 Like, how would I spell fog, like with the omelettes? No, they'd be fog, like, how would I spell it? And I'm like, Vogue, duh! It's got some bitterness, it's got some sweetness to it, but more importantly, it's strong, it's independent. Wow, he just described me. It's strong. Vogue's, Vogue's, yeah. Strike a pose. Yes, exactly. Strike a pose, like in a walker. Everybody, welcome to the show, as always. This is a show about effups, about making mistakes, about thinking maybe you'll never recover again, but you do recover, and you come back even stronger. I think that this is, these are the stories that we like to hear when we hear success stories in the end. And today, we're going to be talking to Patti Curtis. She has an art studio in Seattle, something that she started on her own when she saw that she was not being part of a world that she wanted to be a part of. And it is an art studio for people over the age of 50. They're doing some remarkable work down there. Can't wait to talk to her about it. Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I've got Patti Curtis here, who runs Fogue Studios in Georgetown, Seattle, Washington. Neighborhood. That's like a neighborhood. It's like a neighborhood south of downtown. I opened up an art gallery in studio space for folks over the age of 50. And it kind of came about when I got laid off at 53 from my big corporate marketing product development job and couldn't find work, couldn't find an interview at 53. And I'm like, I'm perfect. And so I was like, and it was kind of scary. And so I went back to my roots, which was fine art. And I started making art. I sold 13 pieces of art out of a restaurant in West Seattle. Oh, wow. And I thought, you know what, this could be a thing. And I want to do something for my people over the age of 50. And so I started with a domain name from Go Daddy. I looked up Fogue Studios, Fogue Gallery. How would I spell Fogue with the omelettes? No, they'd be Fog. How would I spell it? And I'm like, Vogue, duh. And I'll steal their logo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I wanted to be cool old people. So I called it Fogue for old Fogies. So I'm going to take Vogue and Fogies. Combine it with Fogies and I'm going to be Fogue. In fact, my end game goal when I die, I want Fogue to be in the dictionary under Creative, Cool, Old Personal for 50. That's my goal. Well, I'm close. I'm like five years away. Oh, don't even start. And then I could like, I could come in, I could snoop in with my- Maybe it could be, you could be a faux Fogue. A faux Fogue. Faux Fogue. A fake Fogue. Right. Yeah, what do I got to do to be a fake Fogue? A little more gray at the temples. I could put it in. Yeah, it's coming. If I grow the beard. Maybe a little crabbier. Yeah. Yeah. Back in my day, we used real maps. And you need some fake ID to get an AARP card. Okay, now I got, you say you have fine arts background originally? I did. I went to Cornish College of the Arts on Capitol Hill. It was a really great school. I had a great time there. And then I had a baby. Oh, okay. And I married an artist. Yeah. And so the rest is history that I had to actually get a real job. And so I ended up working my way into a corporate career in cosmetics and the beauty industry. Okay. Cosmetics and hair care. And just worked into like this big executive job where I ended up traveling all over the world and I was going to Paris and Milan. Oh, wow. And China. And then all of a sudden it was gone. And so I came back, I was living in LA and I came back up to Seattle. I'm basically from here. And I just, I couldn't even get an interview. And it freaked me out. It really scared me of just being, I was only 53. Yeah. And you've been all over the world. And I had a really great portfolio. I had great experience. I had great recommendations and it just, it was crickets. And so I thought, oh my gosh, I got to figure out something and do my own thing. I just felt like I needed to do something for my community. And maybe this is the time that I can really do something that not only is something that's for me, that satiates me, but really is something for my community. And it turned out that there's such a huge need for it beyond my wildest dreams of how it's grown and just, it's been just over a year. All right, you ready for a drink? Yes. I woke up ready. Okay, I was born ready for drinking. All right, Jack, what do you got for us? Thanks, Sean. Tonight we have the Black Dahlia. We're gonna start with the Black Dahlia with a little bit of St. George Dry Rye Gin. It's a rye-based gin. We're gonna start only with a half ounce. And then we're gonna move over to our special edition Woodenville Whiskey Company White Dog. It's barrel strength, 110 proof. I use it primarily for making bitters, but knowing that Patty is into whiskey, I figured two ounces of some of the white lightning is not that bad. Then we have a half ounce each of our apricot liqueur from Rothman's and Winner and Swee's ginshin aperitivo. And then we have a house made rich simple from sage and rose hips and dimmerar sugar. Half ounce of that as well. Great for bitters, two dashes. And then we have a little bit of activated carbon, a little bit of charcoal. And last but not least, an ounce of calamansi juice. It's a Filipino lime. Secure our lid, make sure our strainer's in place and give her a good shake. A little bit of kuhl water, which is a Middle Eastern ingredient. So it just gets a little bit of a rinse on the glass there. We don't wanna turn the whole drink into a bouquet of flowers. And then I find strain everything just cause I think it helps the mouth feel if you have nothing impeding the flow of booze to thy lips. A little bit of amethyst, some dried flowers. And my favorite, a dahlia. It's a little bit of sculpture, a little bit of olden times. It's got some bitterness, it's got some sweetness to it, but more importantly, it's strong, it's independent. Wow, he just described me. Bitterness, sweetness, strong and independent. And it's so artistic, I really appreciate that, Jack. Your faces. Oh. Did you hear that? I'm a little jealous, I won't lie. That was a bit of a panty dropper. Yeah, that was great, yeah. Your faces. You should use that all the time, you probably do. Everything's original, one-time lines, one-time lines, it's just for you. How's it going? Are you ready? Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm shaky. I shouldn't be shaky. Jack only makes, I know it's gonna be delicious, I know it's gonna be good, I know I want another one, but I'm gonna do it. Okay, so I'm... All right, I'm gonna do this though. I'm gonna take a bite of this. This is gonna stab me right now if I try to. Are you gonna do that, really? Okay, I got one. All right. You're not gonna like shoot it, are you? We were supposed to. No, I'm gonna sip it. Oh, my God. Wait, we don't shoot this. That's a lot of shooting. When they say pick your poison, it's also how you administer it. Okay, okay, okay, okay, I got it. Now I wouldn't suggest you to eat, but... Cheers? Well, you've got one. Well, that's delightful. Yeah, I'm... There was a lot of pomp and circumstance. I'm cosmopolitan now. This is really delicious, Jack. This is really good. It's got gin in it. It's like you want... It's desert? It's got gin in it. I told you I wasn't a gin girl, but no. Juniper, jun... Juniper? I started a company called Jet City Girl, and I was, I swear to God, went to go daddy, got my domain, jetcitygirl.com. Was it jetcitygirl.com? Wait, is this still... Is there anything on there? I let it go. I let it go. Okay, okay, okay. And somebody just snatched that up because Seattle's the Jet City, and so I did this line of body care products and jewelry. Why don't you have jetcitygirl.com now? Like why are you not still doing that? Well, because that was 12 years ago, and it failed miserably. I mean, I spent my 401k money on buying product that sat in my basement that was gifts for people. That you couldn't get rid of? No, because I didn't do anything. I didn't do it right. I think I just was depressed and afraid. It was the recession. My house was going into foreclosure. My kid got, you know, had a seizure. I was just like, my dog got ran over. It was like a country western song. It was just a storm. Oh, wow. It was just a really, really download. Dolly Parton would be proud. Yeah. Just a terrible point in my life. And so I just didn't feel like I could go door to door to sell it. Nobody's gonna want it. Wait, were you gonna go door to door to sell it? I didn't know what I was gonna, yeah. What was I gonna do? You have to like, make a product. He's really like judgmental of me. I'm like, what? You're gonna go door to door to sell it? I mean. But did you go door to door? I did sell it to some stores. Yeah. But I tell you what I did do is I brought it to my interview and got me a job in the, in my next beauty company that I worked for. Yeah. I said, and this is my line that I made and I put it in a gift bag and I gave it to them and here's my website and I did it all myself. Well, because they didn't know how much you'd sold, right? Yeah. That I'd given away more than I'd sold. Yeah. There were so many things that I didn't do. Yeah. That I just really screwed up. So then I decided to open an antique store. What? Yeah, I had an antique store. So you went from doing that, from the beauty line stuff to opening up an antique store. Yes, because my first degree was in interior design. And so I really love interior design. I love old stuff. Yeah. And so I opened up this antique store in West Seattle and so I started with this little shop and then my friend said, hey, I've got this building in Soto, south of downtown. South of downtown. And I opened up this giant building and there was no parking. Oh no. Duh. So you know what I mean? It's like you've got to think of all these things. It was so many things that you do when you're an entrepreneur or try to be an entrepreneur. And I always had this drive to do my own thing because I've had some really bosses. Yeah. And it's not that I'm the smartest person in the world by far, but there's been times when I've been smarter than my boss and then they lie and then they take your work. And I've just had all of that crap happen, all of the sexism and bulls*** that happens when you've been a business for 25 years. Like ageism type of thing that comes up, right? And then it rolled into, from sexism to ageism. It's like, well, we don't find you sexy anymore, but we do find you old and offensive. You're old and offensive. Yes. Stop making jokes about the 80s. Seriously. Get out. Don't talk about Threes Company again. Nobody cares. The most is, you know like creativity goes up with constraints. So if you have, like if you want to write a sonnet or if you want to write a haiku, right? You've got the constraints on it. You were forced into constraints. Yeah. And then had to get creative in order to be successful or do what you love based on those constraints. And that takes us to what you're doing now. Yeah. So folk studios. Folk studios, yeah. Old Foggy vogue type of thing. The old Foggy vogue. Yeah. Tell me more about it. Like what does it look like? What's going on? Well, you know, I started with just a website. I thought, you know what? I'm going to create this website. And I uploaded my profile on it. I uploaded my boyfriend Bill's profile. He's a filmmaker. And so we had two people on it. And then I started going to gallery openings. I said, hey, I'm doing this website and you're a really cool artist. You seem like a cool person. Do you want to be part of this movement? I'm trying to do it now. Was it only a website at that point? Only a website. Oh, really? 100% only a website. And I had zero idea how I was going to monetize it. I was charging people to put their profiles up and got this group of about 14 people that were on my website. And they're like, yeah, that's cool. I like what you're doing. And then my friend who rented me the antique store, John Bennett, who owns a lot of buildings in Georgetown and he really is into preserving old buildings and creating things for entrepreneurs to run their businesses out of. So it keeps his rents low. And he's a real entrepreneur in his own right in that way. And he said, we're sitting around. He goes, you know what? He goes, you need a store. You need a space for your studio and for a gallery. And I'm like, I do, don't I? And I think it was like in the same breath he said to me, I go, God, I'm just like struggling and I need to like try to sell more art. I got to figure out how to make more money. And he goes, you should sell more art. Are you kidding me? That's hard. I've tried to sell art. Selling art is hard. It's tough. It's not a get rich, quick, or slow scheme in any stretch. So I laughed when he said that. And three weeks later he goes, I have a building for you. No way. And I'm like, way. And he took me to the top floor of this building where there's two super cool vintage furniture stores underneath Kirk Albert and Susan Wheeler. And it was one kind of 800 square foot room and then one little office space across the hall. And he said, but in these other office spaces as people leave, I'll let you take over the lease and you can lease them out to your Fogs. Because now that there's a name for my Fogs, no. Oh, no, no, no, Fogs. Fogs. Fogs, Fogs. Fogs, Fogs. Strike a pose. Yes, exactly. Strike a pose, like with your walker. We did a little video with that. Did you really? Strike a pose with a walker? Yeah. Fog, Fog, Fog. Strike a pose, Fog, Fog, Fog. Yes, yeah. So I got, I brought my Fogs up there and 12 out of the 14 said, yeah, I'll do it. And so they rented a little wall space and one person rented a studio and it went from there and then another business would leave and I would rent it to more Fogs and I made more space than I rented out the hall space. And then the front of the building was this apartment with some very burning man people. They were not, they were not loving the Fogs because they liked to be very loud. They're not into that. They just weren't into it. And so when their lease came up, boy, they were mad, but we took over the whole floor. So from June of 2018, and I took over the entire floor by January of 2019, we opened up 6,000 square feet. Now we have 37 artists. I have 30 people on a waiting list. We're booked through 2020. Do you know, so when you had the original, how many, 14, is that what you said you started with? Yeah. Did you know them all? Are you serious? No, went out and met them. Yeah. No way. Just went out and met people. Like that's the most exciting thing in the world when you start a business or an idea or whatever that it's not just your relatives or your friends or your network. No, it just started from just this little, honestly it all started with a little website. But, and not to be gratuitous or cheesy or anything, but I've really been using GoDaddy in my career for years because a friend of mine that I worked with, I worked for a dot com in the early 2000s, he's like, yeah, just go and go daddy.com and see if somebody has that domain. Get the domain name. Yeah. Moving forward, like what are you doing with Folk Studios? Where do you hope to take it moving forward? Well, we have a solo showroom, which is pretty awesome. So we have guest shows. So right now, it's about 300 square feet. Okay, okay. Yeah, and it's got its own little, it's its own space, its own entity. So it can be sound, light, action. So we've had some really cool installations there. So everything that I do is branded for over 50. So anybody that's in the solo showroom has to be over 50. It's like really creating opportunity and experiences showing that if you're older, you're not a has-been or you're not uncool anymore. And a lot of the folks, I tell them that they're creating their own nightmare. Cause like one woman was like, I don't want people to know that I'm 50. I'm like the 39 and holding bull. It's like I'm 56 now. You know, woo, oh, oh, grandma. Grandma in the house. That's it. Yeah, it's over. Like I agree, right? It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And it's really hard for women, I think a little bit more than men. 100%. And 80% of our artists are women. Oh, that's fantastic. Interestingly, and it's not contrived that way. It just, it's just kind of fallen into that sort of groove because there is less opportunity for women over 50 and 60 than there is for men. I have an exhibit coming in January from Jane Kaminos that's called On Women Bound. And there's 24 paintings of women being marginalized and abused throughout the world. So, and it's really intense. And it's not, she's a beautiful painter and these paintings are so intense and dramatic, but I'm doing it during the Women's March. And in that solo showroom, I'm gonna have the Women's March going on and speeches and everything that's going on for women in the Me Too movement and all that. I don't want that to get lost. And so that's our January-February show. So moving forward, I wanna always create a space that is active and changing. We change our art out every two months. We do classes there. We have art classes. We just did a talk on Sunday night. Somebody came in and talked about art fairs and how he was successful and what he did and what he would do different. And so we're really supporting each other and lifting each other up. And so my whole goal, my end game is to just create this community of a really supportive, cool place to go and people of all ages come in there and they say, God, this place has a really good vibe. I just wanna hang out here. I really like this place. This is cool. That's perfect. And it's really nice, you know? It's really, it's really cool. So you say that you're like marking the shit out of this thing and you're using social media. And I love, by the way, I love that you're using other people and their social media in order to do it because that's how it works. Right, yeah. So I post on social media every day, one time. I'm doing. Instagram. Instagram, and then I feed it into my Facebook. Yeah. I find that doing just a little short blurb and I'll either do the artist of the day, I'll do a new artist or I'll do an event, but I make sure that I try to keep it interesting and fun. I don't say portrait of Sean, 18 by 24, oil on canvas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I do try to tell a little story because people relate to stories. Absolutely. And that's due to humans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so everything is telling the story of our brand. I think that every single thing that I do is super genuine and heartfelt. So I hope that it comes across that way because I mean every single thing that I'm doing that's really on purpose. Yeah. And it's not to make a fast buck because trust me, if it were, I would not be doing this. Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. It totally comes from my heart and nothing makes me more happy than selling an artist's art or making them feel more important or like I've had artists come up to me and say, you changed my life. You made me feel like I was important again. Thank you for doing that. Well, I think there's so many people that want to be artists and it takes their whole life to try to do that. And they're retired now and they want to take it up again. So I have established emerging, re-emerging artists in our gallery. But 100% of it is amazing, beautiful, high-quality art. Really good, really good artists. Yeah, I really do think, yeah, that changes the world. Like art does something to... I just want to, like one little thing, if I can make somebody feel better because I felt pretty crappy with what happened to me and it feeds my soul every day. Cheers, thank you for being here. My pleasure, thanks for having me. Yeah, we'll see you. Bye. Oh my gosh, it's so good. I know, I need more peach. I know, right on, that was a lot of fun. And if you like seeing a lot of fun or you like what we're doing, then subscribe to the show and ring the bell, click on the bell because then you'll know when we're doing it again. And if you have a story, you have something you want to share with us, go to effups.com, hope to see you on the show.