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It’s a Tuesday afternoon and Hello Maker is humming. A handful of creators are taking advantage of an open studio at the commercial space in downtown London, Ont.
One dunks a frame underwater, adding layers to her seed paper. Another carefully fills an illustration with watercolour, her drawing glove sliding across the page. The conversation is fun and spontaneous, spanning world events to how to make a button.
Owner Kirstie Leedham is showing off new dyes and brainstorming the best ways to use them. Since opening in March, she’s been offering workshops, a drop-in space for creators and co-working days for people who are tired of their home offices.
CBC London host Allison Devereaux spoke with Leedham about the studio.
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Allison Devereaux: What happens at Hello Maker?
Kirstie Leedham: We do all kinds of workshops, so for all ages, from babies to toddlers to youths and adults alike. We also have a liquor license here, so anything that happens in the evening for adults has a little extra fun.
There’s a bunch of workshops that I teach, including candle-making, and polymer clay earrings. We’ve got lots of fibre arts like needling, embroidery. We also host other makers in London and so they bring things like floral design and needle felting, and really just anything and everything.
What was the thinking behind starting the studio space?
I used to run a digital media brand where we made DIY tutorials. The number one comment we got from people was, “Cool, I’ll just use $150 of stuff in order to make a thing.”
So now I’m just bringing that to London so that they can share in all of the supplies. This is a way to make it more accessible for everybody.
What type of environment are you trying to create for other people?
I am in my 30s. I just came off of maternity leave. We all came off of a pandemic, and I have ADHD. I’m a little introverted and so I had no place to go and neither did anybody that was like me. When we wanted to make friends with each other, there’s just literally no place to do that.
Ultimately, the goal with Hello Maker is to give people this creative outlet that’s accessible, so they can meet people and make friends and have someone to call up for a coffee date.
What do you mean when you say there weren’t places to go or to meet?
Sports people have sports bars or sports teams, drinkers have bars. It’s a big studio, but it’s a small community and we have time to talk and share and discuss what’s going on in our lives
I heard the term ‘third space’ not that long ago and it was really important to me. Everybody has a first place, which is their home, and possibly a second place, which is their office or their work, and no one has a third space anymore.
So running things like ‘open studio’ gives people a chance to have that.
Searching for connection? Third places may be the solution
What kind of feedback have you heard?
It’s surprising to me because I was a very strong advocate for supporting positive mental health. It feels like the very few months that I’ve been here has done more for supporting people’s mental health than a year of public speaking. The feedback honestly brings so much joy to my heart.
Is there a business model you followed for this or something you could replicate?
I’ve done lots of research. I’ve looked at different businesses. The closest that I could find was a similar business in Portland, but not really anything in Canada. I think this, as a concept, is new, especially when it comes to the liquor license portion because not a lot of people think that you need beer while you do crafts, but I think that you do.
Have you had a moment where you’ve been in the studio and you’ve stopped and paused and looked around and thought, ‘I made this?’
Pretty much daily. I had to go to a physiotherapist for neck problems from sitting on my computer at the coffee table every day. It had the best view of the studio and was where I could just take it in, every single day.
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