Creative Coast

Answering Your Calling

July 14, 2020 Traverse Connect and Airloom Media Season 1 Episode 3
Creative Coast
Answering Your Calling
Show Notes Transcript

The flight that pushed Heather Spooner to quit her job, launch a new career and open her heart to love. This episode features Heather Spooner, Founder of Ampersand Lettering Lab

Tommy: What is your favourite font?

Oooh I don’t have a favourite font … 

Do you have a least favourite font? 

I have a lot of least favourite fonts … I’m really not into comic sans I’m really not a papyrus girl. 

Oh papyrus! God I hate papyrus! 

So do I … But so many ppl think it looks so cool! 


MUSIC UP 


This is Heather Spooner: 


I am 34 years old, I live in TC MI and I’m a hand lettering artist. I draw letters for a living. 


But lettering, Heather tells me, is about so much more than fonts. 


All my lettering is done by hand and while some of it may look similar to a font you’ve seen built on a computer … my letters aren't always gonna look the same ... and when ppl ask I always say just hold up my right hand and say it’s this font my right hand made that! 


Before Heather found lettering and launched her own business she was on a completely different path. 


I was going through life with my head down and my blinders on. I call them my good girl blinders where you aren’t looking up and around to make decisions for yourself you’re just following this imaginary checklist of what people have set out for you to follow through your course in life. 


But all that changed on a trip home to Michigan. 


Tommy: There is a flight that changed your life in a major way… and I hope you don’t mind telling it for the billionth time i’m sure. 

Absolutely I can talk about my favourite flight … I have no problem doing that! 


It led Heather to change almost everything in her life … 

… and to re-discover her childhood passion for art. 


And ultimately ended up here running my own business which is crazy. 


In this podcast we look at the growing community of creative entrepreneurs in Traverse City and and the rich lives they are cultivating for themselves in Northern Michigan. 


I’m Tommy Andres and this is Creative Coast. 


MUSIC UP + OUT 


Heather Spooner always loved art. 


She was the kid who other kids would come to during recess … asking her to make cards for their mom or grandma’s birthday. It was a skill she’d picked up at home. 


I grew up in a little town called Brownstown south of Detroit. I was raised with one working parent and one stay at home parent so I got to see 2 worlds. I saw the professional world of having a real quote job and I got to see my mom who was the queen of everything creative. She had a closet in the basement full of art supplies and any time there was a rainy day or half day from school those supplies came out and we got to play with whatever mom had. 


Creativity was encouraged at home but art was not something Heather ever thought of as a career option. 


I didn’t know I could pursue lettering as a vocation. I did know that you could be an artist and i knew that society looked down on artists. That phrase ‘starving artist’ … I was very much encouraged to follow a trad path of going to college and getting a degree in something ppl knew. Something you could find in a drop down menu when you were to select your occupation… So logically I went to school and became a teacher because that in my mind was the closest I could come to still having a little bit of my creativity play out in real life. 


And there was another reason Heather chose that profession. 


I also knew when I was young that if you said you were going to become a teacher a lot of people smiled and nodded and that was an acceptable answer that was an ok job something good you could go into because it made other ppl comfortable. 


Heather went to college on a volleyball scholarship and graduated top of her class. She got a job as soon as she finished and moved to Atlanta Georgia to work in an elementary school. 


I was checking all the boxes. My next box to check was to marry my college boyfriend because that’s what the world told me was the logical next step. 


(MUSIC START)


But then in the summer of 2009, when Heather was 25-years-old, she took a flight home to Michigan to see her family. And that’s when everything changed. 


I was flying alone I went to the airport and they were offering free flights if you gave up your seat and went on a later flight. And I thought well I’m not rushing home to anything I can 2 free tickets? I’ll take them. So I got in line and I got my voucher and I stood to the side and I started chatting with this girl and I found out she was also teaching in ga and was going home for summer break to visit her family in MI she went to Michigan State she was a Michigan girl and she and I hit it off. We started chatting we had a lot of mutual connections which was cool and gave me sense of home in a place that wasn’t really my home yet and she ended up getting on the flight and I thought man I should have got her phone number it would’ve been a great connection ah oh well. 


But then fate stepped in. 


So at very last min the flight attendant came out and said ... there’s one seat left we can’t give you a voucher if we have an empty seat. 


So Heather boarded the flight. 


When i did get on the airplane the girl that i was chatting to with stood up and she said you’re sitting right here! The last seat open on the airplane was next to this girl that I had spent the last hour and a half chatting to at the gate. So we sat down we chatted the whole flight home ended up exchanging numbers and I thought this is a really cool connection. 


The woman’s name was Christy and when the plane landed in Michigan the two parted ways. But they started texting each other and down the road they ended up booking another flight together.


And so for the next year any time one of us would fly home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or any of those breaks she and I would fly together and she became my airplane friend. And about a year into it I got engaged to that college boyfriend. And because this airplane friend was such an integral part of my life I invited her to my wedding wasn’t that so nice of me! So I sent her a save the date she was going to come to my bachelorette party and then I went and we hung out for the first time and I thought to myself uh oh what’s this and I started realising that she was the person I wanted to call when I had a good day she was the person I wanted to call when I had a bad day she was my person. And I didn’t know what that meant because for the first time in my life that wasn’t on my check list of things that you get to do and check off and say that you’re a good successful person. In fact that is on the other side of that list where it’s like you’re a questionable person. 


Neither Heather nor Christy had been with another woman before. 


We both don’t have that story of having this inkling or feeling from a young age that we were different … When I met her I thought this is my person she’s just in a different pkg than I expected her to be in. I had to analyse why I felt so weird about her being in what I knew to be a female body bc if I could write a list of my perfect person it’s Christy. She is funny. She makes me better. And if the only thing about her was that she looked like me then that was something I needed to get over. 

And I battled a lot with that trying to figure out what it meant if I liked this person. Ultimately I ended up calling off the wedding with the college boyfriend. And Christy and I decided that we were going to try and figure out whatever this meant. Because I couldn’t imagine a world in which she didn’t exist in my life. 


(MUSIC POST/FADE)


And although it was hard... 


they did figure it out. 


Heather and Christy got married in 2017... 


And had a little fun with the catering at the affair.


We had airplane snacks at our wedding because we thought that made sense! We got the little Biscoff airplane cookies on our flight together and we thought other ppl should have the Biscoff cookies as a reminder of the wedding they’re at! 


(MUSIC START)

 

Meeting Christy opened Heather’s eyes to a whole new world…


And not just romantically.

 

It made me analyse and address things I had subscribed to as a child growing up in my house you know I listened a lot to the stories I was told from my parents from my elders from my church my community and I let them write a lot of my thoughts. And I think meeting C for first time made me realise that I have the power to write my own thoughts. I have the power to restructure and reframe how I see and talk about things. So it has made me open my eyes and to be more aware of the world we live in and not continue to go through it doing things for other people and doing them for myself instead. 

 

The couple moved in together and continued teaching in Georgia. 


But something had awakened inside of them and they began to crave a different kind of life.


we would talk at length about how ppl save their right to have fun until they’re older until they’re retired until they have stockpiled some money or owned a house or whatever the thing is to start living and we thought and I know this is at risk of us sounding very millennial but alas we decided why wait and we were just naïve enough to say well we’re gonna just try this 


After the 2013 school year ended... 


Heather and Christy put some things in storage, sold everything else and... 


we moved to nz! 


They found a program called Workaway... 


where travellers exchange skills for room and board. 


Heather and Christy connected with a family that had 3 boys and they agreed to home school them. 


In return the couple lived in a camper van the family owned and were fed every day. 


we were transitioning from being the teacher to being student again. We were able to sit in this environment with ppl that were new to us and learn things. And it felt like a breath of fresh air to both of us … Ultimately in the course of that year we both decided that we knew in our hearts we didn’t want to go back to classroom so when we returned stateside it really forced us to focus on what we did value … and we had a renewed sense of what life is supposed to be like and what fulfils us and what makes us the happiest. 


(MUSIC POST/FADE)


After a year in New Zealand Heather and Christy moved back to the states determined to build the life they wanted. 


we really valued living in a place that had access to natural outdoor beauty and we really loved being able to go on hikes and be by the water and get in our kayaks and do all that fun outdoor stuff. 


Michigan seemed to fit the bill -- but Heather did worry about one important thing. 


Before I moved to nm I had put out so many feelers to friends who had moved to nm to say

hey is it safe for us to live there? I had the perception that a seemingly rural comm was going to be set back in time when it came to lgbt issues and I couldn’t have been more wrong. 


So they made the leap.


Christy found a job right away with Costco. 


But Heather wasn’t having any luck with her applications. 


Rejection upon rejection. … But in the meantime I knew art was still part of my story and so I started making art again and there was this thing I had heard about called Instagram and I thought well I’m gonna take a couple of pictures of these cards I made and put them on Instagram and show ppl them. 


(MUSIC START)


Heather called her Instagram account Spoonfeather Designs, a play on her last name.


they were Halloween cards 3 cards 2 bought by friends 1 by a stranger. And I thought hmmm I’m gonna try this again tomorrow. So I did it again the next day and same thing 2 ppl I knew 1 person I didn’t and over the next couple of weeks I had realised that my head was looking away from these online apps I had been feverishly sending in and I was trying to make what I was enjoying into something that also earned me money and I thought I probably could do this. I have enough drive I I have enough resources at my fingertips with the internet. I could figure this out. 


She started to build a following.


But she still thought of it as just a hobby…


Or at the most a little side hustle.


I was clueless … I had no idea I was actually building a business.


Her handmade cards started to take off.


But something about her business just didn’t seem right. 


I built that biz with the idea of what I thought others wanted to see in a female owned handlettering biz which in my mind at the time was floral and pink and lacy and vintage. 


One day Heather was at a retreat with a bunch of other business owners and she met a woman who looked at her quizzically and asked:  


you’re spoonfeather designs? You’re nothing like I thought you were going to be and I took my earrings out and threw them on the table and leaned in and said I’m sorry what. She said no you’ve got edge and you’re cool and I like that I thought you were gonna be pink and frilly and you’re not. I was fuming but she was right. 


Heather decided she needed a rebrand and Spoonfeather Designs became Ampersand Lettering Lab. 


So what’s an ampersand?

 

the ampersand is a literature of an e and a t. It was traditionally the 27th letter of the English alphabet and signified the word and … at the beginning of my relationship with C we were very much at a time of pre-marriage equality in the states … we didn’t have anything protecting us in our contracts at work for losing our jobs if someone were to find out about us and throughout the day we would still like to communicate with each other and we thought if anyone ever caught our messages or read our messages we could risk losing our jobs so early on we decided the & looked like somebody with their arms crossed giving a hug and we decided that it would be our secret I love you …


But Heather wasn’t hiding behind the ampersand any more. She was using it publicly and proudly. 


You know you’d think I would have learned my lesson living my life for 20 some odd years being what everyone wanted to be when I met C and broke out of that box and then went right back in when I built my first biz I guess is just proof that it doesn’t go far and you still have to make an effort to get out of those boxes that you end up in life. 


(MUSIC POST/FADE)


Heather became a serious business owner…


And her experiences in life and in entrepreneurship taught her a valuable lesson. 


I think oftentimes we forget when something comes easy to us that it doesn’t also come easy to everyone else and we don’t necessarily value what we’re doing as something other people will value and I think once I started realising that what I can do is something that not what everyone can do and ppl are willing to  pay me for that ability that I have that was my like turning point when I was able to look at what I do and I was able to come up with a structure to monetise it and grow my business to be something that sustained me financially and I could rid myself of that myth that every artist had to be a starving artist. 


Heather has expanded Ampersand Lettering Lab from the handmade cards that started it all…


To signs for weddings…


And large scale murals for businesses.


She also teaches hand lettering at in-person workshops... 


Which, in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic…


Have shifted online.


She also started something she calls The Letter League…


A pen pal program where people who are missing connection in this newly isolated world can exchange hand-written letters with other people they’ve never met. 

 

I created a questionnaire … what makes you excited when you wake up in the morning … if you had to give a Ted talk ten mins from now what would it be on … I asked ppl to identify with a sans sarif or a sarif or a script font … 


With all of that information Heather then gets to match make, pairing people who she thinks will hit it off. 


It’s been a huge success. 


I ended up having to launch 3 rounds within a week. Because I had done one round that sold out in 3 hours. I had all the spots filled which told me immediately that ppl are seeking that connection and there’s something that sits really well with forcing them to have a little bit of anticipation instead of instant gratification that we have in all of this digital communication that we have right now. So there was some element of waiting for a letter and getting something in the mail that was bringing ppl joy.


(THEME INTRO START)


Heather knows a thing or two about unexpected relationships…


And she’s excited to see what connections will emerge from the Letter League.


She’s hoping to throw a big party for all the pen pals to celebrate as soon as it’s possible. 


And she certainly has a lot to celebrate herself. 


Life sure has been interesting since she boarded that plane back in 2009 and got the upgrade of a lifetime...  


And she’s still moving in the right direction. 


I look at where I came from and say wow I have worked hard to get right here and I’m really proud of what I’ve built and I’ll keep trying to move forward tomorrow and the day after that and the week after that and the month after that … I think knowing that I’m true to who I am I’m still offering things that feel good and right … esp in this time of covid19 being able to say I was able to successfully pivot my offering to still keep moving ahead makes me feel an intense sense of pride. 


(MUSIC POST/DIP UNDER CREDITS)


If you would like to learn more about Ampersand Lettering Lab, visit ampersand-lettering-lab-dot-com. 

 

Creative Coast is a podcast series brought to you by Traverse Connect…

 

the Grand Traverse Region’s Economic Development Organization…

 

and is produced by Maria Byrn and myself for our company Airloom Media…

 

That’s spelled A-I-R.

 

And our composer is the wonderfully talented Josh Hoisington from Traverse City. 

 

This podcast series is made possible thanks to generous support and funding from the Michigan Film and Digital Media Office at Michigan’s Economic Development Corporation. 

 

You can visit Traverse Connect’s website at traverseconnect.com.