Author: Julie Terebkov
Welcome to a new week with you, me, and trusty Abe. This week we’re going to talk about a relationship that is so perfectly made for each other. No I’m not talking about Sebastian and Mia from La La Land. I’m talking about the relationship that third wave coffee has with artists. It’s a match made in perfectly roasted heaven.
A connection
When a craft is able to support another craft, there’s really no reason not to collaborate. The same idea goes with coffee and artists in the community. Who you know, is now the most powerful currency in our world and our culture is built on people. Imagine this: you are the most talented craftsman in your field. Congrats! You’ve made it. However, there’s a problem… There’s another key ingredient in the mix here when it comes to being successful. Yes, success is defined differently by each person. To one artist it may mean making a living off of your craft (how much money am I making). To another artist it may mean, the people you reach with your art (we can call this: connections).
The latter is based on the idea that we live in a world that values connections as a currency. This is not an easy thing to gauge, or even see in our lives as individuals. We go through seasons where we are too busy to even see our dearest friends, let alone make an effort to try to make connections within our fields. Before we go any further, lets look at why connections would be important to artists and even a coffee shop.
The Artist
The artist values connection for three reasons: those that invest in us, those that we help along the way, and those we reach with our art. The investors are the ones that took time out of their lives to show us the craft. In this relationship we are the apprentice and they are teaching and showing us the ropes. The ones we help along the way are peers or even artists in other fields. A photographer and a chef can partner to share ideas, content, and even followers. This is an under-utilized relationship especially considering that it can be the most helpful and easiest to accomplish. Finally, we have most people’s reason for even sharing their work: to reach the community, or the individual and impact them on some level with their craft.
The Meeting Place
Now you may be asking where a coffee shop comes in with this whole concept. The coffee shop in this concept is a few different things: an artist (it has a craft it is sharing), a way to reach the community/individual, and a meeting place. A coffee shop is a space to meet other artists, share a new craft (other than coffee), and in the process you are impacting the community. As a coffee shop, we want to empower artists through any support we can give. That means, we put up local artists photos, paintings, and pieces, so that we can share in our connection driven world. We love having local artists like, Gilbert Acevedo of Modern Abolition, design and print our apparel.
The value of this is first, supporting local businesses and local artists in the community. When our artists and businesses are thriving, the whole community feels it. Why wouldn’t we want a thriving and booming community? The meeting place can also literally mean a place to meet other artists. You can find artists drawing or working on their craft while sitting in this space as well as, going to live music nights and meeting the musicians that play at specific events. Coffee shops are meant to be a “third space,” a term coined for a space that an individual frequents outside of their first two spaces: work & home. This means that coffee shops make for a great place to go to meet people, be a part of a community, and a place meet up.
The bottom line here is, coffee and artists go hand in hand like cookies and milk. Or is it coffee and cookies? Or just coffee… I don’t know anymore, its all good and they all go well together. Go have a cookie and some coffee, we’ve got plenty for you.
Stay classy coffee tribe.