We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alison Harbaugh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I have this thought often and I think it’s one worth sharing because I think so many creatives and small business owners have that little voice in their head that things might be easier if only…or maybe I’d have more stability or income if I chose a more traditional path. But the honest part of those thoughts is that they don’t last long, the pride and passion I have for what I do overrides the “what if” thoughts every single time.

Most days I wake up excited to get into my studio and get rocking on whatever the tasks are for that day. I don’t think I’d feel that way if I had to go into a “regular job” day after day, I’d definitely be bored at some point. My normal week can include everything from planning a workshop, scheduling teachers, organizing a meeting of arts leaders, promoting our brands, photographing for a client, working on edits, communicating with our teaching staff, bookkeeping, running errands for supplies, meeting with my business partner about a project we are working on…it’s endless, there is always something to do and the variety is abundant.

Would I like a more consistent flow of money, guaranteed time off, less responsibility, heck yes but the trade off comes in the freedom of making my own path while serving my art community. It’s how I’m wired, to be in charge of my own destiny, to go with the flow of this unpredictable life and constantly evolve. Isn’t that the true meaning of being a creative?

Alison, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I wear a few different hats. I’ve been a freelance photographer since 2007. I started out as a sports photographer at the Naval Academy, moving on to working as a photojournalist at the Annapolis Capital newspaper and eventually starting my own business (now Sugar Farm Productions). Ten years ago I had an idea to start an art studio in Annapolis where I could teach my photography classes and start up an idea I had for a teen girls photography camp (Fearless Girls). Today, I am co-owner of ArtFarm Studios and AND Creative with my business partner of 7 years, Darin Gilliam.

I have wanted to be a photographer since I was young. I was constantly paging through National Geographic in awe of the images taken around the world as well as intrigued by my local newspaper where I grew up, thinking how cool it would be to have access to places, events and stories I was seeing. I grew up in a very small town in Pennsylvania and knew I wanted to go somewhere with more culture, more action and new experiences. After leaving home for college in Philadelphia, I made my way to Annapolis, MD where after several years of working for others, I found my entrepreneurial bug and set off on my own and never looked back.

I think I was always destined to own my own business. I am a natural leader and love to come up with new ideas and try them out. I love providing a platform for others to succeed, to create, to find their own creative voice. I found my perfect partner in Darin and together we have been able to accomplish so many amazing things in our art community. It’s really hard to find someone who has the same passion and vision that you have, and I feel incredibly lucky that she came into my orbit at just the right time. She’s the yin to my yang.

Together with Darin, ArtFarm Studios grew to AND Creative, a business where we run a creative event space, host creative events and markets, run Annapolis Arts Week and Anne Arundel Arts Month, and curate and produce gallery exhibitions.

Finding the balance between arts administration (for lack of a better description of what I do with AND & ArtFarm) and my creative side with photography and making art is the hardest part of juggling the three businesses, but as I said before I think I’m just wired this way to have many things happening at once and I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’m sure we all have a pretty interesting Covid times story. When Covid hit, I was up in PA helping my mom settle back into life after she suffered a stroke. I thought that was challenging enough, being away from the business and counting on others to make sure the wheels kept on moving forward. Then…lockdown. My mind started racing and I instantly started making a plan. After many phone calls with my business partner, we put together several plans on how to keep the business alive while the world was shut down.

All of our business at that time took place in person, at our studio. Our first plan was to stay relevant on social media. We had drawing challenges on our social channels, had our teachers do some fun art challenges and videos for our followers to keep our base engaged. We then did a super quick pivot and moved all our classes to virtual. This took some learning by all of us, many of our teachers had never had to teach virtually, we had to convince our clients that the classes would still be as compelling as they were in person. Then once I got back into town and the weather started to shift, we created “Neighborhood Studios” where I would load up my car and we’d go teach our classes in people’s backyard for the neighborhood kids.

It was a super stressful time, but one thing we learned from it is that we have a super dedicated team of teachers and dedicated clients who didn’t want to see us fail. It also showed my partner and I that we know how to pivot and once we got through that period of time, new challenges don’t seem so scary, we face them the same way we faced this one – with proper planning, innovative thinking and a positive attitude.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I have always just been myself when on a job. Whether it be photographing an event, visiting a client or running ArtFarm or AND I am always kind and genuinely interested in other’s stories. I think kindness and paying attention to people is such an important quality to have as a business owner/creative. I tell people often, I may not be the absolute best photographer in the area, but my clients continue to come back time after time because they like working with ME. To be yourself, stay grounded and have good relationships is the key to building a following in any businesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: artfarmannapolis.com, sugarfarmproductions.com, andcreativestudio.com
• Instagram: @artfarmannapolis, @sugar_farm, @andcreativestudio
• Facebook: ArtFarm Annapolis & AND Creative Studio

Image Credits
Photo of Alison and Darin by Amy Raab. Photo of myself photographing in Cuba by Lisa Shires