Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandy Lynn and Brie Flora.
Brandy and Brie, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Our names are Brandy Lynn & Brie Flora. We partnered together to create The Silver Fern, a combination of our passions for wellness and artisan craft. We offer our community products and art that are handmade, ethically sourced, and coming from other small businesses, avoiding large-scale manufacturing.
The two of us met through the local art and music scene here in Cookeville, TN. Brie began getting acupuncture treatments from Brandy soon after they became friends. Due to old injuries from a car accident when she was younger, and now being a full-time artist, specifically a jeweler and metalsmith, Brie deals with a lot of muscle and joint pain. Acupuncture has helped her manage pain and helps her to continue doing what she loves. During 2020, Brandy and Brie sat down and had a conversation about the relationship between Art and Wellness, and long story short that little conversation turned into an idea, and that idea became a reality and now The Silver Fern exists!
We both have been working in our fields successfully for some time now, Brandy having run her Acupuncture business for 10+ years, and Brie who has been selling her wares online and at various craft shows has had work in 15+ group exhibitions over the past five years, all the while teaching workshops both in person and virtually. So we were both aware of the hard work that goes into building a business from the ground up. It’s been a huge help that we’ve built great relationships within the Cookeville community, giving us a reputation of trustworthiness.
Brie has also built relationships with other artists and buyers in various cities in the US from her time exhibiting at craft shows for three years leading up to the pandemic and Brandy has a network of friends and colleagues from all over the U.S. in the wellness community, many of them makers and practitioners themselves. We couldn’t have such an amazing shop and gallery without all of these amazing relationships.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
To be honest, we’ve had a pretty smooth transition into a brick-and-mortar. We contribute a lot of that to the prep work that we did leading up to opening this past July. We spent about a year meeting up at least once a week to develop a business plan and work out all of the kinks we anticipated would happen opening a new business. We had other women business owners in the community who were great examples too.
When it came to getting our physical space ready for opening, we did a lot of the grunt work ourselves including painting the walls and pulling up old carpet and flooring. We built up some great relationships in the community and were able to get help with parts of our build-out, which saved us money.
The challenging part of working with handmade items is helping people understand the value of these items. People, in general, have become used to buying cheap items that are mass-produced in bad environments. We want to help our community understand the value and benefit of supporting small businesses and makers here locally.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Our mission: Providing a space in the community that encourages personal healing and creativity by providing ethical services and products that curate a sense of wellbeing.
We specialize in bringing handcrafted items and wellness products to our local community through our front shop, gallery, and in-house apothecary, and we also have a little back gallery called The Fiddlehead room where we have rotating exhibitions, events, and pop ups throughout the year! Follow us on Instagram at @the.silverfern to stay updated!
We also just started sending out a monthly newsletter called Fronds of The Fern. Newsletters will vary, but with a main focus of announcing upcoming events/exhibitions, sharing new items in the shop that month, and spotlighting artists and their work in our gallery, you can subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.thesilverfernshop.com/newsletter.
What matters most to you?
Uplifting our community by providing a space for local artists to thrive, customers to find items that they know are ethically sourced and made, and helping everyone find some natural ways to keep their bodies feeling the best they can. We want people to walk into our shop and feel relaxed and comfortable in this environment. We want to connect with our customers and build relationships because that is what community is all about.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.thesilverfernshop.com
- Instagram: @the.silverfern
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/info.thesilverfern
Image Credits
Hailey B Creative
