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

Kristin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Spanning over a decade, the Junk Mail Migration project is the most meaningful project I’ve worked on. Frustrated with my own onslaught of junk mail into my home and my own financial limitations for purchasing art supplies, I became obsessed with figuring out how to make it usable. You see this unsolicited material (now the working title for my next book) is acidic and plasticized, and not the most malleable art supply. All this work with junk mail sparked a curious line of inquiry… where did this huge pile of junk mail come from? and through that question deforestation’s impact on birds breeding in the boreal forest was thrust into my consciousness.

Over the next year, I’m in my studio concocting all these material experiments – papermaking, collage, paper mache, origami, sculpture, drawing and painting. In my research I’m uncovering migratory lines of these birds through my region, tracing junk mail to paper mill to forest. Through cross-referencing Iowa non-resident birds with birds that breed in the boreal forest I came up with a list of 37 migrating birds. These are the ones we see in Iowa that will be most impacted by boreal forest deforestation. Yet how to bring the birds and the data and the material all together? Through all these processes in my studio, I found a way to stabilize the junk mail’s high acid content and create a suitable ground for drawing and painting. Each year I add another few paintings to the series. Eventually, all thirty-seven will come together.

Now, here is where the most meaningful part happens. Around, what, year 10 of looking at migration maps, learning about these birds, exploring the data of bird sightings, I started to get a new idea. It’s too big though. Too costly. Doesn’t even make sense. No. I can’t do that. Yet, the bird sighting data keeps calling to me. How the shift has happened over time. Going from seeing many birds in an area, so seeing one. Or none. Or seeing none and now many! How can I show this? Painting won’t work. How can I weave this? And this is one of the things I love most about art. It doesn’t always make sense. You follow this line, the material, the data, and it leads you to a place you never expected. A chance idea, phrase, or impulse takes on a life all its own.

Having worked with my partner before on a project about experiencing seizures, I asked him his thoughts on representing data in a woven tapestry. It took another three years and quite a bit of grant funding to get there, but we did. The Junk Mail Migration Interactive Tapestry debuted last fall and is currently touring the region. From art centers to conservation centers to public libraries. It’s sparking an interest in citizen science, backyard ecology, and conservation of the boreal forest.

For me this work is more than just about migration, about local and global ecology, as an artist it’s where for the first time all the facets of my creative practice have come together. The love of science, the natural world, art, craft, truly following my intuition and taking things as large as they need to be for the idea to come into being.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For over a decade Jason, my husband and co-owner of Little Woods Herbal, joked about our retirement plan to open a tea store “on a mainstreet like the one in Ames.” He was an Iowa State Student at the time. Little did we know it would soon become more than an inside joke. After a year long apprenticeship with an herbalist I opened our online store in 2013.

In 2015 we spent one summer at the farmer’s market selling our own blends. After getting asked where are tea shop was by nearly every person we sold to, we decided to jump in feet first and that christmas eve signed the lease for our brick and mortar store. What had been a five year plan, turned into a 5 month plan.

So before my 35th birthday, I retired to run the business full time. Not just like a mainstreet in Ames, but on the Main Street in Ames.

What was I retiring from?

Well, my first business Craft Leftovers and my job as a curator at the Octagon.

Jokes on me, I didn’t really retire at all. Doors you think are closed have a way of reopening later in life.

Craft Leftovers was started on a whim in 2006 as a way to keep me accountable to using up my leftover craft supplies. I made something using what I had on hand, then posted instructions on how to make it. And within a year it had grown into my full time job, so by the time I graduated college with a BFA in Oil painting,

I had already been published in craft magazines, been a panelist at blogging conferences with the likes of Amy Sedaris (no joke), and within two years of graduating, had signed a book deal with Storey Publishing.

Following a path parallel to that, I was also painting 80 foot murals, exhibiting my work in galleries and museums, and getting more heavily involved in the fine arts world. It seems like everything was on a great trajectory for the rest of my life? I mean, who wouldn’t love single handedly making several thousand of cats suffer the wrath of their knitted cat hoodie pattern? (Okay, for real when I’m having a bad day I absolutely troll the ravelry.com pattern page for a good laugh at these cat’s expense, my cat loves her hoodie, I don’t know what their problem is).

Except I was barely making enough to pay rent, student loans, and groceries. So I took a job at the Octagon. And it was a wonderful experience, but pregnancy and then motherhood are fairly incompatible with the rigors of the non-profit art center career path. And towards the end, my own art career was really taking off and I was making more money at this odd side hustle of selling bulk herbs online. We ran the math and found that after daycare, withholding, and coffee breaks, most weeks, I was paying to work..

I returned to soloprunering it, motherhood, art, and this rapidly growing side hustle. And that brings me back to the beginning, 2015 and opening Little Woods Herbal.

Every year we’ve seen exponential growth — going from online to brick and mortar we 4x our revenue. And since we opened we’ve seen 40% growth, then 30%, then 20% — the revenue is leveling out. But here is the thing, as we gain experience, our profit margin is growing.

2020 we were well on our way to see another 20% revenue growth cycle, but also a doubling of profits though better inventory management and efficiencies.

Then the pandemic hit. It was a mess. Do we close, do we stay open. Nearly all our staff decided to stay home. We were overwhelmed with online orders from people wanting tea and herbs, and I was starting to work 14+ hour days. We made some radical changes, got a grasp on the reins again. And by April we were ready to do more than just get by. We launched our first live online events – tea party in a box, then followed that up with ecourses about tea and herbalism. Our work, commitment to providing jobs, and finding ways to make it work, found us featured by Iowa Economic Developement and they even came and made a film about our shop.

We made it through, our company is better than it was before, more focused with staff that are as dedicated to the mission as we are. We’ve hired our first full time employee, have a full crew for shifts, and it’s opened up time for me to focus on the part of the business where I thrive – storybranding, product development, and building up my art and craft businesses alongside Little Woods.

You see, the real turning point for me in my entrepreneurial career is when I was given the opportunity to attend the Creative Capital muti-day artist business training workshop the fall after spending the summer at the Farmer’s Market with Little Woods. It’s for the Iowa Art Fellows, but they get to each invite one person. I was the guest of Des Moines artist Rachel Buse.

Through this process I learned to shape a vision, think big, advocate for my work, and some financial skills to finally get beyond breaking even. And I received some hard feedback. That I wasn’t ready to launch my art business. That I needed to hone in on what I wanted from my art career before I really put it out into the world. That I needed a consistent body of work. And it was during this event I decided that I needed to either get Little Woods out of my house (it started as a home based biz) so I could hire help, or let it go and focus on my art.

And I am to reframe the story of me as a small business owner or a crafter or an artist to a creative entrepreneur and owner of three businesses that work together to reach a broader audience and build a more sustainable future for my family.

The consistent thread throughout all three businesses is sustainability, the use of natural products, and the celebration of curiosity and wonder.

Craft Leftovers – where Little Woods started as a series of articles about the kitchen apothecary, homesteading, and thrifty cooking. — each post mentioning herbs and teas links back to Little Woods’ product catalog. Articles are written weekly and pattern posts are published monthly. The main revenue sources are zine, pattern, ko-fi supporters and book sales.

Little Woods – Plant based to its core, we specialize in tea blends from whole botanicals and boast a catalog of over 500 bulk items. The space functions as a gallery and we sell my zines, book, stationary, and paintings. As a tea and spice apothecary, we’ve created a space that’s creative and restoring.

Kristin M Roach – Portfolio & online gallery where you can see how everything comes together and find all my projects. From illustrations of plants in the backyard to large scale interactive woven works about bird migration. My gallery shop features my current collection of originals and prints. When you join my mailing list, you get access to the back catalog (or vault as I like to call it) of one of a kind experimental works, or things I’ve kept for myself and am finally ready to share with others.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That art was art and craft was craft and business was business. These three things all flow in and out of each other. Whether a traditional fine artist, a pattern writer, or the owner of a retail business, there are different phases of any project. The creative spark of inception, the forming of the idea into a physical thing, making the thing actually happen, and then bringing that thing to the community. For every creative person they identify more or less with any one of these mantles, but as most labels are, they never are a true marker of the importance of the person or the work.

Growing up in the 80-90’s the line between art and craft was deeply etched. While I was always encouraged to do both at home, in school one was given value (art) and the other was not (craft). I literally did hear the phrase “get that craft sh$t out of here” in reference to knitting before my figure drawing class from a professor. I was hiding from my peers and professors that I was paying most my bills with my pattern writing and zine making. Thankfully one of my professors found out about my duality and encouraged the melding together of my studio and “commercial craft” practice. She introduced me to the head of the textile art department (which is where I learned to weave), to the long history of material studies, and conceptual art that bridges worlds of all kinds. My most recent project has that sense of finally embodying this lesson fully.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For the longest time I thought it was just for me. Chronically ill since I was a kid, epilepsy, migraines, manic-depression, weakened immune system… my art was always there for me. From the doctor’s office to flat out in the bed, I could still draw. It brings me deep comfort and calm no matter what life is dishing out. Exploring worlds beyond myself through my work. Following lines of inquiry and adventure and curiosity. Finding wonder in the smallest of objects to the largest of datasets. I love it. It’s like this key that unlocks enjoyment in just about everything in life. And I thought I was just sharing that because I couldn’t keep it just to myself.

Then Cyclical happened. When asked what the most important piece I’ve ever done, it was hard choosing between my most recent work and this work. Using EEG data from the kind of seizure I experience, my partner and I birthed the experience of a seizure into a room sized installation. Beautiful sequences of light filled the space showing normal brain function, disorder creeping in, growing in intensity and shifting to red, and then the whole thing goes dark and reboots. It wasn’t chaotic, it was calming. And this is when I experienced truly what art could be for a community, for something beyond myself. When people came and experienced the work, they cried. Some for themselves, some for people they loved. Some for their futures. And then came the stories. That as much hardship is there, that there is beauty too. That which creates a disordered and difficult life, can also create beauty and peace. That one is more than an illness or experience, that there is hope for their future and their child’s future.

I don’t know that I’ll ever create a piece like this again, though we haven’t seen the last iteration. I would love for this work to make its way into a hospital chapel (no it’s not flashing lights, just mild pulsing) to bring comfort to those in the midst of crisis. And it is this work that led to the technology and methods we used for the interactive tapestry I used to answer that first question.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.kristinmroach.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/kristinmroach
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kristinmroach.art
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/kristinmroach
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/craftleftovers
• Other: http://www.craftleftovers.com; http://www.littlewoodsherbal.com

Image Credits
Jason B Shaw, Kristin M Roach