 Hi, this is Marty with Living Pittsburgh where we look to bring Unique businesses people unique areas around town to you guys so that you can go out and explore them on your own and today We have joining us. We have Lynette with a really unique business probably the most unique business I've seen in a long time Called calamity where Lynette, would you say hi to everybody? Hi there. Good evening Good evening. We've got a few viewers out there. Thank you guys for joining Well, one of the things we like to do at the start of our show We like to do what we call the Living Pittsburgh give back program where we give Money based on how well you can guess locations in and around town So we we give a donation so let's talk about how this works So we're gonna give to the greater Pittsburgh community food bank and the way it'll work We're gonna yeah. Yeah, I hope you like that nonprofit. I thought you would with with a type of Plateware and stuff that you guys make But we are gonna show you five pictures for everyone you that you guess correctly We will give a $20 donation so up to a hundred bucks here and We we've added a few more flavors into the pictures in the past shows. It's always been kind of like purely a location But now we've added in like events in and around Pittsburgh Ah, as well as local artists and I I was hoping that you guys might have a leg up in this area Because of the type of work that you guys do but I could be wrong All right, we'll see first one. I'm hoping this one will be pretty easy. Well, this looks like PNC park Yes, perfect One down. Oh That is that children's hospital it is yeah, I Have a quick little story. Can I tell you a quick story about Children's Hospital? Yeah, yeah, the company I used to work for thought-form design designed all of the signage for inside the building All the directional signs. It's how you where to go in that new building. Yep. It's lovely All right, let's do the next one so you got to write so far this one's harder goodness This one let me give you a couple hints This one's harder because it's it is brand. It's a brand new development the building in the background is not You'll you'll remember it It looks like this like in the strip district when you're going down small men on the left-hand side But I don't know if that's what that is it is. Yes, that is The old terminal so it where is it trucks back up get the produce right off the train run behind it Well, that's all being redeveloped now into a Multi-use commercial space for various stores to come in Hardscaping I guess you'd call it. Yeah It's lovely. Oh Goodness. Hmm. Okay. You gotta draw on your art strings here. I Mean, it looks like it's like at Gateway Center, but I don't know what all the umbrellas are I mean, is it just like during the the arts festival? Yes You And this is this was a harder one absolutely. Okay, the last one I think is really hard. Are you ready? Okay, by the way people You know that are are watching the show the Pittsburgh art festival is Quite frankly is one of the gems in town here. It's something that Michelle I go to every year. Of course not last year. We couldn't do that Hey Dion, thank you for joining We couldn't do it last year because of COVID but we actually have a one of our favorite artists Comes from Hungary if you can Singing Budapest which is in Hungary But he comes here every year to show his work. He's run the grand prize at the festival many years. It's really really cool That's me. Okay. Last one. I think you might go five for five. I don't know Okay, this is You might know the location of this because it's a pretty prominent mural or or the artist Well, I don't recognize that. I don't know where that is Dang it Very nice So for Lawrenceville often that's that's my problem It is yeah, this particular artist and I was hoping you wouldn't recognize his name at the in the bottom center It was actually on there I was really hoping you wanted I didn't know How to pull that out so But yeah, Jeremy Reimer is Just a phenomenal artist muralist. He started Super young and has now become kind of this read a regional or maybe even national really really well-known artist He he's done Michelle. What are some of the I don't I'm thinking transformers, but that's not the right name Yeah, he did Roberto Clementi over on the North Shore This ask watch. Yeah, a bunch of the Marvel heroes But yeah, he's had a lot out here in Freeport. Well, we're at he did the yellow jacket On one of the buildings in Freeport. It's pretty prominent out our way. That's cool. Yeah muralists amaze me I don't know how they can see the big something so big It's spaffling. I Let's talk a little bit about The business that you have you you your husband and your partner Don Calamity where I think I actually see some behind you on the mantle pop possibly. Yeah, so that'll be nice Maybe we can look at that later, but um How did you guys get started? You know, how does it work? Just tell us about the So back in late 2013 Don Moyer who is was he's the artist behind all of the products that we sell he had decided to He draws every day and so he was drawing in his sketchbook and posting things to Flickr and one of his drawings was of an old-fashioned dinner plate like the ones behind me the blue willow and And he drew a pterodactyl in it and all his Flickr followers were like, oh, that's really cool You should make an actual product and so then he decided to try crowdfunding. So that's where using a website like Kickstarter You are able to Like list the details of your project the thing you want to produce and oh, that's my cat. She's so cute So, you know put up pictures of things of the thing you want to produce and get people to give you money up front To help you pay for a production run to make that product and then if the if you meet your goal Then you get that money from those backers and then you're able to produce the item and then Give the reward to all of those people that supported you and so that's how he got started So he did one plate and he had fun doing it So he started did a second plate and that was fun and then he did a third plate Well in the middle of the third plate project He realized that he started a business and he didn't he didn't mean to but he did so at this point by the third plate He had so many backers that project alone made over a hundred thousand dollars and here's poor dawn by himself You know, he's semi retired from his from his other job where he owned a design firm And and he needed help and so my husband and I were working at the old design firm That's how we knew him because we worked for him years ago And and we just started talking to him about ways we could help him And we realized that our unique skill set dawn is artist creative. He sees brilliant has great ideas My background is all operational So i'm doing all the stuff behind the scenes in running the business and keeping the finances and the accounting and Customer service all of that stuff was kind of my responsibility and my husband started doing He was managing the website. He was processing the orders and when I say processing It means like clicking buttons because we use outside sources to ship the products and so just the three of us together really had a gelled team for many years and And so we just kept running Kickstarter project after Kickstarter project Which was super helpful because you you get the when you're in business If you have a brick and mortar store you have to buy the product You have to have money to buy the product to be able to sell the product in your store But with when you're selling online and you're doing these Kickstarter projects You get the money up front, which is fantastic So we get the money that we need to pay for the product We get enough that we can buy extras and then we sell those extras on the website And so over the course of time, we've been able to build up a nice inventory of products I couldn't even tell you how many products we have at this moment But some of them are back here behind me. We've got a cookie jar. We've got 12 different dinner plates We've got small plates. We've got shallow bowls. We've got deep bowls. We've got a teapot We've got puzzles bandanas silk scarves All kinds of really neat things They're great gifts. They make great gifts for people and uh, yeah, it's just been A lot of fun and over the course of time We got to the end of 2020 and 2020 was really amazing because This business just kind of boomed which was not expected, you know in the middle of a pandemic I kind of assumed that people would stop buying but that's not what happened more people were buying And so by the end of 2020 we found ourselves needing to make some additional hires We swore we were never going to hire employees But um, but you know you reach a point where you just can't do it all yourself anymore So we we brought on two people and um, and they certainly don't feel like employees. They're just Part of the team and they're wonderful and they're they're just geniuses at what they do And we're very grateful that that we've got the team that we do so Yeah, I think that background It started right. I think the background is phenomenal when when you think about where you started which was somebody put something out You know Into the internet and that's part of what the show is all about we keep talking to people about how powerful The internet is and I don't think people Understand it because really it's only been around for about 20 years May you know, maybe 25 years right in our lives on an everyday basis back when you used to get the little aol discs in the mail But if you think about what you described here, you've built this massive I don't want to say massive, but you've built a very large business successful business Um off of Kickstarter That's just amazing to me like you put an idea out there in the ether And then people gave you money for your idea and then you were able to actually transition that back into product And and talking about product. I think that's the other unique thing you do you you manufacturer You find manufacturers from all over the world. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah, so um the all of our the bulk of what we sell is porcelain porcelain dinnerware and porcelain accessories And so we have a supplier that we use that's in maryland but he works with Factories that are in poland and thailand and china And so the bulk of our stuff comes from the factory in poland They've been in business for over a hundred years making porcelain the old fashion way with transferware and everything And so like they they print the designs that we do we send them digital files and they print them on to transfers And there's like a little transfer sheet and that then they run it under water And that's what they do they somehow get it off of the transfer sheet and onto the porcelain Then it gets fired in the kiln at very high temperatures to produce an in glaze finish On everything and and it's just it's lovely, but it's you know, it's a lot of hand process So um, it's it's done the old fashion way, which is really cool But anyway, so that's our porcelain and go ahead. How did you how did you find the porcelain guys? I mean, how do you go about that whole process? That's a good question. So um back in 2014 we were looking we had a an original Porcelain supplier that was up in new castle that we were using But then we reached a point that we needed to kind of expand beyond what they had the capacity to do So my husband just started searching. I mean that again the internet You just look and if you look in the right places you can find, you know, the right companies with good reviews And so that's how we found our porcelain guy and he's just been a blessing He's you know, even though he's got his own business. I feel like we're one big team You know producing our stuff because we couldn't do what we do without his help and his His intermediary, you know with the polish factory and everything. So So it's been great. Um, but we also have like we have um, we're currently Getting ready to start a new Kickstarter project on Monday for a throw blanket And so that product, um, again, we just kind of research online We try to find Companies that that do what we do. We use Alibaba Alibaba is a pretty good site for searching for suppliers worldwide And um, but sometimes like we have uh, we sell puzzles and we had a puzzle manufacturer that was in Buffalo And then he retired so we needed to find a new puzzle manufacturer And we happened to find a puzzle. I don't even remember how we found it, but um, it was from a company in california We ordered one of their puzzles to just see like do we like the way it feels and and do we think it's a good puzzle And then we just found out who their supplier was and went to their supplier So it you know, it just kind of you try things out and and uh and find your way But the internet has been very helpful Oh, it's it's just amazing. Yeah, I want I want to you you talked about gifts earlier and um It took a while to find this particular video. Give me a minute to pull it up okay, but um I just love the re and unfortunately the sound won't carry through but if you can talk to us a little bit about um The person that's opening this and I think for the audience the The pure joy on her face when she discovers what it is that she's looking at and for the viewers online if you haven't figured it out yet like These are the plates these look like the plates that you have at your grandmother's house Maybe you even have them in your own house But until you get up close Yeah, look, look, there's a pterodactyl. There is a I don't know what that is. It's a giant frog. Yeah, there's a frog Yes In it's really little Yeah, and if you're not really paying attention, it just kind of looks like your grandmother's flatware, right? You know the dinner tableware until you get up close and then it just really opens your mind And actually if I remember right when I was reading about the bio of the company that that is how it started, right? He had a a plate from his parents or grandparents Yeah, and don sketched a dinosaur on it or something like that. Yep. Yep, exactly right exactly right Yep, so anything to make him laugh. That's that's the goal Yeah, yeah, so this was this video Um, uh customer had actually emailed us to say hey, did you see this and I said no, I don't know who this is Isn't that cute Anyway, so she this woman has a youtube channel. She lives in a In a castle in france and she has a youtube channel Um where she just talks about her life in the castle But then she started receiving gifts from people all the time And she wanted to start a new youtube channel where she opens those gifts on air And so that's what this was somebody a customer of ours Thought she would like these so they sent her the mugs And then some other random customer happened to notice it and sent me an email and said did you see this and Wait, it was just so charming. It's it's really really cute when she opens them and she's so surprised at what's on there Yeah, yeah Look at look at her assistants. Look at that I mean She's doing the same thing I just did Yeah, you just can't appreciate it unless you get up close. I love it Yep And I also happened to love this this woman's um youtube channel. I I love how she gets into You know what she's doing and and how they're rehabbing this huge I mean to me it looks like a castle. I think I think it's in france. So I probably call it a chateau But um, it's great We call it castle and then I did I did some more snooping and and really digging And uh, some some information that I shared with me tell me about this. I mean This is so silly. So um, one of our Kickstarter projects was for this bowl. We call it the omnivore bowl So it's just a deep cereal bowl. It's good for chili popcorn. Whatever. Well, all those things that you see going into it And uh, my husband Yes, my husband being the silly guy that he is and and he's you know, he's skilled in animation It used to be what he did at our old job And uh, and he likes to compose music So he wrote a little ditty to uh to go with this Kickstarter project and it makes me laugh every time I watch it So and there's dawn That's dawn drawing I love pictures pictures of the bowl with stuff in it Yeah, I love it Yeah, that's that that video cracked me up And if you hear the sound on it, um, is that is that your husband singing as well? Yes. Yeah Yeah, and at some point my daughter and I join in at the end, you know When you you need the big group sing at the very end we join in so yeah, that's great Uh, that's great Hey, thank you for the comments online. I'm starting to see it. Um, we are getting a lot of love it's on That are popping up. So people really are enjoying I think and that's the beauty of what you guys do And why I'm so excited to have you on the show is you bring smiles to people's faces and yeah Could we yeah Yeah, it's nice. We we uh, we get a lot of emails from our customers Um, we have an email that we send out so many days after their package You know should have arrived and it's just kind of says hope you got it and you know Just checking in make sure you like what you got and I it's it's funny because I when we created that email I kind of didn't think that people would use it as a means to write back to us But it prompts everybody to write back. We get so many emails every day with people writing back saying Oh, I love it. I love it. I'm so happy or I gave it to my friend and they love it And then they told their friend and so on and so it's really it's just been lovely We get a lot of love and and smiles and it it really puts the smile on my face Makes me happy that we're they're doing happy things for the world. Yep. Absolutely You are Talk a little bit about Pittsburgh because if I understand right You and your family are from here. You're from the Pittsburgh region. You've been a long time residents Both North Hills and South Hills for those those of us that care. I know that's a big deal You know crossing over two rivers for us is a big, you know, that's a big trip Yeah, we're Let's start with something easy. Um, do you guys have a favorite restaurant? That you guys go to uh, well, so um during the pandemic it's been hard But our favorite restaurant even before the pandemic and now Our first watch breakfast cafes like we just love first watch and we go there We used to go Way more often than we go now. We probably go about once a month now, but for breakfast That's and we love going to breakfast out. So that's that's my favorite my favorite place to go It's like a treat to get to go and uh, and that's fantastic but also right down the street from us is a brewery spoonwood brewery And they're fantastic as well. So we we get a lot of pizza from them and my husband likes their beer and So those are those are two of our favorite places I love that. I Michelle, I don't think we've been to either one of those No, is first watch is that a a chain? What is that exactly? It is. Yeah, it's a chain And so there I don't know if they're totally nationwide But they're definitely in more than just pennsylvania and there are multiple locations in the pittsburgh area So there's one out in the canless. There's one in bridgeville. There's one out here in near us in bald win and Yeah, there there's a bunch. Um, I bet there's probably at least five Or six in the pittsburgh area Got it. So they close it too though. So you got to go early It's truly a breakfast place Yes, but breakfast and lunch, but yeah, it's it's my favorite Great michelle. Do you have any questions? So, um, what's one of your favorite activities that you'd recommend for somebody Coming to pittsburgh a newbie to pittsburgh. Where would you tell them to do? I know goodness big thing I think it would have to just be going to pnc park Like i'm not a huge baseball fan But even for me to go there and sit out in the stands and especially on a fireworks night. Oh my gosh It's just like the breeze Yes, the breeze is just blowing and it's just beautiful and the lights in the city are gorgeous and Yeah, a night game. I wouldn't go to a day game. It'd be too hot I'm gonna go at night You just mean I want to go downtown I know it's like, yeah, I miss those days. Yeah Well, lisa's been nice enough. We were able to open the windows. So Yeah, and and then a nice smell goes through the house when you can do that. I love that It's right I um, let's go back to to calamity where can you talk a little bit so When I was on the website and I was looking through things it looked like you had like silk scarves You had bowls. You had plates There was a puzzle. Um, what else do you guys offer? Yeah, so we've got a lot of different things. We've got bandanas. We have note cards. Um, Oh gosh Now my mind is drawing a blank Yes, no pads. Um, yes, we have two little books this one here. Let me grab this This is a silly one. We call this one monster etiquette And uh, it's an illustrated guide to gentile behavior Now this this book is not necessarily made for children There are a few pages few spreads in here that might not be quite appropriate We've had customers write and complain that it's not quite child friendly. It's not supposed to be it's funny so Don wrote some silly little little, uh Little things in here. I don't know if you can see that Yeah That's awesome encounters relationship pressers out of the gate if you're thoughtful and consider it. Yeah, I mean come on That's very considerate gotta make it rhyme So we have this little book. Um, there's another book called stay home, which I don't have handy here That is a guide for why you should not leave the planet That's a funny one too. So that's quite cute. Um, and we have some letter press prints Don did a series. We have a set that are called follow your passion And it is um, it's about the the debate between Pie and cake. So are you a pie lover or are you a cake lover? Well, if you buy this print you get a print that is, uh, you know, little monsters Cheering for pie and a little monster cheering for cake and then also thrown into the pack is the one little guy Holding his little flag for broccoli for broccoli Oh, those are cute. Yeah, so it's nice because don, you know, he's since he draws all the time we're we're every year We introduce a new letter press print and they're usually limited runs So, you know, we print like maybe two or three hundred of them sometimes a little more Depending on the print, but uh, yeah, so that's a nice. It's a nice gift like item, you know To if you want to give something, you know, if you know somebody that's a cake and pie enthusiast. Yeah We know a few actually in our household Actually, we have pie people for birthdays and we have cake people for birthdays. Yep. Yep, the two shall not cross Same is true in my house. I am the pie person. My husband is the cake person I don't I don't want the cake Last thing for the audience before we call it a night, uh Is I think you know people may be watching that saying I think I recognize her or What do you think? Tell me about this Oh, this is funny. So, um, several years ago. Gosh, I can't even remember when it might might have been like 2013 2014 around that time period We, um, my husband and I we both just love music and we love to sing and we love to I we play guitar. He plays bass. I play guitar and so, um, we were just itching for something to do And so we decided to start a glee club for kids here in white hall And so we put an ad in the I don't know what like the almanac or something like that And somehow we ended up with this rag tag group of kids. They're all old now In college, which is like, oh my gosh, how did this happen? But anyway, so yeah, so we used to meet once a week and we would rehearse at the white hall community center and Then we would perform. That's my daughter singing when she was like, oh my gosh, so little Anyway Yeah, it was a lot of fun I mean we would have like a little you know a little recital at the end at the The father ryan art center in mckay's rocks And it was fantastic because we had this nice stage that they could perform on and And uh, it was so much fun and my husband. I swear I can't tell you how many of these recitals we did where he set the camera to record And instead of pressing start like it was already running and he actually stopped the video So like there were multiple shows that we have no footage from because that happened It was so sad because we love it was so much fun. How many arguments is that spark? Just push the button But yeah, so we were it was awesome And it was a lot of fun because we were big fans of the show glee and we loved school of rock So this was kind of our way of like meshing the two of those things together Very cool. Yeah, I I think you know Maybe as we kind of wind down this particular show Just talk about how people can can get in touch with you folks how you guys operate where they can buy your your wares Um for the folks watching. I mean calamity wear if you need a gift I don't know that there might be anything else better out there right now. I mean, this is Yeah, this is a bit of a smile on people's face and it really was why I was so excited uh to have you guys on the show So you want to talk about it and get in touch? Yeah, so we only sell online. We do not have a physical presence anywhere So in order to buy you have to go to w w w dot calamity wear dot com To make a purchase and the orders ship out of new jersey And so we normally ship like the same day if not the next day after you order So things will ship quickly and since we're here in pittsburgh They'll probably get to you within a couple of days, which is really handy. So Yeah, and we also do Kickstarter projects often So like I said, we have another one starting on monday for a throw blanket So if you were to go to www.kickstarter.com And search for don moyer mo y er You will find all of his past projects as well as come monday You'll find the the new one that we're starting as well and you could become a supporter of that So in that, you know, when you become a supporter on Kickstarter You're paying money up front But you're not going to get your your reward for several months because we need time to make it We get them shipped here and that sort of thing. So spell don's last name again mo y er Just like it sounds Let's um, let's just put that up there for folks. Uh, so that they can find it in the In the future and that's correct right kickstarter.com There's a search bar somewhere on there That's great Very cool. Yeah Thank you so much for being on. You're welcome. Thanks for being interested in what we do 100 love it and for those of you that um, join the show on a weekly basis next week We're going to go to Aspen wall, which is right north of pittsburgh. Just a tad bit Right in the fox chapel area and we're going to talk with the owner of botanical vegan Cafe and market. She's going to talk about how she's you know, built her business from nothing How they set up this kitchen and how she has this new juice shop In vegan cafe that you can all participate in so thank you guys for joining us Please please please support our local businesses here in pittsburgh It's really really important to us and it's important to them. So thank you guys. Have a good night. Thank you. Have a good night