Studio Notes ✹ Making Room For What Comes Next

Studio Notes ✹

Making Room For What Comes Next

There are moments when you realize you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Our ribbon cutting was one of those moments.

What an incredible afternoon. Seeing so many familiar faces—and so many new ones—walk through the doors of Marigold Art Collective made me a little emotional, if I’m being honest. A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who stopped by, hugged me, wandered through the space, asked questions, raised a glass, and celebrated this next chapter with us.

And now… we get ready for the Grand Opening.

I am SO excited.

Marigold has been living in my head and heart for a long time, and watching it become a real place—filled with color, texture, art, laughter, interesting people and beautiful things—is pretty damn magical.

But getting here hasn't exactly been a straight line.

This past year has taught me a great deal about endings, beginnings, business, friendship, trust, and the sometimes rather expensive education that comes from discovering that not everyone operates with the same heart, integrity, honesty, or intentions that you do.

I've also learned there is a very big difference between people who want to build somethingwithyou and people who are perfectly happy benefiting from what you've already spent years building. That's a distinction I wish I'd understood a little sooner—but some lessons apparently insist on being expensive and annoying.

There. That's probably all I need to say about that. IYKYK LOL

I've also learned that karma doesn't always arrive with fireworks and a marching band. Sometimes karma is quieter. Sometimes it's simply getting to live with the life you've created through your own choices.

But, for me, I really love the life I'm creating.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I have room to breathe.

I loved so much about my years in the restaurant world, and I will always be a chef. Food and hospitality are woven into who I am. I built an incredibly successful restaurant, and I will always be proud of what I created there.

After that came another chapter—one that, looking back, may simply have been the right idea with the wrong person at a difficult time. Not every venture is meant to become part of your forever. Some are apparently just ways of teaching you exactly what you never want to do again.

And strangely enough, I'm grateful for that lesson too.

Because sometimes you have to experience what doesn't fit anymore before you can recognize what does.

But I don't miss running a restaurant. At all.

Turns out there is life after an incredibly successful restaurant—and after a few unexpected detours along the way—and it's considerably more colorful.

Now I get to take everything I've loved throughout my life—art, textiles, travel, food, teaching, gathering people around a table, learning from other cultures, making things with my hands—and bring all of it together under one roof.

That is Marigold.

I want this place to nurture the incredible creative community we already have here in Henderson County and throughout Western North Carolina. I want people to come here to learn something new, meet someone interesting, make something they're ridiculously proud of, have a drink, laugh too loudly, and leave feeling a little more inspired than when they walked in.

And Marigold isn't going to stop at our front door.

I'm dreaming about workshops and visiting artists. Creative retreats. Weekends spent making things together. And eventually, art-centered journeys outside the country—traveling together to experience the textiles, food, traditions, makers, markets and creative cultures that have inspired me so deeply throughout my own travels.

There is so much I want to share.

Is starting over scary? Hell yes.

Has it been financially difficult? Absolutely.

Have there been moments when I've wondered what on earth I was doing?

Plenty.

But I'd rather build something beautiful from the ground up than spend another minute fighting to remain somewhere with someone I've already outgrown.

Sometimes the thing that feels like it's tearing your life apart is actually making room for the life you were supposed to build next.

And looking around Marigold, I think that's exactly what happened.

So here's to closing doors that needed closing.

Here's to trusting your gut.

Here's to knowing the difference between the people who build beside you and the people who simply enjoy the view from what you've built.

Here's to karma doing what karma does.

And here's to this beautiful, colorful, slightly unconventional next chapter.

I cannot wait to show you what we've been up to.

See you at the Grand Opening.

Create • Sip • Connect • Belong

With love and gratitude,

Jesse

Marigold Art Collective