We were lucky to catch up with Andrew Renato recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andrew, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

We’ve dabbled in so many different things throughout our journey. Candle making, buttons, shirts, tufting, felting, painting, sewing… the list goes on and on. With each new endeavor we learned a lot of new skills and learned what we are excited about and not excited about. Some things come naturally and other things you have to develop so it’s really important to keep trying.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Andrew has a background as a fashion stylist and set designer for commercial print clients and Renato comes from a product development/ graphic design background. When we combine the two we create our own world that we want to invite everyone into. We love bold colors, shapes and patterns as well as elements from pop culture. Renato is originally from Brazil so he leans into the lighthearted and celebratory side with colors and Andrew brings his country queer aesthetic to the mix. When combined it’s a lot of look and a lot of fun! Ultimately we just want to create things that will be forever keepsakes in a family and we want your kids to want to steal what we made from their parents!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

With the amount of excess in the world we want to create things that will be held onto for generations. It might sound corny but we want to just make people feel joy when they see our work.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We started off as a candle company and with time we listened to our instincts and decided to pivot. We dealt with a devastating situation from another small business and decided to take more ownership of what we were doing. Instead of relying on selling wholesale candles we started exploring other avenues instead of giving up. With a lot of hard work and perseverance we now have a whole new voice and we are so happy now that we have gone through what could have been an incredibly difficult situation.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.apothicc.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/apothicc

Image Credits
Mindy Byrd Nina Kong