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Art + Audience
Ep. 18: I Bought a 100+ Year Old Church—Here’s the Wild Story Behind It
00:16:42
In this reflective and inspiring solo episode, Stacie invites you into her recent journey, which spans creative self-discovery, a transformative trip to Scotland, and an exciting new chapter as she reveals her second big secret. Stacie shares...
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Hey there, artists and creatives. Do you have burning questions about growing your art business, building your audience, selling your products, or navigating this creative life? Well, now you can call in and ask me directly. We've set up a dedicated Art plus audience podcast hotline just for you. Simply call 479-966-9561, leave your question and I'll be answering select questions on future episodes.
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So.
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So whether you're curious about marketing your art, building your brand, licensing, your portfolio, or anything in between, I'd love to hear from you. That number again is 479-966-9561. I can't wait to hear what you're wondering about and dive into these topics on the show. Let's make this a conversation. Bye.
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I think sometimes we forget who we are when the noise is gone. If the responsibilities were ever to halt. Like, who am I as a person? Who is Stacy Bloomfield when no one's watching, when I just am alone? I mean, that's a gift. I know not many people get the chance just to be responsible for themselves, but it felt really lovely just to be able to think about what my needs were. I feel deeply that I'm going to have to start slowing down at some point in the near future. Wouldn't it be nice if your art business loved you back? Hi, I'm Stacey Bloomfield. After years of trial and error and late night doodling, I went from being a coffee shop manager to running a vibrant seven figure art business that I love. And now I'm on a mission to help more artists create an art business that they love too. So I invite you to find a cozy spot, pull out your favorite sketchbook and listen in. It's never too late to chase your your creative dreams. Welcome to the Art plus Audience Podcast. Well, hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Art plus Audience Podcast. Before we get into it, can I ask you if you are listening right now and I know we have several thousand listeners every single episode, would you just click the subscribe button for me? It really helps us to reach more people. Us? Mimi, me, who runs the Art plus Audience podcast. I really would love to be able to get in front of more creatives to help them get unstuck, help them build their audiences and help them sell their art. So if you could go ahead and just click the subscribe button and bonus points if you leave a review, that would be just fantastic. I would appreciate it so much. It's shocking how much of any product success has to do with reviews. A podcast, a Course and products. And, you know, whenever I'm shopping online, I always go to see if there's been a review and I look at the positive reviews, and that's what gives me, like, you know, the courage to click buy. I do read the negative ones, too. And, you know, people do listen to negative ones more than they do positive ones. So please flood this podcast with positive reviews. But aside from that. Hi. I just got back from three weeks in Scotland, so if you remember, two episodes ago, I talked about my big reveal, which was I got a book deal. I'm writing a book called the Artist side Hustle, and I have, like, four more chapters to write. It's due in mid February. And y'all, I am feeling a lot of anxiety about this. I have been writing and rewriting and rewriting so much that I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I have, you know, gosh, 16 years of business experience being a professional illustrator and licensing and selling products at Gingerbread. But all of a sudden, I've been touching this so much that I'm like, do I even know what the heck I'm talking about? I'm sure you all have been there before. Whenever you are working on something you care about, like, you care about it so much, you want it to be so good that you almost, like, smother all the magic out of it. I have been smothering my magic, and I need the magic, the muse, to come back to me. So aside from that, send me your well wishes because I want this book to be phenomenal. I want it to reach hundreds of thousands of people. I want to help artists create new paths forward. And, you know, not all artists are full time artists. That's why this book is focused on the side hustler. And side Hustle isn't a bad thing. I started out as a side hustler. Every artist does, in truth. So, like, I just want to teach people how they can get started and create income and then build something that they love. That's the goal of this book. But I went to Scotland for two reasons. One, I did annual planning, and I actually flew some of my team out to Scotland with me. What? Yes, I did for several days of annual planning for the online education portion of the business. I do the product planning separately, and I do that with Angie, who is also my sister, who is the COO of Gingerbra product. But we focused on online education because it's just a huge part of the business now. I never thought, you know, when I first started doodling Animals and foxes and bears that I would be teaching hundreds of thousands of artists. So it's a. It's a big deal. We take it seriously. So we had focus days of annual planning. I might do an episode about annual planning, but I do have a course, an affordable course called the Artist year, where I really break down how we annual plan. It's about goal setting, vision casting, how we set schedules. Schedules. It's really awesome. And you can find that@staceybloomfield.com but then they flew home, and I was alone in Scotland. For the first time in my life, I was actually alone alone. You know, I've known my husband, Nathan, since I was 11 and he was 12. I had just moved from Dallas, Texas, to Springfield, Missouri, with my family, and my parents put me in a small private school, and Nathan Bloomfield was a grade above me, and I've known him for such a long time. So we. We started dating right out of high school and got married two years later, and I had a baby two years after that. I mean, I just, like, never have been alone. I had a few months living alone in college in an apartment that, when we got married, Nathan moved into. But I think this was the first trip I have been alone on that wasn't like with other people. I travel a lot for work, but there's usually colleagues who are there waiting for me. But I was completely alone, and I decided if I'm going to be alone, I'm going to try really hard to be the best version of myself. So I slept, like eight to ten hours a night. I did my morning pages. I journaled, I walked, y'all. I got more steps in than I ever do. Apparently. I am very sedentary. I ate delicious food by myself in lovely restaurants, and I worked. I wrote my book as much as I could. Apparently, it takes longer than three weeks to write a. A whole book that is, you know, 60,000 words. But, you know, I like to give it a try, see how much I can get done. But that trip to Scotland was maybe the best thing I have done for myself. And I don't know how long, because I think sometimes we forget who we are when the noise is gone, if the responsibilities were ever to halt. Like, who. Who am I as a person? Who is Stacy Bloomfield? Who is. When no one's watching, when I just am alone? I mean, that's a gift. I know not many people get the chance just to be responsible for themselves, but it felt really lovely just to be able to think about what my needs were. I feel deeply that I'm gonna have to start slowing down at some point in the near future. And, you know, I like to give everything I can to, to my company, to Gingerbread, to my family. But, you know, I'm getting a little tired. So many amazing opportunities. But when I was in Scotland, getting to go slower, I was just like, what can I bring back with me back home so that I can kind of begin to feel like I have agency in my life again? Yes, I run my own business. Yes, I set my own hours. I have so many wonderful things around me. And yet I think it's really easy to lose yourself in the busyness and the noise and the must dos. So I did a lot of journaling, a lot of thinking about what I want and what I need. And you know, it's funny, I brought my journal with me. That was the journal I wrote in last December. I didn't mean to grab that journal, but I did. And I actually got to open up and I saw what my goals were for 2024. And I had a few goals. But one of those goals was that I wanted to buy some commercial property in my local town, Springdale, Arkansas. I forgot that I even wrote that down as a specific goal. Some of the goals happened. A lot of the goals happened. A few of them are still in process. One I haven't even started that'll be put on the 2025 list. But I saw that I was like, I want to buy property. And that's what brings me to this fun thing. When I flew back from Scotland, the, the very next day, I closed on the purchase of a beautiful 100 and I guess I think 111 year old building. It's an old church building in my downtown and I'm going to call her the Bloom House. Yes, My name is Bloomfield and I'm calling it the Bloom House. That's okay. I like themes. My daughter's name is Violet Bloomfield. So sue me. I love it. I purchase a church. It's not going to be a church. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. But it was so funny. One of my best friends, Vanessa, who I actually talked about, I think in the very first episode of this podcast, she texted me a photo of this church about a month and a half ago and said, hey, girl, want to buy a church? Like, jokingly. And I was like, maybe so. So I showed it to my husband and, you know, the truth is we have no idea what we're going to do with it. But I knew that of all the areas where I live in, I live in northwest Arkansas. It's kind of a booming area. A lot of people know it for Bentonville, that's where Walmart is based. Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas Razorbacks are there. Springdale is not where people come to live. Like, Springdale is a great place to live, but people don't come here to visit. We have a downtown that has been being revitalized for, gosh, you know, 20 years maybe. And I have tried to purchase a piece of property in downtown Springdale twice now. Once, once I was under a contract and then it fell apart. The other time I was about to put in an offer and something just didn't feel right. And for a while I was just like, downtown is not for me, I guess. And I, I didn't think about it. But this time when this church became available, I just went inside and it felt right. So we're talking 10 ceilings, like those beautiful antique tin ceilings, gorgeous giant arched church windows, big beautiful room, wood floors. So much potential to be something good in downtown Springdale. And what's really lovely is I'm in a place in my life because of all these years of working at gingerbr, where I can invest and purchase a building and then take some time to figure out what it's supposed to become. I'll probably host retreats there, so stay tuned for that. I have a mastermind that I run. It's for six figure businesses typically, plus creative businesses, E commerce or online education. It's called the Creative Hive. And I'll probably host one of my retreats there this year. But I'll probably start hosting other events there too, because I want to invite people to my hometown and to create with me. And I want this space to be a place, place where people can feel welcome, can feel inspired. But what I love most of all is that there's not a lot of pressure to make this work right away. The purchasing of this building kind of just happened. Right place, the right time, the right opportunity, and I'm a quick decision maker. And so we said yes and we purchased it and we got the keys the day that I came back from Scotland. So I spent a lot of my time in Scotland thinking about, like, what color do I want the front door to be, you know, know how do I want it to feel? But I still don't know like what it's going to be yet. But I, I do know that investing locally is how change happens. You know, all of us are trying to sell our art, you know, we're selling online, but, like, shopping in person, being able to be with each other is so important. Like, I feel like we're also disconnected because we're all online, chronically online, and we're just feeding off of negativity. And when was the last time you were face to face with someone or a group of creatives? Like, it used to happen so much more frequently than it does now. We are so isolated from each other. Life has gotten busier, even though we've gotten more efficient. And I want a place where people can step away from that and feel something different. So the Bloom House. I'll post photos on the blog, stacybloomfield.com, click on the blog, and we'll have photos of the church for you to see. You can also go see a tour of the church on my Instagram, leverage your art. But I am so excited. I'm excited to have a project that doesn't have to do with art. Isn't that crazy? Because this is the art audience podcast. But what's the kicker here, guys? And this is where I'm going to round it out, because this is important. So thanks for staying with me this long. To make good art, you actually have to work on your life. And the people who create beautiful, meaningful art that has story and impact, they live really creative, beautiful lives. So I've spent, like, the past two and a half years just with my head down, working, working, working, working, working, working, working, working. So much that, like, I think all anyone thought online is that all Stacy does is work. And it's true, I work a lot. But the minute I shared about purchasing this church on Instagram, my account blew up. It's shocking how many people care about this project, this church. And I've had people even direct message me and say, I have followed you for years, but now that I've seen you've purchased this old church building, I decided to take one of your courses. And I don't know what the connection is between buying this cool old building and people then thinking I'm more credible. I don't know what it is, but I think people are invested in you and your story. And so I am sharing this story online about the purchase of this building, and I'll share about the renovations and what we do with it to make it really bloom. But it reminds me that, like, when we are living our most creative lives, like, living artfully, so to speak, magic happens, inspiration happens. And I think that makes you more magnetic for an audience to follow you. So if you're thinking, you know, I'm trying to build this business, Stacy, this art business, and I'm sharing my art and I'm working on my style and I'm doing all the things, but my audience just isn't growing. Maybe it's time to, like, do something with your own life and share about it. Because people are drawn to authenticity, especially in a world where everything is so quickly changing and trend driven. Sharing little tidbits about some side project that you have, some other part of your life that you probably don't think is interesting at all. Other people will be drawn to it, and then those people will probably be more invested in you and want to support your business. So that's my big secret. Secret number two is I bought an old church building built 1914, and she's a beauty. She's lovely. And I'm so grateful to get to be the next person who preserves her and lets her be a part of our local downtown so that when people do come downtown, they might come to the Blum house, take a photo in front of the door, and really remember their time here. So if you hear my dog barking, that means it's time for this episode to be over. Thank you so much for tuning in. Live your life, guys. Live artfully, live creatively. It will probably inspire your next big project. Because now that I'm pouring energy into this and dreaming here, I feel like some stagnation in my other parts of my life shaking off. And I feel some excitement to create in different ways. Because creativity is not just about building a portfolio. It's about who we are as the creatives, you know? So thank you for tuning in. I hope that you'll be listening to the next Art plus audience podcast episode and my dog's barking and I really want you to leave a review. Thank you so much. Bye. Thanks so much for tuning in. Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you subscribe to this podcast cast and then share it with one of.
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Your best art friends?
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I'd really appreciate it. And then head on over to Instagram and follow me at the leverage your art account and you can keep up with all of our future episodes. Thank you so much for your support. It means everything to have you here listening and learning. Bye, Sa.