0:02

What do I call myself? That's what Allison Eden wondered when she became

0:08

fascinated with a medium that would allow her to create a

0:12

signature body of work, glass.

0:16

It's not just a piece of artwork. You can see the stress points as you go and how

0:19

you were feeling that day. There's a lot of emotion in every single piece

0:23

that nobody realizes. When you look at something that's wonderful,

0:28

There's no life to it. It is what it is, but when you look at handmade

0:33

mosaics or handmade anything that the movement of your

0:37

emotions that day and there's so much going on.

0:41

Now based in Brooklyn, you can find Eden's work all over

0:45

the world in homes, hotels, hospitals, restaurants,

0:50

community centers, and even in the form of a giant mosaic

0:54

shoe at Bloomingdale's.

0:58

Hi, I'm Allison Eden, and this is a lesson

1:00

on loving what you do. What's your earliest memory of being creative?

1:17

I used to draw like everywhere I would draw my desks at school.

1:22

I would draw my shoes. I was drawing everywhere.

1:25

My mother gave me this book and recently that she had

1:30

given me when I was six years old and it said, what do you

1:33

want to be when you grow up? Do you remember that book where you would put like,

1:36

where do you want to live? What do you want to do?

1:39

And I filled everything out. Like, how tall are you?

1:42

What is your favorite food? All this stuff at six years old.

1:45

And it said I wanted to be an artist living in New York

1:48

City and have my own gallery.

1:52

And that was at six years old. I know, and I had that book.

1:55

It was the weirdest thing. And it's like everything that I had ever, that I had

1:59

wanted as a little girl. Yeah.

2:02

And I, who even knew I liked New York City at six?

2:05

What city did you grow up in? In California. I grew up in San Diego.

2:10

In a really like sweet little town called La

2:12

Jolla, but we were always in New York all the time.

2:16

And as a little kid, I think even as a baby, I just used to

2:19

love the lights and the smells. And I remember like the chestnuts at Christmas.

2:24

I just all like the energy.

2:26

I just love that energy that New York offered.

2:29

Even as a baby, I think. I love that.

2:32

You were drawing then, but you work in many mediums now.

2:36

Predominantly glass, and your work is phenomenal.

2:41

So tell me a little bit about how you transitioned

2:45

into that medium. What drew you to it?

2:48

And then how you started to expand and grow the kinds

2:52

of things that you do there. So I was going to FIT, Fashion Institute of Technology in New

2:58

York City, for fashion design. And I always wanted to be a fashion designer also.

3:03

I can create my own patterns, and I can sew, and this was,

3:09

making your own outfit, there is nothing better than that.

3:12

It is so much fun, and I loved it.

3:14

And one day I was downtown and I was having breakfast

3:19

in Tribeca and I walked by a store that sold glass, the most

3:22

colorful glass I've ever seen. I just walked in and I'm like, what do you guys do here?

3:28

You know, they said we sell glass for windows and I

3:30

actually bought some and I was living in the dorm and I

3:34

brought it back to my dorm. I was like, these are the coolest glass I've ever seen.

3:38

I can't believe they just make windows and glass.

3:42

Lamps from this first. I was trying to glue it to clothing.

3:45

I was like, this is heavy. And I'm like, this isn't the medium for it.

3:49

And so I just started gluing it to cardboard

3:52

to see what I could do. God, I've never seen this before.

3:57

This could be on walls.

3:59

I could use this as my canvas as my drawings, but

4:02

I only knew how to break it. I didn't know about like little hand tools or

4:07

laser jets or what's on. I didn't know any of that.

4:09

So I would just break it with a hammer and glue them to boards.

4:13

And I was working at Nautica.

4:16

I was the copy girl and my internship.

4:20

And so. And I absolutely, and I loved that job.

4:23

I don't know why, but it was the greatest job.

4:25

I would sit there and I was really conscientious.

4:28

I actually bought all my own like paperclips and staples

4:31

and I came all prepared to be the copy girl and people

4:36

would come by and I would line up my little samples that I

4:40

made all on the back wall.

4:42

So they'd be like, Hey, we need a hundred copies of this quickly.

4:46

And I was like, well, you wait, would you like to look at my mosaics?

4:48

Maybe you're looking to renovate your house, looking to redecorate.

4:53

And you'd be like, what, what are you talking about?

4:56

And then during my lunch break, I would walk around

4:59

the Carmen center and I'd go from showroom to showroom.

5:02

And I would just walk in. I would say, I have this idea.

5:05

Your showroom is I'd use some renovating and maybe I can

5:10

assist you with it with making tables or making mosaics in

5:15

any form, picture flames, flower pots, whatever it was,

5:19

whatever I could glue to, I was trying to glue to, and I didn't

5:23

have, it was before phones, so I had no pictures and I

5:26

had the Kodak Polaroids and I would show them my Polaroids.

5:30

Which I probably still have on my desk. I mean, that's so sad.

5:35

And that's how I started.

5:37

From walking around the Garment Center one day,

5:40

I walked into a showroom. I got a little job, and then another little job, and

5:45

it started right from there. It took off.

5:49

It took off. I didn't know what I was doing. I had no training.

5:53

I didn't know what I was. And I had no clue and I'd been in college for quite some time.

6:00

I wasn't on the four year plan. I was more on the eight year plan.

6:03

And then to call and then to call my mother and to say,

6:06

mom, I think I'm going to be a mosaic artist after, after

6:10

them paying for college for six years, seven years, it

6:14

was, you could only imagine how, how they were, Not happy

6:20

with that. They were always super, super supportive, but they

6:24

weren't, oh, so proud. They were like, what?

6:27

What are you doing? So no other creatives in your family then?

6:31

Oh, you know what, my mother is an interior designer.

6:35

Ah. My father was so creative.

6:38

He was just like the life of the party, fun, wild.

6:42

I had great supportive parents. And I think

6:44

they would be prepared that if your mom's an interior designer,

6:47

that you're going to come out with something that is visual.

6:51

Yes. That's why they were so supportive.

6:53

And I do believe now being a mother, that when you support

6:56

your children, no matter what they're doing, they, it's,

6:58

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, They'll come

7:01

out so much better for it. I never did well in school.

7:04

I was a C student and my parents used to tell me,

7:07

you are the smartest girl. I know.

7:10

You are the prettiest girl. I know. And in my mind, I was the smartest girl.

7:14

I was prettiest girl because my parents told me.

7:17

They gave me such great support that way.

7:20

So when, you know, I decided, I dunno if I'm gonna do be

7:24

designing clothes, clothing, I'm going to be making mosaics now.

7:28

They were, I think they stood back and they were like, oh god.

7:31

But okay, we'll support you.

7:33

And they did. So then you're winging it here.

7:36

I remember there was one story you told about the

7:39

phone book and somebody found you in the phone book,

7:42

which I love that story. Okay, the phone book.

7:45

I was like, you know, I want to put ads out in the yellow pages

7:48

and I am going to be something.

7:51

And I wasn't sure what it was. So I put, I wasn't sure what an architect was.

7:55

I didn't know what a contractor was. I didn't know any of these things, but I just went

8:00

through the A, B, C, and I put out these beautiful ads.

8:04

And I, I put that I was a contractor.

8:07

I don't know. It looked good.

8:09

There were a few in the yellow pages. So I figured I'll put it a little add in.

8:13

So I get this call from Burger King and they're like,

8:16

we're looking for somebody to install the Brazilian wave

8:20

pattern on a floor in Burger King on 47th street in New

8:25

York city, and we can't find anybody in the tri state area.

8:29

I can do it in the time frame and I was like, well, you've

8:32

come to the right place. We do this all the time.

8:36

I had no idea. So I rented a car and I drove to Home Depot in New Jersey and I

8:42

bought a video on how to tile a floor and I showed up to my, to

8:48

give an estimate with a newly, a new invoice book from Staples.

8:54

I was like, Oh, one. You would have thought that made a red flag, especially when I

8:59

was writing my invoice as like a 20 year old, none of these

9:04

red flags were raised with them.

9:07

And so I bought the job and I knew what I needed.

9:12

I got it. I was hiring people on the street.

9:16

I was working like. Crazy hours and it was middle of winter and it was

9:20

snowing inside of the place. All they had is wood.

9:24

There were no windows. So I was working in mud and I would hire basically

9:29

like homeless guys. Like, Hey, I need you to move this and I'll

9:32

pay you to do this. And I became a GC on my own project with people who had

9:37

no idea what they were doing. And I had just started dating my husband at the time.

9:43

And to tell him, from a fashion design student to

9:46

a tile layer, he had no idea what was going on.

9:50

He was working on Wall Street and he would come to visit

9:52

me and he wouldn't leave. He was, he would sit on a bucket and, Nice in his

9:58

suit from work and watch me.

10:00

I, and I remember telling him, I'm like, I'm so sorry if I

10:03

might not be the girl for you. I really enjoyed this.

10:05

And he, he was so amused and so loved it.

10:08

I think that's why he ma he married me because he just

10:11

thought this was just so crazy. And

10:14

he's inside. He works, he works, he works inside your business now.

10:17

Oh my God. He left Wall Street.

10:26

I feel like whenever I think of glasswork and.

10:30

You mosaic artist is different for me, but glass,

10:34

I think of Dale Chihuly. I feel like it's like a, such a male dominated industry.

10:39

Is that fair to say? And how did you navigate through that?

10:44

There are a lot of glass mosaics that are women.

10:47

I think many, probably many years ago, this was a

10:49

nice hobby for women that were a stay at home moms.

10:53

I turned it into a real like business being in

10:56

a construction world. I thought it was really funny to be really the only

11:02

girl, and I did realize that the most important thing,

11:06

if I was going to succeed, was to be knowledgeable, to

11:11

know more than they knew.

11:13

And the only way I realized that was through, not through

11:18

successes, but through failures.

11:20

I feel like you don't learn things when you're,

11:23

Being successful all the time, you need to make

11:26

mistakes and you need to learn from those mistakes.

11:29

And that's the way I taught myself. I'm still making mistakes and I'm still teaching myself, but I

11:34

feel like I've learned so much. So when I do go to job sites, sometimes I walk in and they'll

11:39

be like, Oh, who is this cream puff that thinks she knows

11:42

what she's talking about? You know what I do? I mean, the complexity of the work that you're doing,

11:47

the complexity is incredible.

11:50

And so how many people are on your team?

11:53

How many people does it take to do that kind of install?

11:57

How do you find people who are artisans and working

12:00

at the same level as you are when you're doing that

12:03

kind of highly skilled work? So I teach everybody and I am on every project and I have

12:08

a team of about 15 people.

12:14

This isn't something that you come in and you just leave.

12:16

You have to love what you do.

12:19

We're basically one big family. I go from project to project all day long.

12:23

I'm in the studio 18 hours a day.

12:25

I work on as many projects as I can every day and teaching

12:30

different techniques and learning different techniques.

12:32

Also, I'm still learning every day.

12:35

And finding new materials and you have to love what you do

12:39

because if you don't love what you do, it's not worth doing.

12:42

So I try to teach people to love exactly the way I love it.

12:46

Are you doing more creative or are you doing more sales inside your business?

12:51

Or both? Both. Yeah, I do.

12:54

I have to do the creative. Sales, I don't really, I don't do this.

12:59

Gary does more of the sales, but we sell through showrooms.

13:02

So the showrooms do all the sales or the designers.

13:05

So I don't really have to do any sales.

13:08

I actually love closing my deals.

13:11

This is what we're going to do. These are your drawings.

13:13

These are your colors. And what I do not like to do is talk money.

13:17

I hate talking about money. Because if you ask me, how much is this worth, it's

13:22

priceless, but in the real world, you have to have a, you

13:27

have to have a price, right? Not everything can be right.

13:31

To me, everything is billions as it is.

13:35

And we put so much hard work and love and energy.

13:39

It's not just a piece of artwork. You can see the stress points as you go and how

13:43

you were feeling that day. There's a lot of emotion in every single piece.

13:46

That nobody realizes when you look at something that's

13:50

waterjet, there's no life to it.

13:52

It is what it is. But when you look at handmade mosaics or handmade anything

13:59

that the movement of your emotions that day, and

14:03

there's so much going on. I know where I know every piece that we lay down,

14:07

every piece has a story. So if you think about, and I'm, I feel like I know

14:13

what you're going to answer for this, but intuition

14:17

inside of a business, right? And running a business, because again, you're so humble,

14:22

but your business is big. You're running a very big business.

14:26

It's artistry at scale, really.

14:28

So is there a time when you're making a decision that if the

14:32

numbers told you, Hey, you shouldn't do that, but the

14:35

intuition told you, Oh, Hey. We're going to do this and you went in favor

14:40

of your intermission. Can you tell me about one of those times?

14:45

Oh God, that's all I do. If I love it, I do it.

14:48

For instance, I created this pattern with lips everywhere.

14:52

Everybody told me, Allison, you're so crazy.

14:56

No one's ever going to buy it. And I would sit there and I'd hand cut lips for hours,

15:00

and days, and months, and making samples for people.

15:05

It became so popular. My intuition said, yes, this is going to be wonderful.

15:10

On the books, at first, I'm I got nothing and I

15:13

got nothing for so long. So it finally took hold and people were like,

15:17

wow, this is fabulous. It's so different.

15:19

I love it. So actually everything I do is intuition.

15:23

I don't think monetary rewards.

15:26

I feel like what I want to do.

15:29

And that's the whole way I've ever structured

15:32

our whole business. If my husband was here, he might chime in and

15:37

tell me, say differently. But I think that you need to follow your heart, and

15:43

if your heart tells you something is going to be a hit, hopefully it will.

15:48

I think there's something about timing too, because you

15:51

mentioned it wasn't a hit at first, but then it took hold.

15:55

And I think there is something about creativity that is

15:59

prescient or forward thinking.

16:02

Do you feel like your creativity comes through you, or is of you?

16:07

I think just of me. Okay. So ideas don't land.

16:10

You're, you don't get the download as it were.

16:13

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they just come to me.

16:16

I'll just be doodling and then it'll be like, Oh, that's it.

16:20

And I feel like I've gotten a lot of inspiration by

16:24

just getting out there, walking around, seeing

16:27

what's around me, seeing the styles and seeing people.

16:31

And I look around at the subway and I see everybody's on their phones.

16:35

They're all looking down. There is so much to see and so much you can get from just

16:41

looking around, seeing the way people are dressed and

16:44

the way they look and you will get such inspiration.

16:47

Because that's what people need. You need to be inspired.

16:50

And you're not going to be inspired by sitting on

16:52

Instagram and looking at somebody else's fabulous life.

16:57

That will actually, I think, pull you down in some ways.

17:00

Because Half the time I don't believe they're even true.

17:05

I think really taking notice of your surroundings, smell

17:08

the flowers, notice them, and take part in them.

17:17

Do you think that women lead differently?

17:21

I feel like women are more nurturing.

17:24

I feel like we have babies, we're mothers, and we nurture

17:29

and understand the need to be with your children.

17:32

And really, I feel like we could nurture, whereas Sometimes men

17:37

are more about the bottom line. Let's look at it even in the context of your company

17:42

because your partnership. So are you leading more from a feminine lens?

17:47

Would feminine be a word that you would embrace or

17:50

no in terms of leadership? Oh gosh, I, you know what?

17:54

I don't think of it in that way. I feel like men and women are totally, in

17:59

my world, it's equal. I've never been one to not do a man's job.

18:05

And I know my husband is not had any problem doing

18:08

something that I would do. So I'm lucky enough not to have felt, you know, into that

18:15

gender by gender. Not at all.

18:18

We just do what we need to do to pay the rent. How about that?

18:21

There is interesting research that creatives, in

18:25

general, that they tend to be more ambiguous in terms

18:30

of their gender identity. Women, when they're creative, they, they take on that

18:35

masculine energy a little bit more, and whereas male creatives

18:39

will take on the feminine energy a little bit more,

18:41

which I think is interesting, that we don't tend to perform

18:46

as much to the gender roles. Which are so changing, right?

18:52

I agree. But as a woman, like I want to look beautiful.

18:55

I want to be treated beautiful. I want my husband to open the door.

18:58

I want to be treated like a woman. I don't mind getting in there and doing a dirty job.

19:03

That most women wouldn't do.

19:05

I'm proud of everything that we've built over the years.

19:09

Cause it was not easy. I sell something that nobody needs.

19:13

And we sell. We sell. We, we have been able to really cultivate a beautiful

19:19

collection of people that are like minded like us.

19:22

Most of my clients are like repeat clients.

19:25

They keep coming back, always, and they become like family.

19:29

And we do everything in New York City.

19:31

We make urban art. It's wonderful.

19:34

This is, you've got to come visit, because the studio is,

19:38

there's so few studios like this left, and 30 years ago,

19:43

this is what New York City was. There were studios on every single block in the

19:47

city, and little by little, we were all pushed out.

19:51

And I moved to Brooklyn, and It's the energy is there.

19:56

It's coming back. If you were to complete the sentence, my wish

20:08

for every other woman is Follow your dreams.

20:12

My wish is that they do follow their dreams.

20:16

Because when you do, the most beautiful things happen.

20:19

Be visible. Use your voice.

20:23

Every other woman needs you to lead.

20:39

Voice Lessons is Co-produced, written, and spoken

20:43

by me, Kim Cuttable. It's also co-produced and edited by Sergio Miranda.

20:49

You can find past episodes, show notes, and

20:52

the cool stuff our guest [email protected].