Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Bailey.
Hi Anna, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
At the age of 38, I left my dream job because it wasn’t a good fit anymore. I felt so lost. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a divine moment… I felt I was supposed to pursue my passions. At the time it was songwriting, building furniture, and sharing it all on a blog. I started posting my builds on social media and I started getting custom requests. The furniture making left a lot of scraps, so I got to innovate ways to use them. And I started to make wood art. I was making and selling art, so I owned the artist label.
I started the business 7 years ago, and now my husband and I own it together and have a small but mighty team of 10. We travel the country selling artwork at fine art fairs, sell online, brick and mortar that supports other local/regional artisans, and are investing in discarded buildings in an up-and-coming part of town. Our most recent project is a funeral home we bought during the height of the pandemic. We are renovating it to be our store, studio, and shared studio spaces for our community.
Our vision is to inspire the community through art. And we love our city, Duluth Minnesota. We want to invest and make a difference. Art shifts culture, and we want to be a part of this story. I’m very proud of our innovative work that’s ever-changing and evolving. 2 years ago I launched a completely new line of work (Modern Mosaics) that has opened many doors. We were recently chosen as one of 35 vendors to participate in Silobration at Magnolia in Waco Texas. Hosted by Chip and Joanna Gaines. I’ve also created artwork for Wagoneer and Motortrend.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest obstacle that comes to mind is when Nathanael and I decided to buy a 9,000-square-foot funeral home to turn into a place for the creative community to gather in Duluth. We bought the building in 2020 during the pandemic and had the ambitious goal of opening it to the public in the summer of 2021. There’s actually a banner on the side of the building that still says coming 2021 because you guessed it…we’re still not open. Unpredictable things come up all the time, especially taking on a renovation project this large. We have learned this lesson the hard way and had to pivot multiple times to make it all work out.
Luckily with our awesome team, we made it happen, even if that meant working out of a half-renovated funeral home for 2 years. Not creepy at all! Good things happen though and we are actually making really great headway on the building right now! We are crossing our fingers that the Bailey Builds Collective will be open by the end of this year! It is home to our workshop and will soon be home to our storefront and shared studio spaces for artists and makers to rent out at a super affordable price. We are super looking forward to being open for the community!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am most proud of my Modern Mosaics, specifically my Signature Series collection. My work explores the complexity of restraint found in lines and circles. In our world of endless opportunity, I believe restraint is a virtue and desire my work to mirror that simple world. Beauty from restraint. We don’t have to do it all.
I rarely ever sketch out my designs. Each piece starts as an Anna Bailey Signature Series piece that takes weeks to complete, as every strip of wood is hand cut and attached meticulously. I create the design right on my bench in my little corner of the workshop. Once I have the design exactly how I want it, the finishing work begins.
This is where Nathanael shines. He sands each piece over and over again by hand before applying our paint. Once the finish of the paint is perfect, the piece is completed with our signature pine frame. The Anna Bailey Signature Series artwork is popular with our collectors as each piece is one of one-and takes four times as long to complete as our Modern Mosaics.
The process for our Modern Mosaics is actually not all that different. The only difference is that our graphic designer, Morgan, digitizes my design initially created with hand-cut strips so we are able to use our laser as a tool to cut the front panel out.
Once the design panel is cut on the laser it gets pinned by hand onto an already hand-sanded and painted backer board. Once it is pinned the process is exactly the same. The design is sanded over and over by hand until it is ready to be painted and framed. Our lasers have been such an incredible tool for us to grow our business and create more artwork for all of you!
I absolutely love when collectors invest in my work and choose to take a Signature Series piece home.
Contact Info:
- Website: baileybuilds.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annabaileyart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annabaileywoodart
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-bailey-76387018a/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqXl6FLXY71CPw8WxwemhQQ
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@annabaileyart
