Our new venture: Ophir Crafts, LLC
It's exciting to open a new business, but much different than I thought.
We first thought of opening a craft business because my friend, Nell Narowski of Amish Tables, LLC, encouraged us to do so. As a start-up veteran who now owns a great business selling Amish Furniture on the web and in a retail store located on Main Street in Plymouth, MI, Nell is someone I highly respect when it comes to business advice.
After my daughter Terry (Therese) moved back to Ann Arbor this summer, I mentioned to Nell that she had a lifelong interest in arts and crafts. I remembered well how Terry had shown talent from her first days in Wines Elementary School under her teacher, Mrs. Clark and nicknamed "Mrs. Art Clark" to her days at Ann Arbor Community High School. There she flourished by taking "Junk to Art" at CHS and Fiber Arts at Ypsilanti High, as well as ceramics at Washtenaw Community College.
Terry got a scholarship to the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, but was unfortunately not able to attend. This was mostly because of a family crisis--we had to convert to caring for an elderly member of the family, and also adjusting to a contracted economy for my husband's industry as a consulting automtive engineer.
But meanwhile, she had enlisted in a reserve unit of the U.S. Armed Forces to serve her country, and received a certificate in culinary arts at Fort Lee in Virginia. She served for 5 years as was honorably discharged. In between her 2 training stints--basic and job training--she took jobs cooking bread and being the shift manager for a restaurant. But she wanted more. She had gifts in hospitality, art and home decor, product design and inventory management.
In the meantime she moved to Washington State to attend the Evergreen State College in Olympia (TESC). There she followed a humanities program with heavy emphasis in philosophy, drama, and communications. She produced several videos for her philosophy and drama courses, and learned a lot about both video and audio editing.
She also learned amazing things about crafts and the art of crafting. Starting with crocheted crafts called "Amigurumi" (these are tiny animals, vegetable and fantasy creations originated in Japan and are now very popular worldwide), she expanded to an interest in canning, knitting, quilting and culinary arts crafts.
When Terry returned to Ann Arbor, she amazed us with what she knew about crafts and what she could create. She was becoming a quintessential entrepreneur. I have met many young "Millennials" who, like Terry, are creating new enterprises and new ideas that are changing the world.
The story about how we went from Nell's encouragement and Terry's ideas to a new path is to follow on this blog in the next few days....