Meet Brenna Harvey | Fiber & Chalk Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brenna Harvey and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brenna, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I was raised in a very creative and skilled household wherein my parents also ran a small business. The ups-and-downs and financial insecurity growing up dissuaded me away from entrepreneurship as a young adult, but the pandemic really forced me to reassess what is important to me and what makes me happy. I took a really long break from any creative pursuits due to work obligations and raising a family, and BIDEdesign is 100% me getting back to that and finding myself in the process. I didn’t initially intend to start a business really, but I get so much joy from creating and providing a service for others that it just makes sense; I’ve been fortunate enough to receive opportunities and support from unexpected places and that ushered in the groundwork for me to start a company in a serious sense. The challenge of building something that’s my very own from the ground up is a huge motivation, and also teaching my children by example. At the end of the day, I’m doing what I love and that makes all the difference.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
With macrame, it’s incredibly important to me to be able to source my materials as locally and ethically as possible. I try to utilize recycled materials to lessen my carbon footprint; the cotton I use is 100% recycled. My husband is an arborist, so any natural wood is likely directly from him and his work. I also intentionally source materials from other small businesses.

In making signage, I really enjoy working most with local businesses to create unique signs and support them. Large scale hand-drawn signs have turned out to be my favorite.

It’s sort of funny to me that the creative things I’m doing now are skills I learned when I was a teenager. I’ve found myself coming back to these skills I developed before the noise of the “adult world” got in the way, before extracurriculars were turned into a side hustle, before I was distracted by constantly living in survival mode. Both macrame and lettering/signage is meditative for me; it’s rad to get lost in the making and come out the other end with something beautiful.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For food and drinks, Shuga’s downtown has been one of my favorites forever. Lazy afternoon visits to local breweries with food trucks is a must. Some of my favorites are Metric, FH, Goat Patch & Atrevida.

Walking around downtown & in Old Colorado City is always fun and there’s ton of eclectic local shops to visit.

With young kids, we try to spend a lot of time outdoors. We love exploring the Paint Mines in Calhan, the Arcade in Manitou Springs, and Helen Hunt Falls. We spend a lot of time camping in the summer, heading to places around Cripple Creek and Salida. I’m a bad tourist, I moved here in 2003 and I’ve still never been to the very top of Pikes Peak.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Rosanna & Jacki at the Black Sheep, as well as the rest of the awesome people there. They’ve been hugely supportive of my work and I wouldn’t have made the jump into what I do today without them. In conjunction, I want to give that back tenfold. I want to encourage others in their artistic and entrepreneurial pursuits; we’re creating spaces and events for local markets with the Black Sheep to provide opportunities for other people to nurture their own businesses.

Website: www.bidedesign.com

Instagram: @BIDEdesign

Other: TikTok: BIDEdesign https://www.etsy.com/shop/BIDEdesignCO

Image Credits
All taken by me.