Kaitie Bryant is a photographer based in Athens, Georgia with a passion for heart sunglasses, genuine people, developing creative ideas and lively photographs. Mattie Tiegreen is a stationery designer and owner of Puddleduck Paper Co. based in Columbus, Georgia with a passion for clean design, the color yellow, ice cream sandwiches and loving on people. Amanda Knight is a graphic designer and owner of The Creative Porcupine based in Athens, Georgia with a passion for coffee, bright colors, bold patterns, empowering creative business owners, and…coffee. These three ladies share a studio space and found so much inspiration for our work came from good conversations with each other, including the idea for Gather workshop.
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What is Gather?
Gather Workshop is a 2-day workshop to help inspire, clarify, and encourage creative entrepreneurs. We focus on business basics, time management, branding, defining your style in a crowded market, and learning how to build boundaries between personal and work life. Gather is for creative entrepreneurs who are either starting their own business or wanting to work on making their current business better. Women from all over the southeast attended the last workshop in July, including Texas, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. The Fall Gather workshop speakers are going to be amazing! Here are the guest speakers (in addition to Mattie, Amanda, and Kaitie) sharing the ins and outs of creative businesses:
Mica May, owner of May Designs. Her work has been featured on Real Simple, Good Morning America, and People magazine to mention a few!
Shanna Skidmore, business coach and consultant (with an awesome talent in floral design) based in Atlanta.
Britt Bass Turner, painter and owner of Britt Bass Turner.
Hilary Maloney, creative communication guru with current work in the interior design industry.
Paige French, photographer of editorial and lifestyle projects, as well as interiors, food, farms and gatherings.
Why Gather?
I really believe Gather is an important and defining workshop for anyone’s creative journey. For some it was the push they needed to take the next step to making their passion a reality in their work, and honestly I believe we need to hear how other people are working towards their goals to give us courage to do the same. I believe people need to be reminded that they are uniquely wired to create out of their passions and interests and not meant to fit a box that they perceive everyone must fit into. I think Gather is a place to be inspired when a lot of times we can feel defeated in our work. I also think the practical learning about consistent branding, work boundaries, time management, goal setting, etc. is invaluable and often overlooked when we start creative ventures, making a workshop like this that much more important.
The heart behind Gather:
The idea behind Gather came as we worked together and realized the need for good conversation and community among creative businesses. Starting your own business and staying inspired in the creative world can be a very lonely venture with long hours behind a computer and not a lot of encouragement. We wanted to create an environment for people in various stages of their small businesses to hear wisdom and stories from other people who are on a similar path. I (Kaitie) really craved a gathering where we could be real about the struggles and challenges we face in having our own business. Being in community helps us gain insight into what changes we could all implement to make ourselves and businesses better. Mattie, Amanda, and I also just love talking about style and branding and how to develop your own aesthetic and weave it into all your work. This is such a dream of mine to have a space like Canvas Studio to host workshops like this and connect people.
Fall Workshop:
October 10th and 11th | 9:00am – 5:00pm
The event will be held at Canvas Studio (54 S. Main St. Watkinsville, GA) and you can register on the Gather website: http://www.gatherathens.com/
Our Winter Gather Workshop is in the planning stages – date to be announced next month!
Follow @gatherworkshop on Instagram to keep up with the upcoming dates and details.
