“Homecoming,” along with many of Betty’s other successes since she turned her life’s focus to photography, has been part of an entrepreneurial journey that began in 2000. Betty was one of 20 West Virginia artists invited to participate in a pilot entrepreneurial program developed by the Center for Economic Options (CEO). CEO, a statewide non-profit that has worked in microenterprise development for almost 20 years, wanted to assist and support artistic and artisan microbusinesses within the state, so they decided to underwrite Showcase West Virginia, a small store in the Charleston Town Center, the city’s largest retail venue and mall. The store featured the work of the 20 artists, which ranged from Rivard’s fine art landscape photography to specialty food items, such as a meatball sauce. What all the products had in common was that they represented the microbusiness efforts of West Virginia artists. For Betty and many of the other artists involved in the pilot, this was a pivotal point for their careers and theirproducts, which soon became the staples of the popular new store in the mall.
To make this transition, Betty and her cohort had to learn to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, not just as artists. “When I was just starting, CEO had started workshops for arts and crafts people,” Betty remembers. “They brought in people to talk with us who had a lot of experience.” The workshops guided artists through the basics of pricing, labeling, and the presentation of their products—the kinds of details many of them had not considered before. For Betty, the issue of product was no small matter. “I had photographs,” she notes, “but I didn’t really have products.” So she made a major investment and had two of her images printed 1,000 times each at eight by ten inches, then wrapped for sale. “It was a big deal, a big investment. And I sold a few! Plus I had something I could take places,” she says.
The artists, however, weren’t the only ones who learned something from this retail experience. CEO had opened the shop in an urban mall, and they quickly encountered the challenges posed by this kind of venue. Once the proper place to find a small specialty boutique run by the lady across town, many malls are now operated by national corporations that tend to focus their attentions on national retail and department chains. As a result, the retail shelves on which the Showcase West Virginia artists first placed their products became really expensive really quickly.
Showcase had been planned as a temporary venture, meant to occupy its 500-square-foot space for just three months, but when it brought in $55,000 of unrestricted income, CEO decided to rethink this plan. So they found a bigger space in the mall—formerly occupied by The Nature Company—and made plans to stay a while. Not too long after they’d settled in, though, mall officials told them that since they were leasing temporarily, they’d have to move to make way for a permanent tenant. Showcase packed up once again and moved into their third spot in the mall. But it didn’t take long before mall officials needed that space, too, and CEO was told that Showcase needed to become a long-term tenant of the mall. The days of leasing space temporarily for $1,800 dollars a month were over. CEO would either have to sign a three-year lease and begin paying the going rate of $9,000 a month for rent or go somewhere else.
Marilyn Harrell, CEO’s Director of Operations and Development, has been involved in the Showcase program since the beginning. She explains why the non-profit decided to sign the long-term lease and keep the store open in the mall for that next three years “We saw it as a policy initiative,” she explains. “We wanted to let the community know what small and locally-owned businesses were up against. We maintained that a non-profit organization that’s working with state-owned local small businesses should be able to be in an urban mall that’s controlled by an out-of-state resource.” The experience of Showcase garnered a lot of media coverage. It explained why small-scale businesses have such a hard time competing for the opportunity to retail their products in an urban market.”
In 2005, CEO decided to move Showcase to a new, more reasonably-priced location in downtown Charleston. The pilot program is now a full-fledged retail shop featuring over 160 West Virginia artists. Both Marilyn and Pam Curry, CEO’s Executive Director, agree that Showcase West Virginia is a great success. CEO has also learned that a venture like this serves a two-fold purpose: The success of the participating microbusinesses is a top priority, but so too is generating resources for the supporting non-profit, so it can continue to assist other entrepreneurs in the future. Like the artists they’ve “showcased,” CEO had to increase its own business savvy. “Foundations have always asked us,” Pam explains, “If we give you a grant, how are you going to keep the project or the program going? What we’ve seen with Showcase is that running it like a business for business owners can pay for the program and then beyond that can generate money to help the non-profit be sustainable so it can continue to be an agent to help make all these things happen.”
For people like Betty Rivard, that’s good news. Betty’s successes, which have resulted at least in part from her experiences with CEO and Showcase, are continuing. Her work has been featured in several venues, including Tamarack, an arts and crafts outlet run by the Turnpike Authority of I-77. Her photography is also now in print as the cover and inside art for a 2006 issue of Wonderful West Virginia Magazine. More awards like the one for “Homecoming” are sure to be forthcoming.
For now, “Homecoming” and several of Betty’s other images hang on Showcase’s celery green and sky blue walls in the sunny shop at 906 Quarrier Street—just above the hand-carved walnut and cherry wood spoons by Merlyn Diddle, down a bit from Evelyn McGlothlin’s wild elderberry jelly, and across the store from the tempting case of De Fluri’s decadent chocolate truffles. In its eclectic variety of artistic goods, Showcase offers its customers everything from artistic textiles to creative and eye-catching jewelry, like pendants made from antique chinaware. Soon, CEO hopes to expand into other parts of its current building so it can provide studio and gallery space for artists upstairs and display space for larger home furnishing pieces downstairs. They’re also offering summer workshops that bring community members in to learn about the store’s offerings and the many talents of local artists. Thanks to these talented folks in West Virginia, Showcase may be the economically-minded “marketing incubator” CEO had hoped it would be. What may be more important to local shoppers, though, is that it’s an oasis of fine arts and good eats that will surely keep the loyalty of its customers and supplying artists for years to come.