We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Casandra Inez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Casandra below.

Casandra, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

The public education system was created to prepare people to work. It’s not meant to prepare students for a fulfilling life and I wish I realized that sooner. You have to find other ways to nurture your curiosity, creativity, and passions.
I was determined to graduate high school and college with a degree, convinced it was the recipe for a great life. But that just leads to an occupation, a job. And sure, you can love your job, but there is so much more to life than what you do for money.
Now I thought I was winning by working for myself, being my own boss, doing what I loved. But I recently realized two things; (1) once you start depending on your passions to pay the bills, it can feel forced at times and there’s more to it than just the parts you like, and it can suddenly feel like a job you don’t want and (2) when our jobs take up such a big part of our lives, a singular title represents us, and we can lose other parts of ourselves.
If I could share a piece of wisdom, I’d say find a job that pays for the lifestyle you want. And continue to explore and expand on other parts of yourself. Do the things you like and try new things. Don’t stop being curious.

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

I knew I was a creative individual when I was young. And I knew that because I had an imagination and visions that no one in my family had. I called myself a poet first then an artist. I wrote poems on my own but I took classes in art before I realized that I was an artist too.
I am a first-generation Guatemalan-American and I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. When I was 15, I met the person who would become my life partner and business partner 10 years later. But before all that happened, I was a college drop out that had lots of random jobs and no clear direction until I volunteered as a tutor for high school students and decided to go back to school to become an English teacher. I loved poetry and words and felt excited to share that with young people.
During my third year as a teacher, when our child was 1 year old, my partner and I decided to open a shop and gallery for local artists. As Black and Brown artists, we knew it was important to have ownership of our own narratives and spaces and we just didn’t see that enough in our home city of Providence.
After 6 years of teaching, I decided not to go back and pursue our business goals full time. We’ve been operating Public Shop & Gallery since 2019, we have 3 children, and have continued to grow over the years. We host art exhibitions, community programming, and special events.
Our work has expanded to serve our community in more ways than we imagined. I think since we live in the same neighborhood as our business, the lines that typically separate work and home are blurred. Our neighbors and friends are also our customers and collaborators. We are truly a thread in the core fabric that makes this community.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I love to tell this story because it counters the assumption that you need a ton of money to get started.
We started our business with $2,500. We put $2,000 down for the first month and security deposit to rent a space and had $500 left to invest. Our priority was to fill the space with furnishings and get small electronics to run daily operations, such as a Square device, a printer, etc. We were lucky enough to make our rent every month plus some so we could continue to buy things we needed. The lesson here is you don’t have to do it all at once. And that’s how we operated for a few years.
Last year, we got accepted into a program that provided us with a $18,000 grant to take our business up a notch. We used most of it to buy things that wouldn’t necessarily make our business money, those purchases that are difficult to make if you know there is no return on that spending, but it helped elevate our space in a way that we never got to do before. So we definitely took the slow and steady path. It doesn’t have to be a race.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

Our business has multiple revenue streams and every advisor or mentor we talk to says it’s a lot. But we think about our business as multiple parts therefore we thought of different ways to cover them all. Public Shop & Gallery includes a retail shop, a gallery space that’s also a venue, and artist studios. You can imagine how each part generates money differently – shop sales, rentals, gallery art sales, and studio rent. Additionally, we offer memberships. It may sound like a lot but if you stay organized, it doesn’t feel hard to manage. On top of that, we have also imagined a few other ways we could generate additional income in the future. It’s all about creativity and pursing what works.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.publicpvd.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/publicnotprivate/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/publicshopandgallery