Today we’d like to introduce you to Lilli Ott.
Hi Lilli, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Really this all starts with art. While my pop-up shop, Fernweh, is more on the retail side of things, without art it never would have come into existence.
I did my first pop-up market in 2014 selling painted ornaments. I knew very little about selling my art outside of requests from friends but it jump-started the idea that I wanted to get my art out into the world.
In 2016 my husband and I moved to St. Louis, and I really started to think more about my art as a small business. I created a website and an Etsy page and came up with the name and I brand I still use for art today: Paintbrush Tail Studio. I applied to a couple art shows, 1-2 a year, and sold some of my work. For the most part, I was content with this, until the beginning of 2020.
I was walking in our neighborhood in February and saw a retail space available for rent. And I got this crazy idea in my head: “What if I opened a retail store and was able to sell my art along with other things that I love?”. And so, I went home and I thought about it. And the more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea of having my own shop. But through this, I also realized that a brick-and-mortar just wasn’t viable for me. I work full time as a nurse and like what I do. I wasn’t (and am still not) ready to give up that career to pursue the idea of a physical store. So, I ended up settling on kind of a mixed model where I sell online and do local pop-ups.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Yes and no. Growth was especially slow when I was just selling my art, and there were times I wondered if it was worth it or not. I’ve definitely had more success with Fernweh, but if anything, growing slow has been a blessing. It’s given me time to figure out what works and tweak things along the way.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Fernweh is an online and pop-up boutique. I really wanted to focus in on celebrating other cultures and travel so I sell a mix of antiques and gifts in the shop that reflect that idea. The name is also a not-so-subtle nod to travel. It’s a German word that essentially means you feel a homesickness for a place you’ve never been.
The art and cards in the shop are also all designed and created by me. It’s been a lot of fun mixing my two passions, travel and art, into something tangible.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I’ve always been interested in art, and have been drawing since I was little. The travel bug didn’t really hit until I was in middle school when my family moved to Germany for a couple years. Growing up in the states I kinda had the idea that the US was the greatest at everything it did, but living in Germany really opened my eyes. I saw people living their lives differently than they did back home, and in ways that were just as fulfilling. So now I travel any chance I get and love learning about how and why people around the world live the way they do.
Contact Info:
- Email: fernweh.stl@gmail.com
- Website: fernwehstl.com
- Instagram: fernweh_stl
- Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FernwehVintageSTL
