We were lucky to catch up with Tawny Darling and Robert Chadwell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tawny & Robert, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

We have been able to earn a full-time living from our work. Well, sort of. Basically, we’re working toward a certain lifestyle, and if we’re not quite to that point, we alter our lifestyle to fit our current wages. We are still in the first full year of having our business open and we have exceeded our goals, which is pretty exciting.

I (Tawny) have always been an artist as long as I can remember. I started selling earrings and crafts a few years ago and had some really positive feedback, so I decided to continue it, though my real love is painting. When I moved to Alaska from California to be with my partner, Robert, I was searching for a place in my new home. The jobs available were just jobs and they were the endless 9 to 5. Robert worked in tourism which accounts for a lot of the income in our town. When the pandemic hit, we were both laid off because there simply were not enough people coming to Haines.

That’s when we started selling things at the local farmer’s market. I made crafts, jewelry, and art while Robert began making and selling syrups from foraged ingredients in the area. Each week, we would come home from the market and discuss what we could do better–signage, tablecloths, labels on his syrup, displays. Each week we built on it. We started working together to forage edible plants and began working together to make different food items like cocktail syrups, jellies, spice mixes, and salad dressing. That’s when we began Adventure Harvest LLC. We got to the point where we were bringing in almost enough income to survive being unemployed. We began doing food pop-ups in town and that was enough to pay the bills.

We worked on all our side hustles for a couple of years, then we had an opportunity to open a retail shop right across the street from the cruise ship dock. This was a big deal, because our town hadn’t had cruise ship income in over two years. This year was our first year with the shop and it was the first year that tourism came back to the area. We called our little shop The Beach Rose to highlight one of the foraged products that we love.

We have learned so much since starting our business and it has not been easy. I went to college for business and found that most of what I learned was useless. Everything was catered to the corporate world, but here we were starting business in a town where everyone knows your name and your life story. People are not just a number here and we want our business to reflect that. All of the start-up paperwork and processes, we learned with the help of the internet and friends, and local resources like Spruce Roots. We’re grateful to so many other small business owners who took the time to give us advice.

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

Robert and I are the founders and owners of Adventure Harvest LLC and The Beach Rose. Adventure Harvest produces jellies, syrups, spice mixes, bbq sauces, and much more from edible plants we find in the area. The Beach Rose is a small gift shop where we sell our food products, along with hand-made art, jewelry, and crafts from all over Alaska. We like to show off all that Alaskan artists have to offer, from jewelry and hand-knit accessories, to photography and paintings. I also make a lot for the shop, like wood-burned ornaments, cutting boards, magnets; oil paintings and drawings; jewelry and stained glass.

I think what we are most proud of is seeing people wander around the store and pick up the things we make without any prompting. It feels great to know that we’re creating things that people love. When I made my first major painting sale, I called my mom and cried. What we do matters. If only to bring someone a little bit of joy. We are excited to be able to support local artists and encourage them to keep creating. We like telling guests where each of these items come from, because each one has a story. We love working with other businesses like Corlix, and Fireside Herbs and do fun collaborations. We really enjoy getting the chance to show visitors all the wonderful things our town and Alaska have to offer.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

We love creating because it is always fun to see something come to life that you made with your own hands. Creating is a great way to challenge and better ourselves, but what we love most is inspiring others to create. Whether it’s teaching someone how to make a certain dish to seeing what fun cocktails people come up with or encouraging artists to keep going with their craft. The best part of being a creative is to share the experience.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Encouragement goes a long way and showing creatives that what they do matters. It would be great to see better art programs in school with better teachers. It doesn’t have to be fine art, anything to create is wonderful. Music, cooking, wood-working and the like. I struggled in many of my art classes in high school and throughout college. It seems that many of the teachers and professors (at least the ones I had) just wanted to show off what they can do, rather than encouraging the way the student did things. I was really frustrated in many art programs. I only had two teachers out of a dozen that encouraged me to be me. I think this is the way with a lot of courses. I think the best thing society can do is encourage young minds to create.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.adventureharvest.com (coming Spring 2023)
• Instagram: @adventureharvestalaska
• Facebook: Adventure Harvest & The Beach Rose

Image Credits
Tawny Darling and Robert Chadwell