Main Street Makers
Main Street Makers don’t just build businesses — they build communities. From hair salons to construction companies, we spotlight small business owners who are conquering challenges, discovering opportunities, and developing healthy operations. Learn how others are making a profit while also making our neighborhoods more vibrant, connected places to live.
Main Street Makers
#19 Edan McPherson: Crafting a family legacy in art fabrication
Join us as we sit down with Edan McPherson, owner of La Paloma Fine Arts, which is known for its behind-the-scenes creation of works like The Chocolate Room at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Edan shares the fascinating journey of transforming a family-run silk screen printing business into a renowned fabrication studio. Discover how the business navigated the challenges of scaling up, the importance of fostering industry relationships, and the delicate balance of managing a family business.
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Nav Technologies, Inc. (“Nav”) makes no assurances or representations regarding the accuracy or sufficiency of the information included in this podcast. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not legal or financial advice. If you have questions, consult a trusted professional to help you make specific decisions about your business. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Nav.
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Edan McPherson (00:00)
My biggest advice would be not to tell the next generation down how the business has to be. Even though this is working now doesn't mean that it'll work later and you don't want to dismiss what their ideas or things might be that could be better. It could be different whatever it is, but you know, you got to let it be their own too. Otherwise, all they're doing is trying to carry on your legacy and that's not fair to them. If you're the upper person, let them put their spin on it otherwise it won't become theirs too.
Catherine Giese (00:38)
Welcome to Main Street Makers, a bi-weekly podcast that features real local small business owners who have transformed their passions into profitable businesses. Learn from fellow small business owners on how they overcome challenges, find opportunities, and create thriving operations that make our neighborhoods more vibrant, connected places to live. I'm Catherine, and this podcast is brought to you by NAF, the business credit platform that believes every small business owner deserves a chance to succeed.
Now, let's get to this week's show.
Catherine Giese (01:07)
Welcome back to Main Street Makers. I'm excited today to welcome, Edan McPherson, he's the owner of La Paloma Fine Arts, a fabrication studio where they partner with artists to build installations in public places like airports and museums. They have done projects such as the famous Chocolate Room with Ed Ruscha. So welcome, Edan.
Edan McPherson (01:27)
Hi, how are you doing?
Catherine Giese (01:29)
Great, we're really excited to have you.
Edan McPherson (01:32)
Yeah, thank you for having me, Catherine.
Catherine Giese (01:35)
The first thing I'd love to start out: Tell us about your business. How did it start and how's it going?
Edan McPherson (01:43)
Okay, I'm second generation. We're a small family business. my father started the business in the seventies as a fine arts silk screen printing shop. And then over the years he did limited edition fine art prints. So limited edition being like only, from a handful to, you know, a few hundred.
and typically signed by the artist. And then around the 80s, we started dabbling in small fabrication and doing, things that were printed on. So objects that were silkscreen printed on, things like that. And then one of the people that we did prints with, one of the artists, Jonathan Broski, was working with a fabrication company out in New Jersey, Lippincott, that
closed down. And when they closed down, he approached us and he said, well, would you guys be interested in doing, you know, some more fabrication in these things? And so there was a shift at that point that we were doing both printing and fabrication. And not necessarily on the large scale that we do now, but over, maybe five or six years.
we went to a scale that, you know, was pieces that are as much as 100 feet tall. And so it was quite an immense shift and extreme learning curve, but really exciting and fun. So that's primarily what we do today is fabrication.
Catherine Giese (03:11)
Yeah, that's really cool.
Okay, that's awesome. That is quite the shift could you tell me a little more about that transition? It sounds like there was some demand, but I imagine that that was quite a transition from the perspective of the equipment that you need, the skills that you need. What was that like?
Edan McPherson (03:35)
Yeah, so a lot of equipment. We were in a small shop that was primarily just a silk-screening shop. And then in the back, we had put just some trailers together, like the trailers that you pull behind trucks, but they were flat on the ground. And we made like a little fabrication area. And so we were building frames and things like that for
stretchers for canvases, things like that. And then it was still primarily printing. And then we moved shops to another shop that had kind of four warehouses. And so at that time we were able to like, kind of departmentalize the area. So we had a print shop area, you know, a cutting area, kind of a wood shop area, and then a foreshop that was just kind of whatever we needed it for.
So that was when we really made the big transition because then we could you know kind of specialize in each one of these different areas and then in between the four shops there was a large outdoor area so we could start doing larger scale projects there and that's probably that was maybe a mid 80s and that's when we made kind of the big transition into fabrication But we were still doing
Screen printing projects at that time, but it was kind of it was an interesting dynamic because we didn't have like a Crew that was doing screen printing and a crew that was doing fabricating like we had screen printers that worked for us that that's mostly what they did But then the fabricators would have to come over and help and do that And then the screen printers would have to come over to the fabrication because it was still just kind of a small
business small crew so everybody had to help out everywhere and typically you would only work in you know one of these four shops or two of the four shops at a time.
Catherine Giese (05:36)
Yeah, that's super interesting. I was going to actually ask you about that. Did you have to start hiring for a particular skill set? Did people learn on the job? what was that like?
Edan McPherson (05:46)
Yeah, since we started silkscreen printing, we kind of had a couple people that we primarily had with silkscreening and then they would help us with other things. But yeah, when we started doing fabrication, we had to hire welders and metal workers. yeah, for sure we had to start hiring people that were specific. And that's kind of where I started focusing more on the fabrication and going.
to school for welding and doing those things more than the silk screening side. I kind of grew up in the silk screening side, but my focus was more on the fabrications.
Catherine Giese (06:26)
So how many employees do you have and is it a mix of full-time and contractors? Like how do you kind of work that out?
Edan McPherson (06:34)
Yeah, so it does vary, you know, and when you're doing a large project, can increase. But right now we have four employees that work in the shop. then, you know, sometimes there's a few people that I know really well that I'll bring in, sometimes, on a weekly basis to do some work.
is really helpful. But I try to keep a core group that's working all the time.
Catherine Giese (06:59)
Gotcha. And those people that you bring in weekly are those like specialists that kind of help fill in some gaps.
Edan McPherson (07:05)
Yeah, they have a long history in
the art fabrication world, not just fabrication world, but art fabrication world and, you know, have specialties that really help, the business.
Catherine Giese (07:17)
That's did your dad start to continue to take over a lot of the screen printing while you built the fabrication arm?
Edan McPherson (07:25)
No, not really. He was he was kind of into both. the transition that he kind of made from silk screening and he did you know He did a lot of the fabrication of stuff too, but he started kind of transforming into taking those skills sets maybe into drawings and doing the plans and you know creating
Chop drawings and even engineering drawings and things like that. And so I think, you know, that's where he kind of kept it in that realm maybe. But yeah, I was definitely more in the fabrication chop side.
Catherine Giese (08:01)
Yeah, that's really cool. I don't know if you remember this, but do you remember anything about how you financed that transition? Because I would imagine that ⁓ with any kind of shift, there's quite a bit of investment that needs to happen.
Edan McPherson (08:18)
Yeah, so I think there was a couple ways. We did get some small business loan money. My father took out ⁓ second on his house to finance that job. And then some of the artists helped us finance with projects, helped us finance some of the equipment needs that we had, things like that.
you know, on the front end of knowing that there was more big projects to come.
Catherine Giese (08:47)
Yeah, and how did that financing with the artist work, was that kind of like net terms? or was it something else?
Edan McPherson (08:53)
No, it wasn't really net term. It was more like a kind of like, you know, a family loan in a way where it's like, I'll lend it to you now, knowing that, you know, I'll make up for it later. Yeah.
Catherine Giese (09:08)
Yeah,
so you had like a really good community it sounds like around you.
Edan McPherson (09:12)
Yeah, you know, especially at first we only kind of worked with a handful of artists that we already had good relationships with. And so I think that helped with with some of that financing and helping, you know, say, can we, you know, borrow $30,000 to get through the next month or two, you know.
Catherine Giese (09:33)
Yeah, that's really cool. We've heard that a lot from business owners because financing can be so tricky to get, especially if you don't have the proven revenue. You're trying to invest in something new. And so we recently talked to someone who was kind of in a similar situation, was looking to expand, and ended up getting some help from friends and family. So that's a very common story.
Edan McPherson (09:56)
Yeah, it seems like when you go to try to get financing from the bank, it's like, well, what assets are you willing to give us of your own personal if this doesn't work out? Which, you know, I can understand the money has to come from somewhere and they don't want to risk it. But it's hard as a small business owner thinking, if this doesn't work out, am I going to lose my home or something? And, you know, if I was an employee somewhere.
You know, there wouldn't be that that risk. It's it's hard.
Catherine Giese (10:31)
Yeah, for sure. You also mentioned kind of on the topic of finances that in the beginning a couple of your challenges were managing money and budgeting. Could you talk to us about that? Is there like a specific moment that comes to mind of like where that challenge was really present?
Edan McPherson (10:49)
you know, you just kind of, watch how much money is coming in and you watch how much money is going out and it can ebb and flow when you, you know, when you have a lot of work, you feel really comfortable and your bank account, you know, feels nice and solid. And then, you know, towards the end, end of jobs or, know, when things are slow, you start going, am I going to make it through the next, month or the next couple of weeks? And, ⁓ and that, that can be.
know, that can be kind of scary. I've been really lucky that things have kept coming along and I've been able to keep going. But you know, I could definitely see a scenario where, you know, if you don't get that next job, you don't get that phone call. It's like, you start having to think about, what decisions do I have to do? Do I have to, you know, do I keep trying to push on or do I start to liquidate? What do I do?
And as you watch that account go down, you know, have to start thinking about those things and, it can be ⁓ hard on your emotions.
Catherine Giese (11:51)
Right, I imagine you're kind of like always preparing for the worst in a way.
Edan McPherson (11:57)
Right.
Catherine Giese (11:58)
Was there like ⁓ a moment in time that you realized like I need to hire help to help with the financial side so that I can focus on other things in the business?
Edan McPherson (12:09)
You know, I think that realization happened even before I took that over when I was working with my father. And even though I wasn't in the office, I saw that struggle and stuff in the way that he was running the business. And I knew that that was something that was going to be.
super important, but also I was really fortunate
that the office manager that I have now worked in the industry and that opportunity came up to be able to have her here and working And so it was a little bit of luck, a little bit of, understanding that that was something that I, you know, the company desperately needed.
Helping to keep on top of what needs to be paid and keeping all those things running smoothly. I couldn't do that without her doing those things and it's been a lifesaver for sure. But mostly, you know, it's just trying to keep things coming in to try to keep
money in the bank so that we can keep paying our bills. So, know, it's looking for work and keeping the work coming.
Catherine Giese (13:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, so it sounds like you've outsourced a lot of your financial management to an office manager and then you focus more on bringing in clients and bringing in business. Is that like a good read of how you've broken it down?
Edan McPherson (13:35)
Yes, I would say
you know, and there was an opportunity and that opportunity kind of started before my dad was fully retired ⁓ and she started helping out. And then when that transition happened, where my dad ⁓ retired fully, she stepped up even more and...
really helped create the business the way it is today and the way it's running today. So there was a little bit of a transition there, yeah, I'm a big fan.
Catherine Giese (14:11)
Yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like she may have brought like a level of maturity to the way that you're operating. Is that true?
Edan McPherson (14:19)
That
and plus she worked in the industry for a long time. So she has resources and relationships and all those things too that have Expanded the business more too Like I said a great opportunity and it's worked out really well and I'm super thankful that that happened Not sure where where I would be right now
with all that, because it's a hard transition when somebody that's been doing it for so long kind of steps aside you have to kind of take over that whole role plus whatever role you had on your own, because before it was kind of a split, I was kind of doing more of the shop stuff and he was maybe doing more of the drawings and office stuff. And then when one person kind of...
leaves just like if a partner left you have to take over that role too.
Catherine Giese (15:15)
Yeah, so she really helped kind of fill that gap and bring you to that next level of growth and expansion.
Edan McPherson (15:21)
Yeah, fill that gap and expand it
into new ways and yeah, bring in new relationships. ⁓
Catherine Giese (15:28)
That's awesome. A great example of how hiring the right person
is really like an investment in your business and in your growth.
Edan McPherson (15:36)
Yeah,
yeah, certainly.
Catherine Giese (15:38)
⁓
think it's so interesting what you said about how you were observing kind of how your dad was running the business and that's kind of where you saw that there was a need. Were there other things just kind of growing up in a small business household that where you were like watching how the business was run and you kind of looked at it and you were like, I don't know, maybe like we could do that differently or we could change something.
Edan McPherson (16:06)
Yeah, ⁓ for sure. mean, there was probably even a lot of arguments with family about how things should be done and how things should be run and all that. The issue is when your father is the boss, you only have a small vote with no veto power and he's got all the veto power. But yeah, think
observing that for a lot of years has been good and helpful in being able to you know run the business now. I think any small business owner if they have a chance to you know see how a business is run ahead of time it's going to be a huge benefit to them to be able to know everything that's involved with it. there's just is so much involved
and running a business is not just making a product or selling a product. like the back end stuff is overwhelming. even if you have people helping you do it, you have to understand how that stuff works or you have to understand everything that's involved with all the insurances and bonds. And in our business, we have engineering and...
Catherine Giese (17:07)
time.
Edan McPherson (17:22)
licensing and all sorts of stuff that all has to go into place. And, you know, we work with government agencies and that's a whole nother layer of bureaucracy that, can extend and make projects that you think you have, go on, for months and months and years sometimes before it actually happens. You got to try to balance all those things.
Catherine Giese (17:48)
Yeah, there's definitely, there's a lot of paperwork and invisible work, if you will, of ⁓ running a business, for sure. on that note, you mentioned, you know, obviously growing up, you have no veto power against your dad. As you came into the business, was there any kind of like practical layer of
having like a stake in ownership or how did that dynamic change as you became more of a partner in the business?
Edan McPherson (18:19)
Yeah, at some point, the small business, our small business incorporated. And at that point, there was a little bit of gifting or earning of some of the business at that point. it was a smaller percentage of it, but it was something which, I think helped.
feel like you had more invested into it than just an employee, even though was a family company. So that was good. And then at some point, my father kind of got older and decided it was time to kind of stop. And there wasn't really any kind of deal. He just kind of was like, I'm going to go home now. And if you need help, let me know. And so that was kind of that.
transition to me being kind of in charge of the business.
Catherine Giese (19:10)
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm really curious about how, you know, it's your family, but there's also the formality and the formal layer of who runs the business and owns the business. How have you found, navigating that?
Edan McPherson (19:26)
yeah, that's a complicated question and it's come up and sometimes there was no resolution to it and it was like talked about and there was even a point, my father remarried and how is that going to influence
you know, ownership or, you know, what's going to happen with that. So there was a lot of questions with that. And some of that got worked out just by talking about it and, you know, put in ⁓ trust and things like that. But other stuff that was just kind of still kind of left on the table that just kind of worked itself out in time, just, you know, by the sake of, okay, I'm kind of done.
doing this now and I'd like you to take over.
Catherine Giese (20:11)
Yeah. From your experience, and I know that you're also thinking about the next generation, do you have any advice for people who are running family businesses on how to manage the two side by side?
Edan McPherson (20:27)
Yeah, it's a tough, tough question. And I don't even know. like my son works here now, but I'm not even sure if that's what he wants to pursue longterm. or if he wants to, you know, maybe shape it into something else or if there's, maybe there's other people that want to be involved and, that could,
let the business live on that way and not necessarily with my son if that's not something that he's interested in taking on. I'm not quite sure yet. Right now I'm still just focused on making sure that it lives another day. But as far as advice for other people, as far as generational, I would say my biggest advice would be not to
Tell the next generation down how the business has to be like even though this is working now doesn't mean that it'll work later and you don't want to Dismiss what their ideas or things might be that you know, could be better. It could be different whatever it is, but You know, you got to let it be their own too. Otherwise, all they're doing is trying to
carry on your legacy and that's not fair to them. So I think that would be the biggest advice is if you're the upper person, let them put their spin on it and otherwise it won't become theirs too.
Catherine Giese (21:56)
Right, that makes a ton of sense. And I think that's good advice, not just for family-owned businesses, but for really any business or any leader that wants to delegate and grow the next generation of workers and evolve their business. ⁓
I'm curious if we could go back to some of the ⁓ financial operations side. You obviously, it's very material heavy. A lot of labor is involved in the things that you do. How do you?
finance those things and make sure that you can provide them while you like build something and obviously you're getting paid later.
Edan McPherson (22:35)
there's a couple different ways that we go about that. we have larger projects and we have smaller projects and sometimes larger projects help front end smaller projects. So, you know, you get that financing and you kind of cross mingle a little bit, you know, you want to try to keep things separate because it makes it a lot harder to, but sometimes that's just the reality of what you have to do as a.
as a business owner. If you can, you want to try to get, you know, a nice deposit in front that covers, the bulk of the materials that you need to get started and labor and, you know, things to get moving so that you can get to that first milestone and that, next payment. And so if you can, you want to try to front payment,
initial start of the contract enough to make sure that you're covering your costs up to that first milestone where you get those next payments because if you run out of money in that first part it's going to be really hard and you don't want to have to steal from other things to try to cover things because then you can end up getting yourself in a lot of trouble. So that's the way we've tried to do it is try to
you know, frontload the contract as much as we can and you know, just try to be careful with that and then keep things coming in. I mean, that's the biggest thing is, you know, you got to keep producing work in order to get more jobs in line.
Catherine Giese (24:04)
Right. Yeah, that makes sense. What does a typical payment plan look like with a client? Like you mentioned that you try to get a deposit upfront. Do you have like typical payment terms that you try to work out with clients that you found work for you?
Edan McPherson (24:19)
It varies, you know, depending on the job and the size of the job. if you can get a 50 % deposit on the job upfront or, you know, 40%, something like that, that covers, materials because, you know, you're talking about the kind of work that we're doing materials. This is really expensive. can be, you know, it can be a lot more than your typical, building type job.
where the materials account for a lot of the cost of the whole piece. we'll try to front load it, like I said, up maybe 50 % and then do 15, 15, 10, something like that, where you have milestones once the piece is halfway produced or it gets to a certain type of fabrication milestone, where if it's like,
needs to be fabricated and then painted and then this. So we'll put those milestones in there and then there'll be payments at those milestones. So sometimes that payment, that next payment helps you, get the money to do that next segment of the fabrication.
Catherine Giese (25:24)
Right. OK. And then what about on the back end? Like, do you also seek out payment terms with your suppliers?
Edan McPherson (25:31)
No, not typically I The suppliers some have credit but if they're gonna deliver their material whether it's you know a whole bunch of Bulk aluminum plate or something like that. They want their money. They don't want terms Yeah, so you kind of have to put that money out there
do that and you know some of these projects you know they'll last a year so it's you know you're you're talking about stretching stretching this out a long time and then filling in you know dead time with smaller things if you can.
Catherine Giese (25:47)
Gotcha.
Right? So it sounds like the biggest solution for you is just trying to make sure that there's always work and trying to get the deposits because you can't really always work out payment terms with your suppliers.
Edan McPherson (26:15)
Yeah. And then timing. I mean, the other thing is timing. It's like, have to know, do I want to put this money out now or, you know, should I, try to stretch this a little before I have to make this next big payment towards materials or things like that? Because I know that I'm not going to get to this next milestone, by this date. So you have to be careful of those things. But then, you know,
The overhead, that overhead comes every month no matter what and so you have to keep that in mind too.
Catherine Giese (26:47)
Right, that makes a ton of sense. Because having a constant stream of business is so important, how do you make sure that you have that pipeline going at all times? Do you have any particular techniques or things that you're always employing to make sure that you always have business?
Edan McPherson (27:06)
Yeah. So, our business is really unique, mean, building sculpture isn't something that a lot of people do and it's not going to be your typical, can I advertise or your typical ways to bring clients in wouldn't necessarily work with this business model. it's, it's mostly been
word of mouth and reputation and just being around so long. But you also have to foster relationships. And so that's really important to foster relationships within the industry, to keep up on those relationships, to make sure you communicate. So even if there's nothing going on and no jobs going on, to keep communicating with those people that you know.
so that when something does come up, you're still in their head and they're still thinking about you. relationships are super important.
Catherine Giese (28:02)
Yeah, I'm curious, some people feel like if nothing's going on they feel like awkward about reaching out when you feel like kind of nothing's going on but you still want to keep in contact with someone. How do you do that?
Edan McPherson (28:17)
Yeah, you just have to, I know it is, sometimes it is, really uncomfortable and you're like, what am I doing? Am I just bothering these people? But you just gotta do it. And most of the time I find that the person's glad to hear from you or talk to you. And sometimes when you reach out to people and it's not just about business, it can deepen that relationship too.
And then when they do do business with you, there's a deeper connection and that I think can foster goodwill, especially when it comes time to deliver or things like that. And let's say you're running a little late or that time when you needed to borrow a little money from somebody or things like that. If you keep fostering all those relationships, that conversation is easier.
if you've had the conversations when you didn't need things from them or you weren't just looking for job. they're important things to do whether they're uncomfortable or not. And I think once you start doing it, it's not as hard.
Catherine Giese (29:27)
it becomes more natural because it's just people, it's friends, it's business friends and it's your community.
Edan McPherson (29:33)
Yeah,
because at the end of the day, I mean, we're all people and we have to have connections beyond business. And if you're doing business with people, that's a relationship. it's not typical that you keep a relationship strictly So I think it's good to foster those things.
Catherine Giese (29:56)
Yeah, that's amazing advice. So my last note, you've been in business for so long. You grew up in a business. Do you have any words of wisdom for other people who are looking to start a business or who maybe kind of like newer in their journey?
Edan McPherson (30:14)
⁓ you know, I think, I think owning your own business is a lot of work. It can be really stressful. but there's a lot of great things about it. You know, having freedom, to do things when you want to do things or need to do things. it can be really rewarding because you get to pick and do what you want. as far as like advice, I would say.
You know, remember to try to keep a balance too. You know, if you've got family life and those things, you know, remember that part of the advantage of having your own business is that, if there's a softball game you need to go to or something like that and make that happen because those things are important too. and then you can make it up for it on, you know, on the, on the other end, you know, cause you're not working, nine to five, you're working.
wherever the work needs to be done. so fostering all those relationships is good and important if you're a business owner.
Catherine Giese (31:13)
Yeah, it's all about balance, right? Yeah.
Edan McPherson (31:16)
Yeah,
yeah, and it's easy. It's easy to get sucked into putting all your effort into, work if you're especially if you start to struggle with it. And it's like, if it completely devours you, I think it leads you down a path that's not healthy.
Catherine Giese (31:35)
Yeah, that's fair because there's advantages and disadvantages to not being on the clock, you know?
Edan McPherson (31:41)
Yeah, for sure.
Catherine Giese (31:43)
Well, that's
everything. Thank you so much for joining us. I feel like there are so many great nuggets in here. We know that a lot of business owners are interested in like having a business to build their family legacy. So it's really special to be able to talk to someone who has kind of been through it and is doing it so that people kind of have something to reference and look forward to.
Edan McPherson (32:04)
Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you, Catherine.
Catherine Giese (32:07)
Thank you.
Catherine Giese (32:09)
Thank you to our guests for sharing their story and thank you for listening today. Keep in mind that every small business is unique and there is no such thing as one size fits all advice. So only take what you find helpful. We look forward to next time.