A functional business partnership is not dissimilar to matrimony; minus of course, certain degrees of familiarity: you experience one another at your most functional and at your least, you strive to balance those strengths and vulnerabilities, you can find yourselves with differing perspectives on the piloting of people and other concerns, and you must communicate more than you ever imagined possible (all right, more than I ever imagined). You must exert acceptance and tolerance of ways not your own and navigate the differences with a deep appreciation of the very traits and abilities that are not your own, but that you could stand to sometimes adopt.
John Daniel Walters and I have a unique alliance and what I think of as a respectable business. Our joint and individual willingness to learn, to nurture, to nudge one another, and our operation inspires me independently of the work that we do. This business of being human is no insignificant matter. The business of business is no insignificant undertaking. Envisioning a livelihood and an enterprise, plus its organization, is a significant chunk of consciousness. Like anything in life that we come in contact with, all points stand to be altered by the tiniest brush with what resides nearest.
I find my creative drive taking new form now: "business woman", which means to me, being a producer and being a creative problem solver, as much as accentuating my own artistic inventiveness. A business is no different than anything else in life- there are ebbs and flows, there are successes and shortfalls, there are moments of brilliance and of doltishness. Some of John and my noblest moments have been the unplanned and the near misses, the saves and the hilarity of providence intercepting at a moment of miscalculation.
Add to our collaboration that of our recently hired personnel and you have a family- sometimes of greater functionality, sometimes lesser, but always evolving and trying new approaches to better both communication and practices, so that a successful business, and advantageous and pleasing working environment can be enjoyed by all. The word "team" might be too sportsman-like a term; perhaps my love of the west makes us more of a posse, but whatever we are, we have evolved and managed to design and fabricate a line of tables, benches, pedestals, and object surfaces that are now ready to be made visible.
Why am I bothering writing of teamwork and communication, of the prickliness and pleasures of human exchange? Because they are all what goes into the design and manufacture of what our newly produced line of furniture is. Labors of love are not without the other thing(s) like aversion, dislike, futility, and the fumbling of vision as it smacks up against practicality. It all, every last little nuanced bit, goes into the design and production of anything of quality and relative permanence. Though you can't be ambivalent when it comes to launching from design to production you do, in the end, navigate all contradictions in the process of creating anything of worth.
