The Speech Source
Mary Brezik and Kim Dillon are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with over 25 years of combined experience. As speech therapists, we are often the first professionals to assess young children once they are referred by their pediatrician. Either they are not talking well or they are not eating well. We get to know our patients, their families, and how they are developing. We have a front row seat during the first critical and formative years of development for those who receive our services. Because of this, we have developed relationships with other professionals, observed what parent questions and concerns often arise, and see a need to share the resources and information we have compiled over the years. Join us as we dig into topics that show all of the overlapping aspects of child development and intervention. We invite you to be a part of our collaborative platform as we discuss, learn and grow for the betterment of our kids!
The Speech Source
S3E12: Creating Beauty with Artist Taylor Paladino
Kim and Mary wrap up this season of Changing the Game by featuring Taylor Paladino, an artist and entrepreneur whose story is as captivating as his art.
Taylor shares his story from growing up on a farm in Arkansas to attending Stanford, and eventually launching his successful art business. Taylor’s business began as a hobby during a transitional period in his life. What started as small watercolor paintings sold to friends quickly evolved into greeting cards and other products. Selling this art at farmer's markets during the pandemic eventually led to partnerships with major retailers like the Container Store. Through trial and error, Taylor built his business from the ground up, bringing production in-house and growing his team with the help of family friends and retired schoolteachers.
Taylor’s shares about the importance of partnerships in his business. From his supportive godparents to the friends he has made with fellow vendors at holiday markets, Taylor thrives on the connections he’s made along the way. His collaborations, like designing custom Mahjong tiles and working with the Fort Worth Junior League, showcase his ability to create meaningful partnerships.
As an artist, Taylor draws inspiration from the natural beauty of places he’s lived, like Arkansas and California. His stunning ocean landscapes reflect his pursuit of calm amidst chaos—a theme that resonates in both his personal life and business journey. He encourages others to trust their journey, even when plans fall apart, and to embrace the unexpected opportunities that arise. This episode is packed with inspiration and a reminder that success often comes from the courage to follow your passions.
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I had a job lined up for when I graduated that I would go and just work for American Airlines. Of course, when the pandemic happened, that quickly fell apart and I'm really happy it did. I think I would have. There are times where I'm like, oh, I could have probably been more social. I know I could have not worked as hard and been maybe a little bit more stable, but having the opportunity to have all of your plans thrown out the window and just figure it out, I count myself very lucky.
Speaker 2:Welcome to season three of the Speech Source podcast with your hosts Kim and Mary. This season, our title is Changing the Game.
Speaker 3:We are highlighting small business owners and entrepreneurs who have unwritten all the rules to starting a business and use their talents and their creativity to be able to build a business that is a lifestyle designed just for them and is making incredible impact in our community of Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 2:So don't forget to subscribe to this season so you don't miss an episode.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Speech Source Podcast. Today we have an amazing guest. His name is Taylor Palladino. I met him at Christmas in Cowtown years ago and he really made an impact on me. His story was incredible. The business he's created is incredible. When we were planning the artists and the creators and entrepreneurs for this season, it was all about people that are authentic, who are making something different and original, creating their business in their own way that fits them and what they want to do, and I immediately thought of Taylor. So welcome Taylor. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Mary. I really appreciate that. Where should we get started?
Speaker 3:Okay, I was trying to think back. So I met you your first year of Christmas in Cowtown. I was volunteering in the junior league and I was just walking around seeing who needed some help, and then we just ended up chatting for a really long time as you're setting up your booth but how many years ago was that now?
Speaker 1:This was our fourth year at Christmas in Cowtown. The first year you met me, it was like just after the pandemic. I remember I had taken a year off school during the pandemic and so this would have been the fall of 2021. I was still taking time off of school because I wanted to work on the business during the fall semester, and so I remember I had a terrible little booth somewhere in the back corner I don't even know where it is because I didn't know where I was at the time and since then at the show, we've weaseled our way to the front door, which has been pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:You were front and center this show. Walk in and there is your double booth. It looked amazing. Let's get started with your story and with how you got started. So tell us a little bit about you, about how you got started and your school experience at Stanford.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I guess we can start out at the very beginning, so everyone calls me Taylor. My first name is actually Ben, so my full name is Ben Taylor Palladino. I grew up in Little Rock, arkansas, and I guess, as it relates to the company, how it all started. I went to an all-boys Catholic high school in Little Rock and, as the gay kid and one of five I was both the black sheep of the family and the gay kid at the Catholic school and I grew up on a farm and that was super duper idyllic. But by the time I'd gotten to high school, things had gotten a little more challenging and the school implemented a policy and it wasn't an old policy, but they put it in when I was a junior that they would expel any student who was gay and they would fire any teacher or staff who knew and did not report the student, and so that was a policy they implemented in 2017. And that just gives you a little bit of context. As to the environment I was living in as the closeted gay kid who very much knew what I was and how much I needed not to be in Arkansas anymore, and so I was that really weird person in high school. I was the high schooler who I think I was just driven, more than maybe other people were, because I had this like ultimate need, and so I tried everything I could to find a way out, and I had to build this trajectory out of Arkansas. And so, long story short, that particular rule made for a great college essay, and that college essay got me into Stanford, and Stanford is one of those places that I truly didn't think I qualified for. I had good grades in college but I didn't have. I was not top 10 in our small school, but I had a story and I did very well in the ACT, and it just happened that way. I'll tell you one small anecdote, and it's not really relevant, but the only person that I knew in the entire state of Arkansas who had gotten into Stanford recently was a girl named Georgiana, and she was in a skiing accident our freshman year, paralyzed from the waist down really inspirational story taught herself to walk again while being valedictorian, homecoming queen and just the most amazing personality ever. And so she got in early and everybody it like filtered around the community this is who gets into Stanford. No one was shocked because she was just this incredible person, and so I did not expect that I would join that club and anywho, I knew that I was going to go.
Speaker 1:In the fall, my parents and I had a lot of disagreements about where I was going to go. I felt that I had an opportunity that I couldn't say no to, and so there was a whole lot of drama and all kinds of other stuff, and so I left home stuff, and so I left home. I graduated I think it was I don't remember the exact dates but within a couple of days of graduation I told my identical twin brother I was going to get a Coke and I drove to Dallas and that was just it. I found an internship that summer, so the summer before freshman year, and so I would work until nine to five. I lived with my godparents, who are a gay couple here and were always like the background support during high school. So I had an internship and I would work from nine to five and I didn't have anything to do afterwards.
Speaker 1:And of course, this is like a very troublesome moment, and so there's only so much distracting yourself. You can do with Netflix, and at the time I don't think we had TikTok yet. So it was like Netflix and YouTube, and so I just figured I just went to Michael's and brought like a pad of paper and some paints and just thought I'd just start a hobby. So my identical twin brother is has always been like the artist of the family and he does good pencil drawings and stuff like that, and so that was always his thing and I never really tried. And so that summer I did a couple little paintings that we sold to like family and friends. But it was one of those things where you know you can sell a painting to a person every 20 years when they move homes and you maybe are like family friends and they're being nice, or you can slap it on a greeting card and sell it over and over again. And so that's where the business idea conceptually started.
Speaker 1:This is still the summer of 2017. And so we made a couple of greeting cards and in November of that year I was back in Dallas around Thanksgiving and we went to Tallulah and Hess, which is a little store here in East Dallas, in Lakewood, who my godparents spend just an ungodly amount of money on, and we were like it's very cute, very gold, very pink, and we brought a little card set and they were like little bow ties and we're like, can we sell these in your store? And they said yes, and there was like a little table and that's just how it started. And so for the first couple of years I was at Stanford, I studied public policy. The business was very much like a side hustle, extracurricular thing I did. We had a couple wholesale customers, but I don't think we made more than 10 to 15,000. For the first couple of years it was almost nothing.
Speaker 1:And so what changed? And I and I had found other jobs to do during the summer. This was not something I was focusing on as much as I could have been. Like I had an internship at American Airlines one summer. I was just doing all kinds of other stuff. And what changed was COVID. And so during March 2020, stanford shuts down.
Speaker 1:I come back home for spring break and we never go back, and so those were a couple of weird months, but I did have this little side hustle thing going. And so once things calmed down a little bit in Dallas, they opened back up the farmer's market in downtown because it was open air and it was a place where people could meet outside and do some shopping, and so I started going to the farmer's market every weekend, and so I would wake up at 5 am and load up my Godfather's Tahoe with greeting cards and some notepads and I would drive down to the farmer's market and set up a little booth. And I did that for a full year and during that year I got into a showroom at Dallas Market and we started selling to like wholesalers. That also was the year that I first met the buyers at the container store who I happened to meet at the farmer's market. And then, yeah, and then so I went back, I finished my degree.
Speaker 1:My godparents basically told me you don't get to not finish a degree from Stanford, like that's not an option. So I went back, I finished and I graduated in 2022. And I've just been doing this since. So, yeah, that's the long form version of it.
Speaker 2:That is such an amazing story. I'm so fascinated that you didn't start doing the art or the drawing until you were here in Dallas. But did you have any idea? I don't even know if someone sat down and tried to teach me. I just don't have that ability. Did you know that you had some sort of talent?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I've always viewed talent as something that's earned and not necessarily innate. I was always creative, but I enjoyed putting together pretty Excel documents more than I did with paintbrushes. Like high school I had the prettiest papers for English class not in terms of like graphic design, not actual art, I would say, and if you look at the art that I did in the very beginning compared to what I do now, it is, at least in my eyes, worlds different, and all of it I've taught myself and practiced with, so I don't I think it's really about commitment and time than it is some innate artistic ability.
Speaker 1:I definitely enjoyed aesthetics more than, I guess, your average person. I can't point to anything and say, oh, this was like something other than. Oh, I thought that was pretty and I want things to be pretty. Personality-wise, I was a huge political nerd in high school and early college, like very into politics and science, and so I always assumed I would end up in some sort of science thing. This is not where I thought I'd end up in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Looking at your art this is so interesting and hearing your story, because when I look at your art, so much of it reminds me of what you must have experienced living on a farm. I'm sitting here next to my notepad with my favorite longhorn that you've drawn and these wildflowers and just beautiful, very realistic paintings and watercolors. That's what's so fascinating. I know you didn't start watercoloring until Dallas and after leaving Arkansas, but what kind of impression did Arkansas make on your art?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned growing up on a farm. I did. I wouldn't say it was like an operating farm.
Speaker 1:We grew up in a town called Roland, which is about 30 to 40 minutes out of Little Rock, but it was just like, if I think about, if I ever had kids, I would want to raise them in the same way. I was raised and we lived there until I was in kindergarten or first grade, but I remember it distinctly. It was just open fields and they seem much bigger than they probably were in a child's memory. We all had our own pet horses. My dad is a veterinarian and so we had a lot of animals around us and so we've always been super comfortable with animals and I had a pony named Banjo and we had a pot belly pig and like the only farming that was done on this place was like I think somebody came and bailed the hay once a year or something like that. But it was, I think, a beautiful place to grow up in, a peaceful place to grow up, and I think Arkansas is a very naturally beautiful state, certainly in some ways certainly more than like Dallas is a beautiful place, and when I went to school at Stanford, california is just the most beautiful place of all, and so I've always had an appreciation for natural beauty.
Speaker 1:I really like being in outdoors, and landscapes aren't something I paint a lot of, because I'd rather focus in on an icon that means something to people, like a longhorn. Everybody loves a longhorn. For a lot of people, it's the school they went to or it's the state they're from and especially in Texas, something that resonates with people, and when I'm painting, the things that I love to do the most are the things that, like, resonate with people. There's nothing that brings me more joy or satisfaction with my art and my business than when somebody like comes into the booth at Christmas at Cowtown and they just spot whatever it is, whether it's the Cavalier King Charles or a really pretty flower. It's that moment where they just go, there's this glisten in their eye and they're really excited because they just spotted something that really connects with them for whatever reason, and that's what I like do this for. That's what I love.
Speaker 1:And that's my whole business in terms of the designs. A lot of artists are doing designs just like pretty florals and stuff like that. I want to do things that I think people connect to. I think people connecting to a certain icon or design, I think that's what really brings value, at least in what I can bring to the table, and so a lot of my paintings are iconic, state-themed things or regional things, or dogs and pets and things that people just really love regional things or dogs and pets and things that people just really love.
Speaker 3:One of the things you just very casually breezed by as you were sharing your story is the fact that you connected with the buyers of Container Store at the farmer's market. Tell us about that conversation. How does something like this happen?
Speaker 1:So the buyer at the Container Store and, of course, the buyers that I met then have switched roles within the company because it's been a couple of years but we met. I had gotten information that they were like looking for gift tags or something for the holidays, and so I'd sent in a couple samples and like a word about me page and I literally put it in the mail to the container store and we'd, like I'd emailed back and forth with the lady and it was very interesting, but there weren't any real commitments, I don't think at that point. And so I was down at the farmer's market it was a regular Saturday or Sunday morning and I have a spiel that I would give and it's the high and the artists, these are my watercolors. And I have a spiel that I would give and it's the hi, I'm the artist, these are my watercolors. And usually people go oh, my God, that's so amazing, these are so cute.
Speaker 1:And her response was oh, I know. And I was like just oh, that's unexpected. Oh God, did I forget who you were? Like maybe she's a repeat customer? And I like don't remember who this person person is. And so I was just unexpected and taken aback and then she was like, oh, introduce her name, and I'm the buyer from the container store. And I was like, oh, oh, hello, would you like a free tote bag? I mean, it was just really fun and we had.
Speaker 1:This was the start of a great relationship and she is still at the container store and I get to see her every couple months when they come through at the trade show, even though she doesn't currently do my particular division anymore. And so it started real small. It was gift tags for the holidays and each year we just increased our products that we offer to the container store. It's still all holiday this year coming out. I think they're putting it out today or tomorrow all the gift wrapped for holiday shop 2024. I've got six really cute designs that come on gift wrap and cute little gift bags and like gift tags and things, and so they're great. That's always a fun thing because I do their designs more than a year in advance, so I'm about to get started on holiday 2025 for them.
Speaker 3:Wow, that must have been so exciting. First off, to have the buyer from Container Store. But I'm also just thinking how many container stores are there in the US and online sales, and what do you have to be prepared with for them to be able to actually meet their demand?
Speaker 1:So the Container Store they have 100 stores, so it's not like the hugest operation ever. For a small company like me. It is still quite the effort to get it done. Luckily, like I said, we work well in advance and so I can go ahead and get started as early as March, and so I can go ahead and get started as early as March. For the gift wrap we had about 21 pallets worth of product and all of that just it takes a lot of planning. I think is the biggest thing. We don't do the gift wrap in-house because that particular machine is quite large so we have to out-force that. But all the little tags and all that kind of stuff we're packaging ourselves and so we start on that midsummer. I haven't mentioned this, but most of my employees are retired school teachers and we get started on that. We bring in a couple friends of friends come into the office and help package up gift tags. People's sons come in and so it's really fun and yeah, it's just cute.
Speaker 2:I like it really fun and, yeah, it's just cute. I like it. I feel like we jumped from you starting and then all the way to Container Store. But I want to go back a little bit to when you had that idea, like you mentioned. Okay, I can sell a painting to a friend or a relative every now and then, or that business piece of I can mass produce this and lots of people can buy it. How did you go about finding manufacturers? And was that trial and error? Because I know your products are so beautiful and I know you have that eye for something specific that you're looking for. What did that process look like for?
Speaker 1:you, to be completely honest, it's paper. So we started out, we there was a store called oh, I think it was Alpha Graphics, you know and then we moved to a Minuteman. There was a Minuteman here in Dallas and they did all of our printing for the pads and the products and they would do all of it for us. The guy that ran that particular Minuteman was a guy named Mike, and Mike was just so easy to work with such a great guy. Unfortunately, about a year ago he passed away, but before he did he gave us some introductions about how we could do it ourselves, and so we ended up bringing all the manufacturing in house and so we got the printers and we got the paper cutters and all the like specialty random equipment the binders that make the notepads, the spiral binders that can make planners and all the little pieces that go into manufacturing.
Speaker 1:And so that was another really big turning point in our business is going from having someone else do the production and then you just take it and sell it and actually like taking on all of that. But it's allowed us a lot more control too, right, if somebody wants something custom or maybe a bit random, like an item that we don't usually hold on hand. It means that we can do that and we can turn it around relatively quickly, instead of having to send out an order and wait for it. It means we can say yes to a lot more.
Speaker 3:I think of customization as being a pretty big part of your business. From the start, you did make this wonderful acrylic notepad that I've gifted to just about everyone in my life at this point, and I remember you telling me that you designed that specifically for your notepads because you wanted something aesthetically beautiful and functional for it to be able to go in. But how did that work? So many people would have this idea, but how did you execute it?
Speaker 1:We're lucky that we have family friends that are in the manufacturing business and some of the importing business. Our acrylics themselves come from overseas. It's the only place you can get those made at a reasonable cost to be able to sell them to stores who will then resell them. So the acrylics come from overseas, those I just designed to fit what I wanted. The acrylic piece I'm more proud of is the little stand for our easels those I literally drew out on an iPad and I was like I want gold foil here, I want it to look like this, and we were able to look for bids overseas and we found somebody who can make that piece just the way I wanted it, and so that's the acrylic piece I'm most proud of, because nobody else has it, because it truly came from me. It's not just a holder for paper.
Speaker 3:They're just beautiful and the theme that I keep hearing what you're talking about is that you made connections this whole time during your business. You went out to the farmer's market and met people, the impact of your godfathers on your life. You went out and they had connections to somebody. You really continued that same spirit with your collaborations. Because I wanted to talk a little bit about your most recent collaboration with oh my Mahjong. You created a beautiful new line of Mahjong tiles which is a ton of design for them. Can you tell us how that collab came about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So. I met Megan, who's the owner of Oman Mahjong I think three, maybe even four years ago. This was before she had started her company. She was also very artistic and she was at a junior league show in Tyler, texas, and there were a group of four of us and we just became friends and after these shows you can meet a bunch of people who are in the same boat you are, and so we all went to dinner one night and we just had a great time and so Megan and I then kept seeing each other out and about at like shows and trade shows and wherever, and so we just stayed in friends.
Speaker 1:And then she started her Mahjong company and, just like any great small business, when she started it it was out of her garage and I was like confused because I'm like you have this really great packaging and all this stuff and you're doing it out of your garage. That's a lot even for me, and I ran this out of the storage locker for a year, so I was impressed. And anyway, of course, mash Tong has just become this phenomenon for people and Megan was perfectly situated at the perfect time to be there for that market as it exploded, and so she's built this amazing company and we had just talked back and forth and she wanted to do some sort of use my designs for something. And I was like that's great, but I don't want to, just don't use just designs that I've already got. Let's do something bigger. And so we decided to just do a collab, and I knew almost nothing about Mahjong. And so Megan and I got coffee one morning and then we went back to Megan's house and she pulled out the tiles that she had gotten from, I think, her friend's grandmother or something along those lines, and she explained Mahjong to me. And these are the wands, these are the different suits. And so she gave me a lot of guidance on the paintings themselves, and she knew what she wanted in terms of the feel.
Speaker 1:A lot of her stuff is very it's not loud, it's punchy. Does that make sense? A lot of her designs are very bold, and so she wanted something maybe a little bit softer, and so that's where I got to use a little bit of my creativity and design it, each one of the tiles. I think I have the actual paintings. Give me one sec. Yeah, so I have the actual paintings right here. So you know there are a lot of different tiles I think at least 50 or so different designs and so each one I painted four to a sheet and they're probably what? Two inches by four inches. And so I did the paintings and then I sent them to Megan and we had some not quite what we were thinking, but then some were really positive. And then, of course, she gave me the bands do have to be green, like some of the really obvious stuff that I wasn't aware of, and so then that was it for me.
Speaker 1:Megan then took the designs and her team translated them to the tiles, and, whatever her production process is, I'll be honest I was a little bit anxious to see how well watercolor would translate on the tiles. The tiles are etched right, so they're like etched into the resin and then somebody goes over it with like a very small paintbrush, and so I wondered that's a more graphic. It's not quite as subtle as watercolors are, with a bunch of different variations in color, but they turned out absolutely incredible, like way better than I could have ever expected, and so we launched the tiles, I think mid-september. Megan brought in 500 sets and they sold out within a week, and they're sold out. I know there are more on the way and we have a couple more color ways coming in the next couple of months. Yeah, it's just been this astounding success and people have just absolutely eaten it up. It's not something. I did not expect it to go this well. I'll say that.
Speaker 2:How long did that process take y'all, from when you first met and started talking about it to go through all of the planning?
Speaker 1:It's October now and we first started talking about it in, I think, february, and so it was quite a long time. I started in the paintings I think somewhere around March or April, and then it took her a couple months to get them made and brought into the US and ready for selling. I've been absolutely shocked by how well they've done. You know, it's been really exciting because we have a bunch of stores and a bunch of people who I've met through the shows who are all into Mahjong now, and when they saw it was my designs like they just absolutely loved it, and so I think I can't think of a better collab partner and a better fun product to do Megan and her whole company. It's just fun, and so even I'm going to join a Mahjong club here in Dallas. I'm like very excited. I'll be the only guy.
Speaker 3:Oh good.
Speaker 1:I'm like very excited, so yeah, That'll be so fun.
Speaker 3:I love that about collabs is knowing that I maybe initially thought, oh, this is a business transaction that makes sense, right Is, megan has the customers, she wants a certain aesthetic, and then you as the artist have the beautiful art, so of course you'd pair them together. But instead it was this year long relationship, this collaboration of friends who created a product together, which I think is so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm sure at some point, hopefully, we'll have more collabs in the future, but I can't think of anybody I'd like more than Megan.
Speaker 3:Another collab that you've also done is for the Fort Worth Junior League. Every market of Christmas in Cowtown we always put a boot out. It's a Radco ornament, beautiful, and someone designs it every year and you were the designer last year. So can you tell us how you got that collaboration with the Junior League after just having been a vendor at the market three years prior?
Speaker 1:They're very sweet. I've gotten to be very friendly with pretty much all the people who run all the shows I go to, because I just I don't, because I just love it. Anywho, the chairs of the market last year they were the ones that came to me and asked if they could partner with me in getting some of the designs done. They were going for a very chinoiserie look, and that wasn't something I'd really painted before, so it was very exciting for me to be able to take on this project. I will say that the Junior League of Fort Worth felt like a lot more work than the Mahjong did. The Mahjong I was able to knock out in a few days, and the Junior League of Fort Worth was a months long process. But it was so much fun.
Speaker 1:And I did not expect it, because everything, of course, had to be done well in advance too, because you had to get the Radco made and then shipped to the US too, and so that had to be done well in advance, and so by the time the show came along in October, I probably hadn't touched much of the project since the summer, and so I was just taken aback because I was setting up the booth, and hanging from the ceiling.
Speaker 1:Are these just massive blow ups of these paintings I had done a couple months prior? And then it was on all the bags that the ladies were carrying around, and so you had all these shoppers carrying around bags with my art on it. And then, of course, there was the Radco booth itself, which was also really well done, which was also really well done. I have like my painting, but the way that the Junior League and, I guess, radco took that artwork and was able to turn it into something three-dimensional and glittery was just really cool, and so, of course, I bought eight to give away to pretty much everyone I know as like the Christmas gift for me.
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit more about the whole market scene, because it is a lot of work. It is so many hours, so many days. You are on hour after. You don't get breaks. It is literally just 12 hours of interacting with patrons and selling your work and selling yourself, and then also, like you said, the vendors have this camaraderie and friendships that they form. Can you tell us why you choose to do all the markets and what that does for you personally and then also for your business?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. We do these Christmas shows and for your listeners that may not be familiar, a lot of junior leagues in a lot of cities and some nonprofits put on Christmas markets where vendors come and the booth rental fee helps raise money for the junior league or the nonprofit. Ticket sales raise money. So it all goes to a great cause. But it's ultimately for vendors a way to sell in-person retail, especially for vendors who don't have their own storefront or brick and mortar. It's a great way just to get in front of people. And so we started very much small scale on doing them. We've grown. We don't do the same shows every year but there are a couple shows that are just great shows, and so the local ones, the ones in Texas there happens to be one in Mississippi that's really great in Jackson, put on by the Junior League of Jackson, and then of course the really big one is one put on by the Houston Ballet called the Nutcracker, and so these are all Christmas markets and I will say like, the Christmas markets have more or less built my business because they only happen in fourth quarter for the most part. And so there's you know it's a lot of prep for very seasonal peak in your sales. But it's great for me because I love talking about my product and I love talking about why I'm there. And I feel, when I'm not at a Christmas market for the nine months Q1 through Q3, I'm very like bored. Right, I'm in my office, I'm like making sure orders are getting out. It's very boring and I feel like I don't get to talk to people or actually engage all that much, and that's what's really fun. It is a lot of work and we start in earnest at the end of September and it goes pretty much through Thanksgiving and I'm on the road pretty much at least three weeks out of every month and I have my trailer and I come back to Dallas on a Monday and we switch out all the stuff in the trailer and then I'm on the road again, all the stuff in the trailer and then I'm on the road again.
Speaker 1:But I have some great helpers. We have a lady named Jan who has more or less become an adopted mom, slash grandma, and Jan comes with me to all my shows and she is the funniest person on this planet, and so it's great. And then, of course, all the vendors. We Jan and I like to call ourselves carnies, because we just go from show to show and and we call it the circuit and you have all your fellow carnies on the circuit and so there is a definite vendor community of people who are in the exact same boat you are, and it's great.
Speaker 1:It's where I've met so many of my friends who I'm lucky enough to call my friends or other merchants at these shows, who I'm lucky enough to call my friends or other merchants at these shows, and it's really cool and inspiring to see all that they're up to and like how they're growing and how their businesses are getting successful. So, yeah, I love the markets. We don't. I don't know if I will always do all of the shows we currently do, but the big ones like Fort Worth and Houston, dallas and Austin will, and Jackson probably will always be something we do, because it's also where I meet all of my like favorite customers.
Speaker 2:Like all my favorite customers come from these shows and I get to see them once a year and it's like the most exciting time of the year team and how that's grown from when you first started, and it sounds like there has to be people behind the scenes that are helping all these things happen. How did you find them and what did that look like?
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, the biggest player in this company is my godfather, my godfather Walton. His last name is Taylor. That's where the Taylor comes from, so I was named after him as my middle name and company being named Taylor Palladino while it's often confusing to people who know me, as Ben really came from the fact that it's both his last name and my last name put together, but also my name, so it works out really well. He is a surgeon here in Dallas and he is the rock and the support behind it all. I'm not someone who was always emotionally capable of putting up with all the day-to-day fires that owning a business is, I feel, like a lot of, especially a small little business. It's a hustle and every day is like a little. There are a bunch of little dumpster fires you just got to just put them out, and so he's truly the emotional support behind it all and a lot of the logistical and business strategy support. We have a number of family friends who are involved, who help us and advise us on that kind of stuff, and then there's our office team. So Jan, of course, comes with me to all my shows. We love Jan, and then we have our staff here in the office.
Speaker 1:We started out with some family friends that helped, and I grew from there During one of I think it was in 2021, when all this kind of started like really ramping up. We needed help during the holidays, just packaging product, and so my godfather Walton's family were founders. His parents were kind of founders for a nonprofit called the Senior Source here in Dallas, which I don't know if you're familiar with, but it is like an extremely large organization, nonprofit that helps senior citizens in Dallas and they do Meals on Wheels type programs, but they also have an employment office, and so we went to the senior source and we interviewed a couple of their candidates who are looking for supplemental income, and so we hired senior citizens. Two of them are still with us like three years on. One is named Grady and through Grady, his wife, who's a retired school teacher, carrie, has now joined the team, and two of Carrie's friends, also retired school teachers, have joined the team, and so if you come into our office, it's a whole lot of retired school teachers and so it's just it's really fun.
Speaker 1:Recently, when we added the printing, we found a great guy who does all the printing, and this is just another mention about the camaraderie on the carny circuit of the shows. A friend of mine, her daughter, who is about my age, moved out of Fort Worth and east of Dallas and commuting to her mom's store every day wasn't going to work anymore. That's like a two hour one way drive, and so she has joined the team and so she comes in. She does all our social media and like all the walking around and filming me parts that I just can't do on my own. We talked earlier about how much I hate social media and being on camera, but she forces me to do it once a week she just follows me around.
Speaker 3:I bet it's a really chatty place, the floor of your office, everybody packing and bustling, and I'm just picturing this really fun environment of people who just care about each other and love spending time together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are times when a lot of stuff gets out, and especially when we get our big wholesale orders, where it can, of course, like anything. It can get a little stressy, where it's just oh God, we've got a hundred orders to get out and they all want it within the week and so it's just print. But everyone we have we just adore having, and I think everyone is dedicated and loves to be here. We love having them. Everyone is dedicated and loves to be here. We love having them. We certainly we would not be where we are if it weren't for all the people that have helped us along the way.
Speaker 2:Listening to your story, I think about. I know you had jobs, as you were, before you graduated Stanford, but I'm also just thinking you graduated and you went full on into your own business. And I know for me Mary and I have talked about owning your own business you kind of work harder than you ever did when you were working for somebody else. I don't know how to even put this into words, but I think it is just amazing that you have someone that has done what you're doing and you just went straight into it.
Speaker 1:I think for me, and at least in my own case, if it weren't for the pandemic and the silver linings that kind of created despite all the chaos, I worked for American Airlines one summer as an intern, loved it, loved the flight benefits. That was the best part, for sure, and I had a job lined up for when I graduated that I would go and just work for American Airlines. Of course, when the pandemic happened, that quickly fell apart and I'm really happy it did. I think I would have. There are times where I'm like, oh, I could have probably been more social. I know I could have not worked as hard and been maybe a little bit more stable, but having the opportunity to have all of your plans thrown out the window and just figure it out, I count myself very lucky. I'm also very lucky in that I have my godparents who have supported me the whole way.
Speaker 1:I think if I was truly on my own and did not have something to fall back on, I think I probably wouldn't have taken the leap. There was also the full year of the farmer's market while I could have been at school and I was living at home with my godparents. That taught me that there is something here and so I could see a future in it. I think if it was still very side hustling and I didn't have I didn't see like customers every weekend who were excited about it I probably wouldn't have done it and I would have figured something else out. So I think it was just one of those things where the pandemic helped create opportunities in these silver linings that like, and there were a lot of businesses that started in the pandemic because it just took your life and just shuck it up like a Coke can and you just had to figure out which way to open it.
Speaker 3:When we think about your incredible story that you shared with us. Thank you so much for just sharing candidly about how your life in Arkansas was and your upbringing and how that led you to where you are today. If you could go back to that that Taylor in high school and give yourself some sort of piece of advice or some sort of encouragement, what would you say to yourself back then?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's deep. I think I would have just told him it would be okay. And that's so cliche for the gay kid to say to their younger selves, Especially in that environment. I think there were certainly times when I didn't know if I was going to be okay and if I would ever find something or find somewhere to be where I felt at home and I felt like people valued me and I could be myself. And I also would have probably told him to calm down a little bit.
Speaker 1:I think that I was so worked up and strategizing and just all this kind of stuff. I have to like do this, I have to do that. It worked out very well for me. I got into a great college and all that kind of stuff, but I think that I could have probably saved myself a little bit of heartburn probably. So, yeah, I would have said they'll take it easy and it'll be okay. But I think I'm very pleased with where I am now and I look forward to the future and there's certainly days in November when orders are just falling in on you that it's a little overwhelming. But I think I'm very happy with where I am and very grateful that I get to do this amazing. I get to paint for a living. How cool is that.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. Do you have any last projects on the horizon? I don't have any big.
Speaker 1:I don't think I have any big product projects coming. I want to at some point get into fine art. Right now, we do very much like gifty product when my art's on products that we sell. I'm very eager to at some point get into fine art and explore that world for its own sake as well, and explore that world for its own sake as well. I think ideally, my whole goal is to connect with as many people through my art as possible, and there will always be a place for a product business in that. But I think that being able to spend time doing things that or doing art pieces that mean more to me, is something I'm really excited about. I think I love painting, but if I have to paint any more Christmas stuff, I'd like to paint more landscapes and less Santa Clauses.
Speaker 2:Is there a part of painting that you still go to to relax or have an outlet with?
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's something I've struggled with and it's hard to say. There are times when painting feels like work and that kind of is a bummer right. One of the things I love to do when I'm not painting for the business is I do these massive ocean pieces and they are like three feet by feet by feet. It's not watercolor, it's acrylic, and they take months because I only work on them sporadically, but those are the ones that I really love doing. So there's the big, massive ocean landscapes, and those are ones that I truly love, and so I definitely want to start doing more of that stuff on top of everything else. Don't know how that's going to work out. Eventually we'll get there.
Speaker 3:Okay, I guess I should have realized this, because of course you're an artist, but your branding shoot is you in front of an ocean piece. That must be yours then.
Speaker 1:It sure is. Yeah, that one, that that one hangs in my apartment and that was a photo I just took one random Saturday afternoon With a timer. I like that one. That's not my favorite piece. My favorite piece I haven't really shown people and I guess I can. If you'll give me just a second, I can share it with you up here and we can share. I can send you a photo of it to you so that you can share with your listeners. But let me see, this was one I did for a family friend and it quite literally took a year. I work on it only sporadically but but it's absolutely massive. The photo doesn't show it, but the rocks where the water is kind of lapping on the rocks, those rocks are like super duper colorful. So if you zoom in it's, you know, like I said, it's hard to see with the lighting, but they are quite literally rainbows and so it really that's my favorite piece.
Speaker 3:Wow, oh my gosh, this looks like photography.
Speaker 2:I know it really does.
Speaker 1:This is the one I have the most fun with and the best part the rocks are colorful and all what I love about this one is watercolor. You start on white and you add color, and you can't add more white right, Unless you're using gouache or something. So the process is a little bit different. And for the water, here I was able to start on black and then add the color on top. It's just more fun because you get to simulate the way that the light actually hits water right when the deeper it is, the darker it is, and then you add the color and the white of the foam and the waves on top of the dark color, and so it just makes it look a lot more realistic than you could ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah the shadows and everything. This is amazing. I think about like with our field, like you, it's continuous learning. Do you do anything to learn more techniques, or is it more of just kind of trial and error?
Speaker 1:It's definitely trial and error. I took like an art class an outdoor painting class is like a fun little thing in college and they give you the basics of shading, shading a sphere and that kind of stuff and all of that is it's just basic stuff. I feel like where I've really learned is just by doing it and just seeing oh, that didn't work out very well. One of the great pieces of watercolor with watercolor is, unlike acrylic or oil, it's quick. The paper. You can only get the paper so wet before the paper itself starts to break down, and so there's almost a time limit. I'm not someone who likes to sit down for very long and after an hour that painting unless it's like a really big painting the paper's either ruined like you can't.
Speaker 1:There's a defined stopping point with watercolor, which means that it's either good or it's bad. But there's no long-term emotional investment in it and it's bad, it's paper, throw it away. It's not like a, it's not like a painting like this, where I spent months on this piece and I'm like very invested in it and oh god, what if it's bad for watercolor, it's bad. Toss it and start over. And I love that part of it because it's also a great way to iterate and learn.
Speaker 3:Okay, this is fine art. You're already there. This is not some long term plan at all. This is amazing. So you told us that you really like connecting with your art and drawing things that are iconic to you. What does this painting mean to you?
Speaker 1:this painting mean to you? I don't know. I think I've always been obsessed with the ocean. I did not grow up anywhere near an ocean, but I got to spend a lot of time near it when I was in college. I think that there's a movement there that I really tried to capture. I feel like waves crashing are both chaotic and serene. It's loud and deafening, but it can also just be so relaxing, and I feel like there's there's just something there that's really captivating to me. I think that it's you're like trying to find some sort of calm with a whole lot of chaos around you and my world is definitely a chaotic one and so I love the parts of it where you're able to, despite all the crazy and this is something I certainly struggle with despite all the crazy, take a moment and just take a step back and be able to pull yourself out. Despite all the crazy, take a moment and just take a step back and be able to pull yourself out, Even if it's just briefly. This is just over the past week. That exemplifies this.
Speaker 1:It is 4.30 in the morning. I'm getting ready for Cowtown. I have to be in the booth by 8am. I'm in Dallas. I have more product to do Like. It is 4.30 and I'm driving to the office in Garland. That is an inherently stressful thing, but it was the nicest drive I've ever had because there's no one on the road. I was listening to music. It was just serene, despite all the crazy, and that's something I often work for. But I don't often attain, and that was a long verbal. I always get annoyed with artsy people who have these like very deep, esoteric explanations for their art and I've always felt that is a little bit cheap because you're not connecting with people. So I don't. I hate to give you that like long esoteric word barf. Because I hate that so much? Because I just to me art should be something people connect to, if not something that is gate kept. But you know I'll also off my soapbox no, I'm glad you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we both connect to that feeling, for sure, and I'm looking at this going, oh, but I would be safe on those rocks, like there is safety in this chaos, hurricane looking just total chaos with serenity. I love it.
Speaker 2:Are you an extrovert?
Speaker 1:I have an ability to turn it on. I am an introverted person and I think I always have been. What really taught me how to talk to people was the farmer's market, because if you're at the farmer's market, there's not a whole lot of money that walks through the farmer's market, no-transcript. People are there to buy the pumpkins and the fruit and vegetables, right, and so I learned very quickly that you have to be able to talk to people and explain why you're there if you wanted to make any money, and so there was nothing that like forced me out of my shell more than the farmer's market, and so I can certainly turn it on. I I love talking to people and I love engaging with people, but after the Christmas shows are done, I spend about two weeks and my godparents like country home and I don't speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're ready for your nine months to reset for the next season.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for coming on this podcast, for spending your time with us. It was such a joy to hear all the amazing things that you've done and we're just cheering you on and our customers for life.
Speaker 1:I so appreciate y'all having me. This is the first time I've ever done something like this, so I appreciate the invite. I also had a lot of time. This is the first time I've ever done something like this, so I appreciate the invite. I also had a lot of time. This is so awful, but I love talking about myself and I love like sharing all the things that make me happy, and so, yeah, thank y'all again.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode.
Speaker 3:Leave us a review and tell your friends all about the amazing guests you're hearing on the Speech Source Podcast.
