Lockdown Stories is a series of short interviews with creative entrepreneurs and businesses that have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Since its beginnings, the main goal of Future Positive has been to share inspiring projects happening all around the world and, during these strange and difficult times for independent businesses and creators, we want to continue providing support and visibility. If you’d like to be featured in this series, please get in touch at hello@thefuturepositive.com and tell us your story.
Slowwavy
Slowwavy is a new e-commerce platform, which is an invitation-only curated marketplace of selected artists and brands dreamed up by two artists, Rachel Rivera and Claire Ouchi, who wanted to connect the world with rad work.
Location: Vancouver, Canada
www.slowwavy.com
When did the lockdown start for you and how has your business been affected?
It started for us while we were out of town in a different province painting an interactive mural under our moniker WKNDRS (@wkndrsforlife). It was such a crazy time because the mall we were painting in was slowly shutting down, and we had to expedite our painting process, as well as change our flights to come back home earlier (since flights were getting cancelled at the time).
We travel a lot for work and this epidemic has definitely changed that dynamic. We had three large art show events in California lined up a few weeks after our mural painting (in April) and we unfortunately had to cancel those projects (or move them out in the calendar).
Have you found any new ways of working or have come up with new product ideas during this time?
Yes, it’s been quite an interesting time for this as well, because we are a creative duo that work on multiple types of projects.
We are very excited to announce that we soft launched our latest endeavour, a curated online shop called SLOWWAVY, housed with independent makers and brands from all over the world. This is our latest endeavour and are so happy we can support artists during this time and onwards.
What are some of the positive takeaways you have experienced during this time?
We’re all doing our best in this time and staying creative has definitely started to look a little differently than working side by side together in our joint studio. Making recipes at home, working on some paintings and taking photos has been a great way to stay creative. It’s kind of a nice time to explore other creative outlets, or just being okay with being still (which is a hard one).
How do you see your business evolving over the next few months?
As we just launched Slowwavy.com, we are working on our first phase, which is helping our artists and designers get their work up in the shop. We’re then planning to showcase their creative talent with a number of interactive projects where people can view their work and process, as well as interact with them digitally, and from a distance.
