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

Hi Dawn, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Visions..Dreams..Ideas.. They come from so many areas, our thoughts, hearing a song, taking a walk in nature, being in tune with the Spirit, talking with friends and family.

When we got the call that our former employees that, “we’re not going to make it”, we were driving from Round Rock TX to Missoula MT for one of our kid’s graduations, with only 2 weeks worth of clothes with us.
When I heard the announcement, my mind started racing and I heard “start your own painting party studio”. I firmly believe it was that still small voice from the Lord, giving me direction.

My husband, Doug, and I have been in business for ourselves for most of our lives so starting another business should have been a natural choice, but I was pretty done with that. It’s hard to manage staff, juggle finances, work 25 hours a day, surpass customer expectations, cast a vision and have a life. But I had “heard” from above and then got excited!

Starting with a vision, a dream, a new idea, is very exciting! And when one has passion for what they are doing, optimism fuels the fire and the journey begins.

We started with a short list of what we though we would need to open a canvas painting party studio..we searched on line for wholesale suppliers and got an idea of what our initial investment would be. We started a notebook of potential names and domaines as we knew how important that would be in the long run. The shorter the domain, the better.

We were staying with my hubby’s best friend, Scott’s mom, Brenda, south of Hamilton in the beautiful Bitter Root Vally, on the way to the graduation. We showed her the names we had so far and she joined in the session. When she said “Brush” and Doug said “Crazy”, I shouted, “That’s it!!! Brush Crazy!” I just knew in my knower that was what we were supposed to name it! Shortly after that I said “Paint Your Way to Fun” is going to be our slogan. We made sure the domaine was available and it was! Next was to set up Social Media which was still new to us for marketing.

Years later, I look back on our tag line and it still makes me smile. We have had so many customers say “it’s fun and relaxing” here in our studios.

We still had some obstacles to overcome before we could start Brush Crazy. We had a screen printing, embroidery and sign company to take back over and sell to make room for our new interactive art studio. That business miraculously sold in 30 days! I started creating 5 new paintings each weekend while we kept the old business running, outsourcing all projects since we didn’t have any staff to help. I took photos of each “step” along the way and created paint sheets to help future artists lead customers in acrylic painting classes. We opened with 20 unique paintings to offer our creative hungry customers. Brush Crazy now has 1038 painting options for canvas, wood pallet signs, glass, ceramics, mosaics, clay, pouring/fluid art, bubble art, shaving cream marbling, 3D signs, MDF wood cutouts with or without laser lines and now Tie-Dye T-shirts!

Nothing happens overnight, it takes one day at a time doing the next best things consistently. Mistakes are made along the way and hopefully we learn from them. We had planned our first class on a Thursday to be open through Sunday. We had a request to open on a Wednesday night, one day early, so we agreed! Our official open date was July 16th 1014. I believe we had a class of 5 painters. We are 8 years old now and so much has changed.

We started out with canvas classes only. I would teach a class, my husband would help wash brushes and cups after the class in a tiny sink in our single bathroom. We started out with these “cool” glass beer steins..we quickly discovered that plastic cups would be better and brought some in (using our previous contacts from the Ad Speciality business). We also took our paintings and produced other items to sell, blankets, cutting boards, mugs, again from our previous business experience, but it became too time consuming for me so we eventually dropped the extras. We also brought in branded aprons and had rubber stamps made to brand our canvases.

Doug had been listening to customers requests and started talking about adding ceramics to the mix of our business, I was not thrilled to say the least…as an artist I am comfortable with acrylic painting on canvas but I had not painted a ceramic since grade school when my Aunt and Uncle had a small studio in Colorado Springs. My folks and I still have many pieces from my childhood like the Christmas Tree with lights, the frog scrubby holder, spoon rests and more. I couldn’t shake the feelings of inadequacy and fear of constant breakage of the ceramics. But, Doug convinced me it was what the customers wanted so we took the jump and with a customers help, brought in hundreds of ceramics from dish ware, mugs, animals, home decor and more. We brought in a professional to train us and our staff and we added ceramics to the mix in November of 2014.

It took me a while to get used to the glaze painting as the glazes dry a light dusty color and fire up to bright vibrant colors, so it was hard for me to know how a piece was going to come out. Now it’s fun for me! I was slow to learn the process of “clear dipping” a piece before loading the kiln, again, I was resistant to the whole ceramic thing, but now I can do any aspect of it.
We decided to open earlier in the day to accommodate “walk ins” and our Open Studio concept was born.

A couple years later we brought in a teacher to show us how to Dry Brush on ceramics using acrylic paint. These do not go in the kiln, they get sprayed with a clear coat for a shiny protection. Now, I was in love! I guess I’m still a “what you see is what you get” artist, I like seeing the actual colors being used as I go. Interestingly enough, ceramics are now over half of our product sales.

We continued to watch trends in the creative community and found a wood pallet sign company to develop a line of sign shapes for us. We started with the shape of Montana in addition to the typical rectangle and square signs as well.

At about year 2, Doug wanted to franchise our business model. We had developed a great system for our POS, Gift Cards, Rewards program and had several hundred paint sheets at that time. He did the research on what that would take and we decided to pay as we went, using our cash flow…that I do not recommend. For a large investment like that, I would suggest a SBA loan or investor as my perception is we have struggled with cash flow most of our history. It took us about a year to get the manual developed and the franchise lawyer to assemble our FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document). One of the reasons I agreed to franchise is we are both better at working with owners than employees.

A year later we had a customer approach us and ask to franchise with us in Columbus Ohio. She, Lori, and her sister, Lisa, were wanting to do something together and had looked at other opportunities but agreed that owning a creative business would overall be more rewarding. We let them know they would be our first and that we would be learning as we go, just as much as they would be learning! They agreed and we signed the docs in the Spring of 2018.

Doug and I decided it would be best to spend some time in OH as they got set up. At the same time, we were moving corporate to Colorado Springs, where I grew up. We were buying a townhouse and ended up doing all the closing doc from OH as the two week planned trip ended up being 6 weeks! We were able to help our new franchisees hire and train their first artists, help them with their first orders for product, grieved with them over how long the construction was taking. Overall it was a successful trip and we are thrilled to have them on our team. From the writing of this article, they will be 4 years old this August.

Today, Doug and I drive back and forth between Colorado Springs and Great Falls Montana until we can franchise one or both of our studios. We are finding it difficult to work ON the business when we are having to work IN the business. Managing staff in two locations is also difficult as we built our system to be owner ran. As I write this, I am in Montana, heading to COS tomorrow for a couple weeks then back up here. So if you are reading this and know of anyone in COS or Great Falls MT looking for a great creative business model to join, please share my info :)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a creative person, I enjoy making art, writing and singing music and making up recipes that I don’t write down. I love taking pictures of sunsets, wildlife, flowers and the grand babies (3 girls and 1 more girl on the way)! My husband tells me, “Google just called and said you are taking too many pictures!” I roll my eyes and smile ;)

I was in the apparel business for around 30 years as an artist, manager, sales reap, and owner before working as an independent contractor for a paint and sip business in Texas 8 years ago. I fell in love with “speed” painting and seeing customers happy about creating something in 2 hours. I had been painting large canvases to decorate our home and almost always gave a painting as a gift for special occasions. It was a natural step to start our own “painting party studio” when we ended up back in Montana.

We started our brand, Brush Crazy, when I heard/felt the call, when we unexpectedly found ourselves having to take back a business we sold 6 years prior.

The need for “something to do” in Great Falls Montana was a good fit. Customers could come in for a class, learn how to paint a picture offered that night, and go home with something they were proud of, in most cases :)

We quickly added ceramics then wood and more until we decided that an open studio, later to be called, open paint would serve our customers better. Now they can come in anytime we are open and “paint their way to fun”. Most other studios like ours only offer one thing. Canvas OR Ceramics OR Wood..we offer all and more which makes us different. We still ask for reservations for parties of 6 or more to help with staffing.

We hire artists to walk around and help customers when they need it so everyone in your group can paint something different and still get guidance. Our step by step paint sheets help you through the process like you are taking a class but you can do it at your own pace. And, if you do not finish during our open times, you can take it home, then bring it back at any time for no extra fee and keep working on it. Brush Crazy can be your new “Happy Place”.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

2020 will be remembered for some as the season to pivot. Brush Crazy is a community based social business that thrives when people get together to celebrate life events like birthdays, wedding parties, bachelorette parties, date nights and even calm solo time. We are a destination for friendships to deepen during a creative art experience. Team building and FUNdraising are best done in large groups.

In the Spring of 2020 we found ourselves moving to “To-Gogh” like Van Gogh, art kits. We let our customers know they could still get creative and paint at home using our step by step instructions, our supplies and still have fun. We had already been developing an on-line shopping cart but sadly it was not ready till the fall.

We also offered some Zoom art classes online where some community and camaraderie was felt.

We are thankful for the PPP and EIDL grants, as we may not have survived the shut down otherwise. We found people really did want to paint in the studio, not at home. We have been recovering and are thankful our landlord in our COS studio is being patient with us on getting caught up. We are seeing more and more people back in the studio this year and are thrilled to see them getting creative!

How’d you meet your business partner?

Doug and I met at the old Denver Merchandise Mart during a trade show one cold February. I watched him walk by my trade show room every day with his fancy coffee but he didn’t come in or introduce himself till the last day of the show. He heard I was playing Christian music in my showroom as I was packing up to go home to COS when he came in and said hi and we talked about the music for a few minutes. He said he lived in Stevensville Montana and was heading out and asked if I wanted to grab dinner before heading out. I was thrilled and agreed as the butterflies started working their magic through my entire body. I must say, he is quite handsome :) and has amazing blue eyes. Now he has a fantastic beard and still gets all the attention, lol! We went to dinner, he showed me pictures of his three beautiful kiddos, who at the time were 6, 8, and 10 years old, all toe-head blonds. They are all stunning adults now, 2 of which have given us 3 grand daughters…one more coming in a few weeks, Lord willing!
When Doug told me he and his dad had a screen printing and embroidery business, I should have run the other way, as I had already done that and transitioned out..now just selling apparel..but at least I knew we were both familiar with the industry.
I knew that night I wanted to marry him, even without really knowing him..we were married that June and I moved to Montana from Colorado Springs. We have been adventuring together for 21 years now!
We live in COS and go back and forth between our two Brush Crazy studios, we are in Great Falls, MT today for one more day…then back to COS..
We hope to eventually end up close to a warm beach with lots of outside actives to be had. And…sunsets!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brushcrazy.com
• Instagram: brushcrazy
• Facebook: BrushCrazy
• Linkedin: Brush Crazy
• Twitter: BrushCrazy
• Youtube: BrushCrazy
• Yelp: BrushCrazy