We were lucky to catch up with Julie Schabel recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julie, thanks for joining us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

I have been running my own socials since I started Wave Space. I recently hired someone to consult for my social media channels and my website because I felt like I needed outside input and a fresh perspective for some things. I like to bounce ideas off others and I think being creative with your content can really help a business. Telling an authentic story can be hard when you’re actually living it, so getting feedback on how the information I am trying to communicate comes across is important to me. As a teacher I know everyone processes things differently so it’s helpful to hear back and get some constructive criticism. I think being an artist helps me with that aspect of running a business too. I’m not set in my ways. If there is a better way of doing something, let’s do that and keep it moving. Especially dealing with all the algorithms and changing parameters on what gets shown to your followers. It changes every day so you have to be ready to change with it.

Julie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started screen printing at an internship I was doing in high school. It was for photojournalism at a local newspaper but they had a whole print shop connected to the office. I started out washing screens, as most people do. It’s messy work. No one wants to do that job at the shop. Screen printing and apparel decoration use really harsh inks and chemicals that most people are unaware of. You have to be so careful when working with the materials in the shop and wear lots of PPE. I hope to develop a line of natural or more environmentally friendly printing inks and chemicals. I would love to collaborate on that with anyone that can make it happen! Our friend Maggie, who we shared our first studio space with, makes really cool natural screen printing inks, which we have used in her classes at the studio. She and I met while working at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I needed a place for my studio and she had a space at the Screw Factory in Lakewood. It was a big open loft in a warehouse and super industrial.

I came up with the name for Wave Space around mid February 2020, right before Covid shut everything down. During Covid we grew from teaching classes to small groups (being safe and following guidelines) and printing merch for businesses to doing more in person events once things started to open back up. During this time Maggie moved out so we took over the whole space.
We had events and gallery openings with artists, musicians, food pop ups, classes and workshops in the space. We have been so lucky to collaborate with other artists from the area and beyond. It’s the best part of the process! We started building a team of teaching artists and offering internships to students to learn about the business of art. The space worked well for a few years until Wave Space started doing bigger events and classes and we realized we needed a more accessible space. We were tucked away on the 3rd floor and it was hard for guests to navigate up to the space so we started to look for a new location. In April 2023, we found a new storefront on Madison in Lakewood, right down the street from our old location. We took a while to get settled in to the new space, because it’s smaller and less open than the loft space but it’s been working for us so far.

Then, in July there was a huge flood in our basement, right when we were finally getting situated in the new space. I haven’t really spoken about it publicly but I wanted to address it to help other business owners that might have to deal with a similar situation. Make sure you have business insurance! That’s the most important thing for sure. Also, check your claim to make sure you have coverage for water damage from a sewer drain. I learned that you don’t want to use the word “flood” as that is not covered under any commercial policy besides a specific flood policy. When the storm drains back up into the sewer system, insurance refers to that as sewer /drain back up , which is covered. You would need to have a whole separate flood policy if your area is prone to flooding. There was about 3ft of water in the basement at one point. It was swirling around the drains and was so strong it knocked 40lb boxes off the shelves. It was horrible! I teach kids art classes and I had all our supplies in storage in the basement, all of that got ruined. Servicemaster did a great job cleaning out the damage and saving what could be saved.

Since the flood I have been focused on building Wave Space up better than before. In September we had a wonderful gallery opening with Arabella Proffer, Tessa LeBaron and Jenna Fournier. We have been working on offering retail as well by selling local artists prints, T-shirts and home goods. Look out for that in the next few months.

Wave Space was fortunate to receive a grant, The Creative Impact Fund, administered by Assembly for the Arts and funded by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This grant allows us to offer free classes for elementary school aged children at the Hough and Collinwood Cleveland Public Libraries throughout the year. We focus on printmaking and alternative processes with these classes. The students get to take home cool art projects each class. We are planning an art show to showcase all the artists at the end of the program. We had a great first session at Hough Library. The sessions run for 5 weeks and classes are drop in! There’s more information on our website and Eventbrite.

We also just got back from showing Arabella’s NFT works at Miami Art Week. We were included in this years Nolcha Show at the SLS and The Sagamore hotels in South Beach. It was a wonderful event filled with creatives from all over the world. We got to engage with guests by live block printing t-shirts that were donated by American Apparel which was so cool. I think Art Basel (as Miami art week is called, referencing the biggest art fair of the week) needs more hands on art making. The best events have some sort of live art, or an interactive element. Nolcha had artists painting canvases and doing murals in the hotel, huge LED screens with art being displayed, the whole space was activated. It was such a vibe. We also showed at Satellite Art Fair right down the street on Lincoln Road. Satellite took over an empty warehouse and transformed it with immersive installation and performance space all week. The highlight was a Shabari performance taking over the entire half of the venue.

Next year we are planning on hosting more gallery events and classes at the new space and we are looking to continue our classes at the library. Follow us on instagram to stay updated with all of our events.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We have been applying for grants to fund our classes at Cleveland Public Libraries. I think people get intimidated at the thought of applying for grants, but there are people and organizations out there that genuinely want to help fund your projects! You just have to present it in a way that’s easily digestible and to make sure to follow all the directions and guidelines. Some grants are very specific and you won’t qualify for them but you can reach out to a contact email and ask about any other grants that you may be eligible for.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I think the best way to attract new clients is to meet them where they are at. I love doing live events, pop ups and open studios so I can meet people in the community and tell them about our upcoming classes or a pop up we have in the works. Cross promotion is really helpful too. We try to collaborate with brands that are connected to the community and share the same values but they might have a different demographic so we can share our story with a wider audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wavespacestudio.com/
• Instagram: @ https://www.instagram.com/wavespacestudio?igshid=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA==
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/wavespacestudio/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieschabel
• Twitter: Wavespacestudio

Image Credits
Lawrence Hudson