Behind The Beast Boutique
A partnership born in the dark ages of 2010.
Before we began making our clay figurines and pottery, we (Theresa and Rachel) met at an arts high school, started dating in 2012, and graduated in 2014. Post-graduation, we adopted Sigh, and tried to navigate living together and away from home for the first time. It did not go well.
Health problems forced us to move back home, and while trying to invigorate the creative energy that had been dried up by the unforgiving sun of 8am classes, we set out to rediscover ourselves. We ended up discovering air-dry clay.
Armed with this new medium, we set up a studio in the corner of a garage and performed a fusion dance, endowing our collective being with the ability to sculpt and paint! Kind of. It wasn’t as neat looking. But we thought the little animals we were making were pretty cool, and The Beast Boutique was born!
While we’ve moved on from air-dry clay, The Beast Boutique is still the product of our joint vision and skills. We use a range of materials - resin, polymer clay, stoneware clay, etc - to create our work now.
As of 2024, we're raising ducks and quails, adopted two more cats, and are just trying to pick up our lives again after the last few insane years.
The Beast Boutique was put on a long hiatus in 2020, somewhat unintentionally, but 2023 brought new opportunities and changes, so hopefully 2024 is the year we get back on the horse! Fingers crossed!
Taken the summer of 2012 - we had just started dating.
Our goals...
SUSTAINABILITY
Protecting our environment is important to us! We encapsulate waste plastics in our resin work to divert it from the trash stream, and want to work towards
making our production and shipping as green as possible!
GIVING BACK
We enjoy being able to put our earnings or time back into the community, whether it's by supporting other artists or non-profits. We've been able to donate art supplies and teach workshops with local youth through the Northern Youth project, and hope to continue engaging with our community in the future. Some of our favorite New Mexico non-profits are Española Humane, New Mexico School for the Arts, and the Northern Youth Project.
BUILDING A STUDIO SPACE
There's a lack of communal studio spaces north of Espanola - Rachel used to create her ceramics at the communal studio 45 minute minutes away. Now her ceramics are largely on hold, but day by day and piece by piece, we're working to build a functional ceramics studio at our home, and hopefully this can become a space for hosting workshops and inviting other artists to share the space.
Affiliate disclosure...
As members of the Amazon Associates Program, The Beast Boutique earns advertising revenue from qualifying purchases.