Category: Art & Craft
-
Expand your small business gradually
Turning a hobby into a retirement business “This is just a way to pass my old age.” Salim Buang is in his 60s and turned his hobby into a small business after getting retrenched during the 2008 economic crisis. His shop feels like a treasure trove of wooden crafts, jewellery, and collectable items that he…
-
Canvassing the city
I stumbled across a store stacked floor-to-ceiling with an incredible collection of paintings. The owner showed me around, introducing himself as “Art.” True enough, I noticed his unmistakeable signature on each canvas. While curious, I refrained from questioning his choice of pseudonym. “Art” has witnessed a fragile existence in his homeland. The Khmer Rouge’s brutal…
-
Embracing serendipity, and other tips for running a retail business
“One woman, one mid-life divorce, one teenage child, one personal makeover, one day at a time, making it all work on one world wide media web, connecting all the dots.” Your curiosity can fuel a business Entering into Caravanserai is like stepping into a global village where your senses will be tantalized by the artistry…
-
Smokin’ Hot Ideas
Lauren and Ryan knew that they wanted to start a business together, but they didn’t know exactly what it would be until they went on a road trip together in 2013 and ran out of “vape juice” – the nicotine for their e-cigarettes. “We came across the vaping idea last year when we were travelling…
-
His-Story of the USA
Christian is a walking Wikipedia! He can narrate the historical context for everything in his shop like a true storyteller. His journey in the antique industry began in his 20s when he got hooked on the history of art while helping his father. “My dad collected a lot of Japanese art, so I would research…
-
Windows of Opportunity
Rich Trager travels around the world to take photographs for his business. Travelling to disrupt an established sense of order I really like Southeast Asia. On my last trip, I travelled to Bali, India, Nepal, Cambodia. I was also in Singapore for a day. I like the region– it’s chaotic, yet it moves at a slower…
-
Mandala Maker
Zb.Doros grew up in Poland and currently lives in San Francisco where he devotes himself to the art of making mandalas. How did you end up in the USA? Times were tough in Poland for intellectual dissidents. I came to this country to get political asylum. My family had to stay behind in Poland, and I migrated…
-
A Twist on Vintage
How do you start a business selling jewelry? We chat with Linda La Touche in California who describes her journey. In the whirl of life changes, the jewelry was constant. My parents always encouraged me in the arts, from dance to music to art. When I decided to start a family and quit school, I started making…
-
Body-more Art (Baltimore)
What does it take to be a tattoo artist? We speak with Dave Wah who draws back the curtains on his journey, and shows us how his curiosity evolved over the years into a serious profession. Follow your curiosity “When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I kept wondering: “How do they do it?…
-
Magic Lamps
You will meet Ali at a shop that sells carpets and lamps along Arab Street in Singapore. These street shops are like windows of observation into the world. “Many interesting people come here. One time, two friends who had been separated for 15 years found each other by chance in this shop.”
-
Mud & Metal
When you’ve been in the art and jewelry business in Baltimore for almost 20 years like Carol, you witness changes in the way people relate to one another. She observes: “There’s been a shift in what material things mean: we are buying less gifts for one another, and putting more money into learning, and being…
-
Sea Jewels
“When I was young, my grandfather used to take me to the California coast, and whenever we were there, he’d pick up garbage along the shore to throw away – he was the first conservationist that I knew. While he was busy picking up other people’s trash, I would collect the sea glass. Of course,…
-
If you’re going to San Francisco…
“…. be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!” We communicated using fragments of Mandarin that I know consisting mostly of 3 introductory sentences: “How are you?” (Ni hao!) “I speak a little!” (We hui shuo yidian dian) “I am a Singapore person.” (Wo shi xinjiapo ren) And then, in response to…
-
Spinning Tales
“People have told me that this shop should be a TV sitcom. We’ve had very spirited conversations on all sorts of things, and discussions about politics would get especially heated. That’s one thing I really miss, because we used to do it every week.” You really don’t want to see this… “Once we were talking about tattoos,…
-
Not all that glitters is gold…
“We are brothers!” Lahij is a small village on the Caucasus mountains in Azerbaijan, and it is one of the country’s oldest human settlements. The village is renowned for their skills with copperware, as we see in this shop. Nasir (foreground) was hard at work with his own copper art when we met him. Copper…
Shopkeeper Stories 