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QuickTake:
A small cohort of six people graduated from a new course on arts entrepreneurship, teaching people who found housing through Community Supported Shelters business skills to sell their creative work.
Linda Southwood’s handmade jewelry, she said, is a part of her.
Making her beaded bracelets and necklaces from reclaimed wood has been a relaxing constant for Southwood, 52, especially after her home burned down three years ago and she struggled to find housing.
She’s a graduate of a new arts entrepreneurship program teaches people who are unhoused how to build a business from their creative work. The program is run by Community Supported Shelters, a nonprofit that serves Eugene’s unhoused population and which is also known for its Conestoga hut microshelters.
A pop-up market a few weeks ago, for the first group of six students, was a proof of concept. It was the first time Southwood and others had actually been able to sell their work.
“I’m really shy as it is, and for me to sell,” Southwood said. “Before, I wouldn’t be able to sell anything. I would just run away.”
Adapting an art class for unhoused people
The class started when Anna Alkin, program coordinator for Community Supported Shelters, received a text from her boss, co-executive director Heather Quaas-Annsa. It was a screenshot of a listing for a class, “How to Make Money From Your Art,” from Eugene’s secondhand art supply nonprofit MECCA.
Alkin sent a Facebook message to MECCA to get going on adapting a version of the class for clients of Community Supported Shelters.
The class was taught by MECCA’s community engagement coordinator, Mitra Gruwell, who adapted the course for people who are unhoused or living temporarily in one of Community Supported Shelters’ Conestoga huts.
Gruwell runs a nonprofit called Viking Textile Maker Hub that teaches industrial sewing to unhoused people. So she already knew what changes to make. The students were given studio time and art supplies at MECCA and Radiant Community Arts, to have space and means to make their work.
“With housed people, you wouldn’t bother with ‘how do you get them the art supplies?’” Alkin said. “That’s front and center when you’re working with folks without resources.”
Gruwell said adapting the class also meant arranging ride shares to sessions, and added discussions on finances.
Not having easy use of a bank account or cellphone to allow customers to pay with Venmo is another obstacle that other art and craft vendors don’t have to consider, Alkin and Gruwell said.
Alkin said grant funding from the Lane Community Health Council helped both pay for the class, and bought cellphones for students who didn’t have them.
“Access to a lot of platforms are resources that other people might just kind of take for granted,” Gruwell said.
Next steps, Alkin said, include making a menu of options for Community Supported Shelters’ clients wanting to sell their art: that might be getting folding tables and movable carts for some vendors, or applying for a Downtown Activity Zone permit to sell on the street for others.
A monthly market that Community Supported Shelters would staff to sell work by clients is also a part of the plan, as well as finding space for client works in smaller markets around town. Alkin said Community Supported Shelters is tentatively scheduling its next round of the class for spring.
What the class has meant to students
Liam O’Grady, 39, is passionate about etymology, and has a keen focus on word choices in conversation. That led him to his calligraphy-oriented works, illustrating new concepts that he stitches together from parts of different existing words.
He’s tried to sell his work before around the Saturday Market, but didn’t make any sales. The class has taught him the importance of presentation, for when he returns to selling.
“[It’s about] being conscious of what my setup looks like, having an environment that’s conducive to good business, making sure the customer feels comfortable, having a comfortable layout for whatever the business would be,” he said.
Alex Edwards, 57, refurbishes thrift store picks by sponging paint onto them or applying stencil designs. He said he learned about the class one day after walking into the Community Supported Shelters office.
“I just said, ‘I want to own my own business,’” he said. “Nobody had said anything else. Then someone said, ‘You don’t say, because this just came in.’”
Now he’s looking to sell his work on Facebook Marketplace. He said the class was especially useful in helping him learn to pay careful attention to setting price points that don’t undervalue his work, but are also attractive to customers.
For Southwood, the jewelry maker, the program is more than a collection of tips on how to sell work. As a Community Supported Shelters client, she’s received housing, a replacement for a stolen phone and help getting shots for two kittens she rescued. But the arts entrepreneurship class is the rare program that takes unhoused people seriously as creative minds.
“I’ve never had that before,” she said. “I feel like they care, and they’re interested in my life.”
