We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Suree Sompamitwong. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Suree below.
Alright, Suree thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
It all started when I had to move back home to Minnesota after living in Los Angeles for 3.5 year. I was depressed and struggling with accepting the fact that I was diagnosed with being bipolar. After a while, I decided to enroll myself into a community college to get myself off the ground. There I met my art teacher who was a life saver. She supported me through my creative journey, and I was allowed to paint and sculpt anything that I wanted. I would make all kinds of panting that helped me release and process my emotion. I would keep going to the art room because it was my healing space. After a year and half of creating art, I got the idea that I wanted to offer a safe space for my community to gather and use art as an outlet. So that’s how I got the idea to start my non-profit, Creative Healing Space. I knew that I needed money to get it started. So, I decided to sell my artwork to raise money to get rent a space and get us to be an official 501c3 nonprofit. I called my friends all over the country to ask them if they would buy my artwork, I explained why, and they were all very supportive and bought my artwork. I even had friends from Australia donating money to the cause. Through that, it created the momentum and confidence I needed. We opened our doors at the beginning of January 2020. We would host all kinds of events there like mask-making night, creative writing class, and painting class. After a couple of months, I needed to raise more money to continue to pay for rent, since we were offering all our services for free. So, we spontaneously sold chicken and sticky rice orders for $5. We sold over 375 orders to keep the space going. That lasted for about 4 months when the pandemic hit, and we had to shut down our location. We evolved into virtual spaces and hired an art therapist to offer virtual art therapy and group sessions. We also found artists all over the country who would host virtual artist workshops.
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.
I got into the non-profit world by accident. But wow, am I glad that it happened! Looking back, and connecting the dots. I’m so grateful to reflect on how everything transpired. My idea is to launch Creative Healing Space, a non-profit that supports mental health and community healing through art, therapy, and education. It was through my healing journey after moving back home from living in Los Angeles for 3.5 years. I was chasing my dreams of working in the fashion industry when I had a psychosis at work. Which resulted in being hospitalized at a mental institution for a week until my mom could come get me out, and I was forced to return home. For a while, I was struggling with deep depression and binge eating addiction. I wanted to numb my pain. I was grieving the loss of my life in Los Angeles and also trying to reconcile with the fact that I have a mental illness. Because shortly after coming back home to Minnesota, I was diagnosed with bipolar. About 6 months into being back home, I decided to enroll myself in a community college so I could keep myself busy. I gravitated towards going to the art room. I kept making art and followed my intuition. I kept producing work that I felt I needed to make. Art allowed me to safely channel my anger, grief, and chaos, into a canvas and out of my body. It was a saving grace for me. Then one day, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice if I could offer this safe space for my community? To gather, and make art that’s intended for healing. That’s how the idea to start Creative Healing Space started. So now, 4 years later, Creative Healing Space offers programming including, monthly Art Therapy Tuesday, group therapy for at-risk youth and educators, artist scholarships, and children’s activities. We believe that combining creative outlets and group therapy is a good way for us to help bridge the gap for mental health support shortage within our community.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
I met my co-president during my journey as a student at Minnesota West Community and Technical College. She was my art teacher, her name is Leah Gossom. Leah has been an art teacher there for several years and when I first met her, I instantly felt comfortable and safe around her. Leah is an amazing art teacher. During my time there, she supported me in my creative visions. I would complete the art assignment given. Then I could be free to do more. And that’s exactly what happened. I kept creating and making more and more art. For example, one of our assignments was to make one mask. I kept making more masks, and I ended up making a huge shadow box that housed 20 masks with a mirror in the center. Or I would make a life-size sculpture because I had such a strong vision of making a sculpture of a woman wearing a white dress holding a big bleeding art. The intention behind the sculpture is to symbolize femininity and being an empath. Leah was always encouraging and supportive and ready to help me whenever I felt stuck in my creative process. I truly owe it to her through my healing journey through art as well as starting Creative Healing Space. To me, Leah was like an art therapist, even though that wasn’t her role. Because she made me feel safe and allowed me to create whatever my heart desired, and I appreciated that.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Once I had the idea to start Creative Healing Space. I know that I needed seed money to start it. Being a broke college student at the time. I didn’t have any savings or the ability to just ask my mom for money. So I thought about what I did have, and what value I could create to make money from it. And I thought about my artwork. I would make artwork and take pictures of them, and naturally, I would show it to my friends because I was excited about my work. One of my co-workers at the restaurant I was working at the time, was interested in my work and she offered to buy my paintings. But at the time, I was too emotionally attached to it and I refused to sell them. However, when I needed to start Creative Healing Space, I decided that that was how I was going to earn the initial capital. I was going to sell all of my artwork. I started calling a whole bunch of people and messaging all my friends from all over the country and even a friend in Australia. I also posted on my social media that I wanted to start a non-profit and asked people to help donate or buy my artwork. I sold my artwork ranging from $50 to $350. And through all of that, I raised about two thousand dollars. It was enough to pay the first month’s rent on a space that I found next door to where I worked as a massage therapist. (I had two jobs, as a waitress and Thai massage therapist while going to school).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.creativehealingspace.org
- Instagram: creativehealingspacemn
- Facebook: Creative Healing Space
Image Credits
Some of the professional photos in my art studio was taken by Virgil Cerda