Today we’d like to introduce you to Rusty and Ingrid Kinnunen.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Rusty and Ingrid. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We are both artists. We met as painting students at MassArt in Boston in 2004. We always dreamed of making a living as fine artists. It wasn’t until Rusty lost his design job in 2013 that we decided to take the leap, and go full time with our business, Rusty and Ingrid Creative Company. The initial idea behind our company was that we wanted to sell handmade, good quality fine art at an affordable price. This led us to the medium of printmaking. Our love of New England and appreciation of old travel poster design led us to create travel poster inspired prints of our favorite places. From the very beginning, we sold regularly at local craft fairs and arts markets. It was great to get our work in front of customers every week in the Boston area.
When we started our business, we were living and working in our small, two bedroom condo in Gloucester, MA, with our two young children Leif and Willa (at the time ages one and three years old). For three years we pushed the limits of our space, producing the screen prints on our kitchen table, and rinsing out screens in our bath tub; often working late into the night while our children slept. We would bring them along with us to craft fairs on the weekends and let them play under the table as we sold our work.
At the end of 2015, we opened our first storefront studio space in Gloucester. The new space allowed us to grow our business and improve our production, but we still worked many late nights and found that new challenges arose as we juggled a busier schedule that included many trips each day between our home and the studio. There were many nights, for instance, that the kids stayed late with us, falling asleep on the couch in the studio before we could bring them home and put them to bed. This led us to search for a larger mixed use space that would accommodate both our business and our family.
In 2017, we moved our business and our home to a beautiful Main Street location in downtown Rockport, MA. In our new space, we built a combined retail store and printing studio, where customers can see how we hand make our screen prints. We continue to sell at multiple weekly markets in Boston throughout the year, and we are also very active in the community of creative businesses in Boston.
Our decision from the beginning to make handmade, affordable fine art has been very well received and has helped us to build a successful art business. In the past five years, we have sold tens of thousands of handmade screen prints and we currently employ three full time studio assistants to keep up with the demand. We are constantly making new print designs and exploring ways to expand the idea of what it means to be both artists and entrepreneurs.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We started our business from a state of unemployment, without any savings, and without any model of what an art-business should look like. We were just determined to make it work with what resources and talents we had, but this meant a lot of hard work.
We only sell handmade screen prints, which are very labor intensive to make and require a lot of space and equipment. For three years, we grew our business in our 750 sq. ft. condo with two little children, so work-life balance and space were always an issue. After three years, our home was so filled with equipment and boxes that it looked like a storage space. We would have to work through the night when the children were sleeping, and we’d often go straight to sell at outdoor craft fairs without any sleep at all.
Selling at outdoor events is exhausting—hauling tents, weights, inventory, setting up and breaking down shows, as well as sitting long hours in all sorts of weather. We’ve had some incidents of terrible storms that destroyed our tents and a lot of our artwork.
Please tell us about Rusty and Ingrid Creative Company.
We are an artist couple with a passion to create beautiful handcrafted fine art at an affordable price. We celebrate our beloved New England with iconic designs in a vintage poster art style.
In our Rockport studio, we design and print limited-edition fine art screen prints. Each piece is handprinted, one color at a time, and is signed and numbered to ensure its value as a collectible investment to enjoy for years to come.
We are known for our vintage-inspired designs of New England landmarks, particularly scenes of Boston, beaches and ski areas.
We are most proud of the way our designs connect with our customers. They often share with us their personal memories of the places we depict; and nearly half of all of our sales are given as gifts, which is the most meaningful recommendation that we can receive.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Over the years, we have tried out a lot of designs and products that were not very successful. We don’t regret doing them, because they helped us to focus on the designs and processes that we excel in. For us, it is designing and printing our handprinted screen prints. A lesson that we have learned is the importance of editing your brand down to what you are really good at, and then focusing all of your effort on making the most of what makes you unique.
Pricing:
- Our hand printed, limited edition screen prints range in price from $18.00 for a 5″x7″ print to $229.00 for a framed 18″x24″ print.
Contact Info:
- Address: Rusty and Ingrid Creative Company
11 Main Street
Rockport, MA 01966 - Website: www.rustyandingrid.com
- Phone: (978) 309-8618
- Email: info@rustyandingrid.com
- Instagram: @rustyandingrid
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/rustyandingrid
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/rustyandingrid
Image Credit:
Rusty and Ingrid Creative Company
Sasha Israel
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