comfort of their own home aided by Andrea’s kits were so cool.

Running The Bookmaker Collective with Andrea was a huge learning and growth experience for me. It prepared me for the next huge thing that began developing while The Bookmaker Collective was in full swing: my love affair with collage fodder.

I don’t want to paint a false picture that everything I ever do just works out seamlessly. It doesn’t. Nothing in life is perfect and each business venture that I launch has its serious stress points at times.

I’m not going to go into details about what these hurdles were with each of my recent business ventures, I only want to point out that in order to be successful, you have to be able to withstand a lot of stress and still show up the next day with a smile on your face, fresh hope and a willingness to take new risks.

Everyone you see that looks successful on the outside has had to take their lumps, and I’m no different. Humans are creative, complicated, sensitive, beautiful and wonderful creatures, AND working together is challenging at times. But somehow, magically, I wake up the next day excited all over again for the entrepreneurial adventures that await me.

To be continued . . .

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