JULY 2017 I BOROMAG.COM 39
She had founded Widycat Designs
when she lived in Brooklyn, but she found
the artist community in that borough to
be “closed off and not very welcoming
of new creative businesses”—perhaps because
the community there has been big
and established for a very long time, she
said.
When she moved to Astoria in 2014,
she found a very different community.
“When I moved to Astoria, I started
meeting a lot of creative entrepreneurs,
especially women, and I thought there
was a lot of opportunity to help each other,
because I was slightly traumatized by
the experience in Brooklyn where people
kept that niche very close, and I was like,
‘Well, you know, there’s no reason why we
should do this; we should embrace everyone
else who does things like you do,’
and I feel like we’re stronger together.
“Being in that environment in Queens,
in Astoria, and sharing with other creative
people, has actually helped me grow my
business,” she continued.
But while she already had an Etsy store
and her own online shop, widycat.com—as
well as some pop-up shops in local businesses
like Brass Owl, Chateau le Woof
and Bing’s Gifts in Sunnyside—she knew
there was another way she could grow
her design business while helping other
entrepreneurs.
“Meeting all these other creative people
and being creative together, I realized
that a lot of people did not have an available,
cost-effective place to try out their
products,” she said.
She decided that she and her fellow
creatives should come together to sell
their goods.
“Women creative entrepreneurs need
to support each other.”