Back in Business - You Can Just Invent Anything You Want With Jana Kinsman

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Hello, everybody. I have such a treat for you. They're all treats. This treat is especially sweet. I have the uh one and only amazing Jana Kinsman. She is a beekeeper and an illustrator from here in Chicago. And uh that is one way to put her. It's like calling me like I'm just a DJ. Like we both we both do so many things that there's uh it's hard to kind of put it all into uh one uh one bite-sized chunk of ease. Uh-huh. But uh let's try to unpack you today. Jana, thank you so much for being on All Up in My Lady Business. And so jazz to be here, finally. I can't believe this took so long.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I I mean, it's yeah, there's more interesting people out there, and we see each other all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

So I get it. Um so where do we start? Let's talk about um, I mean, Jana, so do you have been keeping, but she has a so Jana has a couple companies. She's got a company called Bike a bee, uh, and that's actually how I met her uh back in the day. Uh, from uh she actually helped me out of a jam uh my first year of beekeeping when uh I I had a I had some serious shit going down. And the person who was helping me was out of town, and I'm like, I read about this person. And then you came and we discovered that there was a a bee with a penis hanging out of it, and that's why she wasn't laying. Yes, you that's right. And then you pulled the bee penis or the beanis out of the queen's butt. And then when I went, and then when I went back in a week later, she was laying. So look at you.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

That's awesome. Yeah, that was uh that was a wild summer. You always had the weirdest things happening to your hives.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Do. Yeah. That's a that's a never-ending uh supply of of information. Maybe we'll get to that. Uh Janna also has a company that I would have found her if the BC Keeping thing hadn't happened, uh, Doodle Booth, which is a company that does, or it's her, she comes and does live uh well, you how do what do you how do you describe it?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, it's just live portraits. So they're very quick pen and ink, black and white drawings, um, take about two to three minutes per person. So it's not a very big involved caricature, but it's something small and cute. And I do it frequently at events like weddings and corporate parties where they want something that's a little like higher end, and I can draw like 22 people an hour. So I cover a lot more guests than like a typical caricature artist.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

You're probably covering more guests than a typical photo booth, probably even gets too, just because I don't I mean, just as far as far as I know from the photo booth images that we get, I mean, that that comes out to what, like 80 people in a four-hour how long do you do it for?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Uh typically people book me for like three hours, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Okay, so 60 people, that's a lot. Um or 60 more than that. And I do have to say, you do such a great job of getting like the joie de vivre or like what do you the essence of people? The spark within the Don Chen. Uh, and you're so good at it. So let's talk about how so let's talk about how we got to all these places. Which came first, the the the the drawing or the bees?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

It's actually funny because they came sort of together. They both happened in the same year. So I I left my job that I had as a graphic designer at Crate and Barrel, and I went on this like, you know, cross-country journey to like I took a beekeeping apprenticeship out in Eugene, Oregon, and then I I came back to Chicago and put together like a Kickstarter to get Bikeaby started. Kickstarter. Yeah, remember that? Does that still exist? In some form it must, and I don't know what people do with it any anymore, but it's certainly not the wild west that it felt like back in 2011. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Um we used a Kickstarter to get the chirp station up and running.

unknown 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I believe I mean I have like so many friends that I still have today that we all just really got really solid footing thanks to Kickstarter. So you were a graphic designer for Prick Murray for how long? For three years, I think. I was like graph, I was a corporate graphic designer. They hired me, I think, when I was 22 or 23, fresh out of design school, and I got this incredible job with amazing mentors, and I worked for them doing like graphics for a long time, and then for years after that, I continued working with them creating these little little illustrated plates that they sold through CB2. So I did that probably in total for like seven years. Wow. And so people have like plates, they eat off plates that you designed? Yes, and it's like it's a thing. Like I still get messages about it, they're sold on eBay. People collect all of them. Like my grandma and my aunt collected full sets. I have an ex-boyfriend whose mom was just like crazy about them and had the whole set. So it's very, they're very cute.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Goodness. So that's amazing. So why did you why did you leave Creighton Barrel with all of that awesomeness happening?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Well, I mean, the doing the plates was incredible, and I'm so glad I got to keep doing that. Um, but my position had started changing at the corporate graphics team. They had hired like a marketing company that was doing most of the creative work, so I kind of became like a production designer. And kind of at that same time, I was like very involved with a lot of design groups in Chicago, and I had started one of my own, which I can't believe I haven't told you about. It was called Quite Strong, and it was me and four other women, and we were like all about women in graphic design because all the design celebrities were all men, but in the field of graphics itself, it was pretty evenly split 50-50. So we were all about like, yeah, more women in graphic design, like let's give them a voice. And we held a couple conferences called MoxieCon where we had people come and talk about like running your own business and doing taxes and how to promote yourself, and it was a riot. We like talked at conferences and what I know This is amazing. I always forget it. I have we were like in Dwell magazine, like it was a thing, it was so fun. So did mo how well how many years did you have MoxyCon? I think we did MoxieCon two or three years. Do you have that? Do you own that name? I don't remember. I don't I don't know. I'd have to ask maybe Jennifer still knows. I'm not sure. I still talk with all the gals from it too. They're all great. They got families, they live all over the country. Wow, that's amazing. Uh when was that? That so that must have been that must have been like in the 2010, 2011, 2012 era.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Um, so you so you you leave you leave Creighton Barrel in the midst of doing all this stuff, or were you doing that after you left?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

It was sort of in the midst, and then after I left, it was ongoing. But it was, I think the big stuff started happening once I had uh left. It was funny. I remember because when I met the four other girls, it was like I was the one that had the corporate job and everyone else was freelancing. And then by the end of it, I was like the one, it was like me and one other gal were freelance freelancing, just doing all sorts of weird stuff, and then the other gals had landed at like really cool design agencies and were like really like taking off. So it was kind of a funny flip-flop there.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

That's amazing. I had no idea. So you so when you left to go on this like blonde ambition tour to Oregon to learn beekeeping, had you done anything with bees prior to that?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I had taken one class in the it must have been in the fall of maybe it was like the like January or February in 2011. And I had taken that class because I was, of course, dating somebody at the time who was really interested in like urban homesteading. And I was like, I was like not, I was not that person, if you can believe it, Mary. I was like, I was like uh eating yo play yogurt and drinking diet cook at my corporate job, and he was so fascinating to me, and I realized it was I was just so much more fascinated with him than I was actually in love with him. But he got me down this path of like, oh, if I was doing any sort of you know agriculture, what would I want to do? And I I really found growing vegetables very tedious and it wasn't to my liking, but I always was interested in bees. Like I did my final project in graphic design school on bees. So I just took this class with the honey co-op randomly, and I was like in love, just taking pages and pages of notes. I was so fascinated. And that kind of set off this weird chain of events that I won't get into, but eventually that spring I left my job and was just kind of traveling. I went out to, I went out to Washington. I was living in the San Juan Islands out there for like a month, and then I came back to Chicago, was sleeping on someone's couch, um, doing freelance design, like just traveling, you know, to various like Ohio, Michigan. And then that fall I decided to do the um through the woofing website, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. I found a beekeeping apprenticeship in Eugene, Oregon. So I took my bike on the Amtrak out to Oregon. I rode my bike from Portland to Eugene, and then I spent like three weeks working with this beekeeper out there. And eventually I had to come home because I had a bunch of stuff stolen from like a package that I had mailed myself, and things just kind of went bad. But that when I was out there with Phillips, he had these partnerships with community like people. Like one was uh an elementary school, one was like this couple, one was a blueberry farm, and he just had these partnerships where he had hives at their properties, and we would just spend the whole day in his pickup truck. We'd like go to a grocery store, get a a six-pack of beer, drive around in the pickup truck, checking these hive sites out and checking out these bees. And then like we wouldn't even really carry much in the truck. And I was like, I was such a cyclist at the time that I was like, I could do the same thing back in Chicago and just do it with my bicycle, and I would get like a trailer with like a rubber made bin and I'd carry all my stuff around in with the bike. So then that winter, after I'd come back, that that apprenticeship was like in October 2011. And so that winter I just spent like coming up with this Kickstarter idea for Bikeabee. And I like came up with the name, and because I have this branding background, I had created this whole brand with all the graphics and everything. And then I launched it on Kickstarter and it got a a lot of press. Like Grist reported about it, like BEZ, like all these like places because it was such a novel idea. Um, and so it it got I think I asked for seven thousand dollars and I ended up getting like over eight thousand dollars. And then that spring, spring twenty twelve, I started I started the my ten hives. I was working with community gardeners and it like all came together. So ever since then I've just been like leveling up year after year. How many hives are you managing right now? Uh I'm managing sixty-five colonies.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Um that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Do you touch all 65 every week? No, no. I uh I think about them every day, all of them though. But I kind of just monitor which ones are gonna need what and which ones I can like figure out like what when the timing is best to visit them.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Um and so and then do you get all the honey from those? That's cool. So they're basically just paying. Do you pay are you getting paid to manage them or do you just get paid in the honey or both?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

I have for years I didn't have any contracts, and I just owned all of the hives, and I I every drop of honey that I harvested I sold, and that's how I pay myself is just through honey sales. Um, but as I've gotten bigger and more well known, um, I've been able to get some more like contract beekeeping. So this year I'm partnering with two, like two institutions that I'm putting hives on their roofs. And then last year I also became the first beekeeper in Chicago to be a CPS vendor. So I keep these at um the Southside Occupational Academy um in Auburn Gresham, and that's just like fantastic. I manage like seven, eight hives down there. Um, so I I have some like contracts that are like, yeah, and then so then it's set up that they own the bees. I just do all the maintenance and then I harvest all the honey and hand it over to them. They do the bottling. For the school, it's like a great way for the kids to get involved in like creating a a product. So it's really everyone kind of looks different.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Yeah. So the school one, do you um like teach them about it? Are you like going in and showing the kids like what a frame is, et cetera?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

No, and I that's not the case. I can't do that because um I learned in that process that the insurance that you need in order to interface with kids at the CPS is like it would cost me like $7,000 a year. Um, and I can't I can't get it. I tried to get it so bad, but now I like I can't even go on the school um while school is in session in the property. So I have to go after hours to check on the hives, which is unfortunate. Like they could always have me as a guest to do like an educational thing, which is like always a possibility, but um the the insurance requirements, it's uh sexual abuse and molestation insurance. Um I feel like this is like I don't know, it's kind of scandalous in my mind. Like the insurance cost is just kind of bananas. But uh yeah, unfortunately it's not I don't get to have that dynamic. But with the other contracts, like if they want to do an education session or have me talk about the bees, that's definitely a possibility.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

It is crazy that you have to get sexual abuse and molestations. That's that's what the insurance covers. That's what it's called. Oh, that is that's such a a veiled threat. Like that's such a not veiled threat. I mean, I it's I guess if if you strip it really far back, it's like just like that is such a problem that they have to insure against, like that they can't let any, like there's been enough issues uh with it that they have to have that certain I mean they must. I mean, they can't there m they had to have been incidences or else they wouldn't that would they wouldn't have forced you to get specifically that insurance.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I think I think what I heard, and this is maybe hearsay, is that there was just one incident that was mishandled, and this creating this requirement was just kind of like the extreme swing of the pendulum. Um, so I don't necessarily think it's the right thing to do, but it's just what absolutely like what just what happened. And it yeah, I think it's messed up in general, unrelated to like CPS, that there is even an insurance for that sort of thing. But I guess I guess there is.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Well, no, I mean on like for us up here in Evanston, John wanted to be uh a chaperone for a field trip. And uh he had to go do a back he had to go do a background track and get his fingerprints done in order to be a chaperone for the field trip. And like, I mean, I I suppose I am ha I, you know, it's it's one of these things where like at least we know everyone's safe, I guess. But on the other side of it, it's like, um, can you imagine if you've got something that, I don't know, like if you get denied to be a I don't know, it just it seems really sad and hard that this is where we're at, you know, that we can't even just do nice things. The like there has to be like mitigation around it all.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah. Well, it's like it's like a very systemic problem, like this lack of community trust and yeah, liability culture in general, but that's a whole nother thing.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

I mean, I we're not gonna solve it today, but it it's but it, you know, it's like I I mean, not that this is the same thing at all, but like when Taylor Swift was playing in um in Australia, like apparently there's a train line that goes right into the the st the the stadium where um where she played, and it was like the same thing in Argentina and like just the idea of like there's no security, like there's no there's no metal detectors, there's no anything. And so like everybody, every American that went was just like, I cannot believe how safe and open and easy it was to get there. And like, and you know, there's not a stadium I would I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't go to many um football stadiums that aren't in Chicago. But I have to imagine that they all have, you know, it's a parking lot and you gotta drive and they're in the middle of fucking nowhere. And like, you know, it it's just an interesting, it just gets me to the idea of like just the police.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

That's that's bananas. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Mm-hmm. I mean, the police culture that has like kind of you know infiltrated everything and made it so that it's so gross and weird. But uh, but yeah, so anyway, anyway. So you anyway, so that's cool that you keep it at the school and so then you give the honey to the kids and then they've got a product that they can sell and then fundraise with.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, sell and fundraiser, you know, just even the activity of bottling and stuff and labeling is really um really cool to be involved in for them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Um, so then when did the doodle booth have at all come into the yeah?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

So the other part of that story is um it must have also been, I'd have to look at my records, but it must have been also the winter of 2011 when I was putting together the Kickstarter for Baikabee that I also um came up with the concept for doodle booth. So what happened was there was like a a fundraiser, fundraiser/slash holiday party happening at Firebelly Design. And they invited me to come and sell, I could like sell some prints to like raise money for this cause that they're supporting. And I was like, well, I don't really have prints, but what if I just came and offered portraits for like $10, just sat in the corner and I could do live portraits. And they were like, Yeah, sure, give it a try. And so I set up a little table and I had my paper and I just drew people and I scanned the drawings and then I gave it, I gave them the original, and then I sent them the scanned drawing. And I had so much fun. I was like, the same thing happened where I was like, I'm gonna turn this into a business. And I came up with the name Doodle Booth, and I put together like kind of like a concept, like pitch, I don't even know what I would call it, like just an idea, and then I brought it to my friends at the time, was having he was like having like like salons where you could like present an idea and talk with like really smart people about what you were doing. So I brought Doodle Booth to that. This this was all, I swear to God, this was all like design Twitter and quite strong was like the place to be back in 2010, 2011. I made so many friends in Chicago just through the design scene that I'm still like really good friends with today. And like that like opened all these amazing doors for me. So it's just so funny to be who I am today. But so many of those people I met back when it was like Janet Kinsman, you know, graphic design illustrator. But yeah, it was like just great. I brought it to these friends. I pitched this idea, they're like, this is a great idea. So then I like just made up a website and got did like a little photo shoot with examples of like what I was doing. And my first big client was actually uh Creighton Barrel because the plates that I was releasing had a following enough that like we would do a promotional tour during the holidays to have Jana from you know Oliver Fame, the plates are called Oliver Plates, um, it's gonna be in store at this date. You can get her portrait your portrait drawn by her and get your plates signed or whatever. So I was like going to Toronto, New York, like San Francisco to these stores and like meeting fans of the plates and then drawing portraits at the same time. Um so that was like that was amazing to have that as like your first client and to get to do all that traveling. And I'm just so grateful for that. That like really floated me.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

Not to mention that you had a really great place to test pilot what it like what like where the foibles are, like where's the problem? Like, you know, when you say you were um scanning them, what were you like at the at the first event, what were you scanning them with? Like a like your like your big computer printer scanner?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

No, I have this, I have a little portable scanner and I would bring it with my computer. And I did that for years until I got a portable scanner that was just like standalone that you could then like hook up to your computer later. But honestly, the format of Doodle Booth has not changed at all. I like started using a different paper and pens have changed over the years, but the only thing that's changed a lot is like my style and my like portraits per hour. speed because I used to take forever. I would draw like eight people an hour. I would start in pencil and then I would trace it in pen. But now I just crank them out. I do go direct to pen, straight on the paper. Like it's such a it's such a second nature to me now that I can just really go through it and it's it's still it's still but it's still basically the same premise is you sit down and you get your portrait drawn by me. It's so cool. It's very fun.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

And I it's it's it it's interesting how the universe kept putting in front of you these ways to make this all work. You know like I mean was the Kickstarter that was post quite strong.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah it was like kind of current quite strong because like even the Kickstarter video I remember we filmed it in the Quite Strong studio. We rented this little storefront on Milwaukee Avenue off of Milwaukee Avenue. So like we filmed it there and that's where I was like doing all of my computer work and design stuff to like get the project going and I you know is putting in a lot of work like doing cold calls and stuff um to get it promoted but it was kind of concurrent.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

I guess the thing is is that like you know for you to go to a go to the the guy in Oregon and do your you know figuring out like I'll just do this with my bike and I'll figure it out like you just came back and just like how like what was the time span between the Kickstarter and that and that apprenticeship? Like months?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Months. Yeah like I the Kickstarter was in October and then or the apprenticeship was in October and then I put the Kickstarter together uh I think I launched in in January of 2012.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

In three months you completely changed your the entire trajectory of your life.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah but I had like no idea like it was like yeah I mean I guess I did but at the time it was just like here's another project I'm going to embark on. And then I was still simultaneously like doing freelance design for years while I was doing Bike a bee and doodle booth.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Just the confidence of putting together I mean the Kickstarter of it all is I mean, you know, I I don't think personally that I would have had the guts to do a Kickstarter three months after I learned the thing that I was going to be making in the company. Actually no that's not I bet I probably would but I guess what if if you were freaking 24 or whatever the hell age I was sure youth the the folly of youth but also just like youth springing fully formed out of a he out of a Tina's head like you know uh or Zeus's head. Tina sprung out of Zeus's head. Just this thing where you're like I've got the confidence and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna get other people to give me money that then forces me to have to do this because if I don't do it then all these people know that I didn't do the thing that I said I was going to do. Like and I know that and I know that a lot of Kickstarter projects probably went the way to the the went the way they have the dodo uh very soon after getting funded.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I have to say though I think it was a very special moment in time for me and the people that I was surrounded with because we everyone who I was friends with at the time like this like I was like becoming friends with the guys from Cards Against Humanity and when I met them it was like Cards Against Humanity was nothing. And so I was just surrounded by this culture of people who were like I'm doing this I this is like you can just invent anything you want and if you work hard enough you can make that your thing and it was no one was thinking like how do I I want to get rich quick scheme. They were like no how do I make this thing that I think is really cool into my reality we were surrounded by this really exciting like early 20s age energy and that kind of just was like you could do anything, you know? And the worst thing that could happen is you die. Sure or it doesn't work I mean death is always the worst even if it even if it doesn't work like just go get another you know corporate job like go get a job like I had a good enough resume I could go back and do anything I wanted in the design world but there I was just like why don't I try something that really makes my heart sing, you know?

SPEAKER_03 26:21

And you really did lean into that because I feel like of all the people I know in the world I don't I can't imagine you in a corporate environment. And I it's like it's like you went from being like the corporate girl to like yeah no thanks ever again.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I have to say when I was when I was at crate I was like so young and so weird that I brought like a really funny energy there. Like I don't know I think it was very much to the delight of some of my coworkers that I just like had this really like I was just so young and you know I was doing all these really fun things in the design world at large um so even if you can imagine like corporate Jana it's still basically me because I just can't not be myself. Like I remember I like I hated I had I had to wear like business casual you know so I remember going to Uniqlo and buying seven pairs of gray jeans and different colors of gray because I just couldn't like handle being business casual. So it's funny to think of me like that but really it's still I was still just exactly true to myself and I brought that energy to the corporate office and Creighton Barrel is a pretty cool company and everybody I worked with was really neat. So it worked out fine.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

It's not like you were doing it for like an insurance company or something.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Absolutely not no I was still you know a graphic designer at my heart.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Also that's like a coveted job to get out of college. It's a totally coveted job to get a job at Creighton Barrel out of college.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Like is anyone getting cool jobs at Creighton Barrel out of college anymore like no and I graduated in 08 like that was the peak of the you know what is it the Great Recession and I just I got this bizarre like email through a headhunter about you know a job at Crate and Barrel in Northbrook and I was like well I guess I'll go take it and I was working at the time for a family friend who had an interior design company and she knew somebody at Crate and she just like put in the good word but I went out there my mom drove me out there and I interviewed and they liked me so much that they like called like 20 minutes after the interview and they were like we want to offer you the position that I still have that like email printed out after they like interviewed me that it just made me so happy and it was so affirming and I I can't believe I got the job. I was so young but ultimately they were just like yeah your your whole portfolio was excellent but we just thought you'd be a really like fun person to work with and that was really nice to hear so you so is Create and Barrel the only real job you've ever had like a W-2 job that was my that was my last W-2 job before I have a W-2 j job now at the Renaissance Society doing like art handling and construction but that's like an extremely part-time job so it's not like nine to five W-2 but Creighton Girl is my last W-2.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Art handling art handling art handling yeah so you are moving paintings yeah okay and and more yeah I mean I guess I've kind of you you mentioned these things to I I know that you do this art handling job but like it's like I I've where did how did that how does that get into factor into everything?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Oh man how does it um okay it was like I think 2017 um a friend of a friend I was at this friend of a friend's house with the friend we were all having hot pot and he was like uh looking for people to come and help him at the Renaissance Society where he's like the chief exhibitions guy who like you know builds all the shows and works with the artist to like lay out what the show's gonna look like and kind of make their dreams happen between the curator and the artist. So he was looking for people just to do demo work because a guy that he had had like flaked. And I was like yeah it's January I've got nothing going on I can help out with that. And then that, you know, I think five years later I'm still at this museum. But I ended up really liking the work every day that I worked there as doing something different. I was also starting to look for a job and or not I'm sorry not look for a job look for a house. So I was like in the process of buying my house and then I stayed on at the Ren, the Renaissance Society we call it the wren, um, because I was learning construction. I was learning how to hang drywall tape and mud I was learning like about flooring everything I was learning at this job. And then I was coming back to my dilapidated 1912 building that I just bought and I was like learning how to fix everything in the building and so I just went through this kind of like construction era. And yeah I just I still work there because I really love I love the people at the Ren. I love my boss I love the challenge uh I love learning new things and every every exhibition you learn how to do something new and that to me is really like stimulating yeah I mean learning a whole construction skill is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

Like that is I mean that's like the dream in many ways. It's so it's so paid to like learn a new skill. Exactly and then say Renaissance society like for the Renaissance society is it like Caravaggio Renaissance?

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Like what's I mean you obviously aren't talking to him uh what are you like so the the name Renaissance society is like the true the true meaning of the word Renaissance and I think it started I'm I'm really bad at this but it started in the early 1910s uh and it's in the University of Chicago um and they're essentially like the German concept of a Kunsthal where it's like a room for art. They don't necessarily have a collection they just um they sponsor or commission new works and they show contemporary artists and they have group shows and then solo shows but most of it is pretty contemporary and it's kind of like this institution that's an essential part of the art ecosystem where they like are showing newer artists and then usually what happens is that newer artist goes on to show at a bigger institution um or the whole show at the Ren will get bought out by like MoMA or something. So it's like this feeder institution. So it's really cool and it's really fresh and all they're always doing it's all contemporary and there's lots of really cool fresh ideas coming out of there and I love getting to meet the artists and learn about their process and see how they work and it's just really neat. And is it just financed by the university? No they have um like outside donors and everything like that but I think the university is a major donor. So it's not like a University Chicago lab or something. No no it's it's they've got a very strange association um they're kind of just like a tenant but like a special tenant.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

No it's like I wish that that was there were more of those you know like places where you could just go to create stuff. But did that used to exist? Was there a like a time and a place when like you know there were places to do that. I don't I maybe I'm blanking on that concept but like I would love to like have a like I if I had time and bandwidth and money to do so like I would love to make like an adult craft business like a place where you can just come in and like you know you need a sewing machine or you want a hole punch or you need an all to make some leather thing or whatever. Just like like an adult maker space that like everybody knew about like I feel whenever like there's maker spaces it's always like it's on the down low or it's only for people that know 3D printing or whatever. And I it would be so cool, wouldn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yeah. I mean the Renaissance Society is still a museum so they don't necessarily do that. But uh I agree with you on many levels. And I feel like I've kind of created my life to just be that but it's not like a public institution.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

I think that you're an institution. Well okay so I guess from all of this so you've got Renaissance like what in your childhood is like the prequel for all of this? It feels like like who were you when you were a kid that like like were you climbing trees? Were you like a gifted kid? Like where were where was your there I mean because there's just so much here that like you know you're never satisfied. You're always finding something new. You're you're in beekeeping which you know is a I mean for me it's a hobby for you it's your job but it's a job where like there's just continual learning like there's never there's no end to beekeeping. Like there's nobody who can sit there and say like I'm an expert in this forever and ever amen. Like there's it's there's always something new to learn. Yeah. Guess like where did this come from? Are your parents specifically cool?

SPEAKER_00 35:27

They're cool as hell. I love both my parents yeah I I was actually trying to figure it out the other day and I think the main driver for me is just I'm always searching for novel things. I'm like addicted to novelty um and all of my work allows me to like not stagnate which is great. But as a kid you know it's funny I was just doing the same stuff I was obsessed with bugs monarch caterpillars especially anything tiny I was obsessed with anything tiny I was obsessed with drawing I've always been illustrating drawing painting in high school I was like winning awards like for art and jewelry so I've always been creative I would say is like probably the way most people would describe me when I was little um and then like the construction stuff like I definitely was very inspired by mostly my dad because my parents like I always had this fantasy that I was gonna like meet a guy and we were gonna buy an old house and we would fix it up together just like my mom and dad did even though it was probably a big insane part of their marriage. But then as I got older and never met a guy I was just like well I'm just gonna do this by myself but I was very inspired by my dad and the fact that my dad did all of the renovations on my childhood home and he did it mostly on his own with like the help of my grandpa and I don't know I just I've never I've never had anybody be like you can't do that. It was always just like kind of there's that great Steve Jobs quote where he was just like everything that you see was made by a person and like there's nothing stopping you from being a person who makes that thing and so it's like I'm not gonna go into this you know building into this house that I own and be afraid of it. Like I was very empowered by a lot of really cool people to be like you can fix this like you can learn how to repair this so yeah I don't know I just I had really cool people growing up and I think it's an aquarium thing. Maybe you can speak to this too that we're just like crazy and we just are so ourselves and I feel like I've just been myself my whole life and I've stayed really true to that and it's kind of like a like a guiding light. And the other the other big thing that happened to me is I had this was in like I don't remember when this was maybe oh six or oh eight um I had a friend who I was involved with like these really cool street artists that I had met through my school my my my college and one of them was murdered like he was stabbed to death in Chicago and I was with him at the party before he was stabbed to death but he was like a graphic designer and a street artist and he was just like amazing and like so industrious and he had like he was up all night you know getting up in the streets like with tagging and stuff like that and then he would go to his corporate job in the morning and after he was killed I was just like I'm never gonna be unhappy at a job ever again in my life like I cannot live that lifestyle because you could be murdered in your 20s like and that was a really big thing for me. Why was he murdered? Like was it random he was stabbed to death yeah it was kind of random he got in a petty fight at a party and he was just stabbed by this crazy dude.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

That'll that'll wake you up not him but I mean you know that that sounded terrible um but you know that that's I mean that's kind of what the pandemic did to me is like I could die tomorrow. I'm I I can do I need to do whatever I need to do to like make myself happy and be who I am because yeah I could die tomorrow. In the beekeeping world um there aren't a ton of women I mean there's oh there are there are women I mean most of the beekeepers I know in Chicago are women right um when I do meet male beekeepers and they find out that I keep bees it they they don't there's no interest like it's all like it's like oh okay and they don't it's like they it's there's no follow-up questions and I'm like well we both do the same thing and I guess you are a person who's got you know bona fides coming out of your ass when it comes to beekeeping and you know who you are how do you feel like the beekeeping world um how do you how do you feel about the world of beekeeping and the community that you keep within it.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Yeah very good question I don't know I've always had a very mixed relationship with it uh I feel like the times very early on in my beekeeping career that I would like go to meetings with bee clubs um or like meet older beekeepers like older white male beekeepers yeah the same thing not a lot of interest I would get kind of like the pat on the head like oh good for you and then I'd be like yeah I have like 35 hives they'd be like oh you know um so I don't know I just found I found it kind of like a challenging environment and I kind of just stopped being interested in being part of like a group there's some really nicer groups forming now um like the Cook DuPage Beekeepers Association they're really nice welcoming people um but yeah early on it just was kind of like and then I was very like uh I'm very turned off by like and I give this advice to my like people that I work with now the people who I mentor who are starting out is just like don't have like the opinions of like five million people raining down on you. Just find a couple people who you really trust and go with their advice because there's so many ways you can go in beekeeping that I don't want them to be like feeling awash in information without anything to do. Because you could certainly try five million different things but like why not try something that somebody with a little bit of authority in your region can speak to um but yeah I feel like at this point I've found some really wonderful beekeepers that I don't know like vibe I vibe with really well and I I don't feel super um driven to like marginalized yeah I don't feel marginalized anymore and I think you know part of that is just sticking with it long enough that I'm not just like a passing fad that it's like oh yeah no Jana Baikaby that's an institution more or less at this point. But yeah I feel like I've found I've found a good groove and I really love mentoring people one-on-one. When I can be a part of like a larger you know group or association I I I welcome that. But yeah, you know beekeepers and farmers especially beekeepers especially out of farmers are really like independent and outspoken and opinionated so I almost feel like in some ways some beekeepers just like it doesn't mesh well to be like I don't know we're just all weirdos.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Mm-hmm not normal people that keep bees I mean and you know and and I feel like that's where I'm kind of like I mean you know I've I've talked on this podcast um about my my situation with my my neighbor and um you know it's it's not done. It's not ending. It will never end I think and I think they're just trying to get me to um to like wear well just wear me down so I get rid of it. I mean I don't I I don't know if my neighbor has like naked photographs of like the officials that they are like afraid that are going to get out or something and that's why they're all like kowtowing to her on a level that I have never seen any I mean I don't I don't understand it. But you know it's like it's it's a very misunderstood thing in many ways. And you know it's like I you know I yeah the the things I either get when people talk to me about it are either like good for you you're saving the world and I'm like well that's you know I mean little me I'm not saving the world. But then the other side of it is like you know bees aren't nearly As endangered as you think they are. And if you think you're doing this for the environment, I'm like, uh, you know what? I'm doing this because that's the thing I like to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

I mean, it's your hobby and it's your right to have that as a hobby. Like, who cares the reasons why you're doing it? Like if it's noble or not noble, like everybody has hobbies. Like people are people are in their backyards gardening, they're in their backyards building sheds. Like, you know, everybody's just doing what they do in the world, but somehow beekeeping is like extremely polarizing and controversial. Like everyone has to have a big opinion about it. And I don't necessarily think you need to be anyone needs to be a beekeeper that has this like noble, you know, like mission. It's just like you like to do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Well, and you know, it's it they also like exist in the world, you know, like they are like bees are just there. Like we're just corralling some of them. Like, you know, there has to be natural hives in the world. They're not all managed by beekeepers. And so it's like the idea, like in when I when I kept my bees in the city, I would oftentimes get asked, like, oh, do your neighbors freak out? I'm like, no, why would my neighbors freak out? Like I always thought it was so weird that people would ask me that question. I'm like, in fact, people normally are like, yay, you. So it it was quite a shock when I moved out here and uh I found I moved next to literally the only person in the city of Evanston that has problems with um with bees. But, you know, it it it is something that uh I'm really glad that you do, and I'm glad that you brought yourself into my life because I um I really need your help a lot of times. I'm so glad to know you and work with you too. It's mutual. I just came into my head. I remember when I didn't, this is well before I knew you, but um, you got like hit by a car or something, and there was like a whole thing around. What was that?

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah, uh what was that? Like nine years ago, I was um I was riding my bike and a car pulled up next to me, and somebody in the rear passenger side window reached out and grabbed a hold of like my messenger bag, not with the intention of stealing it, but just of grabbing on to me, and I heard everybody in the car like laughing, and they like the guy held on to me and they sped up the car, and then they like let go of me at the same time that I hit a parked car to my right and I fell on the ground and they just drove away. So it was like a an attack, and I think it was reclassified as like a an assault or a battery or something by the police, but yeah. It was messed up. Did it did did they ever find the people? No, and I live a life with very few regrets, but my one regret is that I didn't ask anybody to go after the car. Like people came to my aid and like stopped the car to come and help me, but I should have been like, go after that man. But I didn't. And I regret it. But uh yeah, it it was a it was insane. It got uh I was on the news the next morning. Yeah, I saw the news. Every news agency. Every news agency in the Chicagoland region came out to my little apartment and interviewed me about it. And yeah, it just it got picked up everywhere and and everyone was really like, you know, because it was really messed up, but I was also just this I think one of the news agencies called me a local character. Local character, Janet Kinsman. But you hurt? Yeah, I was I was uh I was got uh bruised up and battered, and then and this is the crazy part. I over the next eight years, I suffered three shoulder dislocations and I never really got it checked out because you know, insurance, America, medical, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Um, I finally got an MRI and like an orthopedic opinion about it, but I had a torn labrum and all these dislocations had like loosened up my shoulder to the point where, you know, after the final dislocation, which happened like three years ago, they were like, you gotta get this fixed. So I had shoulder surgery, which took me out of beekeeping for like an entire season uh two years ago, which was really, really hard. But that was like the like years later I paid thousands of dollars because of that one night when I was attacked while riding my bike. It was so messed up. But I'm all better now. Did was your bike messed up? Oh yeah, that bike was made. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:24

I mean, of course.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

But I had three bikes. Oh my god. So I was like an insane person, you know. So it was fine. But yeah, I couldn't ride it. Yeah. I couldn't ride the bike, and you know, my shoulder at the time hurt really bad uh for a long, long time, but I didn't know how messed up it was until years later, almost a decade later.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

So like I feel like you're an inspiration in so so many ways. I mean, you you know, it's like you go after whatever it is that you want to do with this gusto, like and and I'm I guess I don't I feel like there are people that could look at you and say, oh man, she's so amazing. I don't I could never do what she does. And like to somebody that would think that way, like what would you say? Like, how would you give the advice for somebody to like go after whatever dream or whatever? And I've never asked anybody this kind of question before, but I'm just like, I don't, I it's like, is it in your energy and you're like, I don't know how to tell anybody, I don't know how to be anything different? Or like, cause it seems like you're able to like hook into these zeitgeists, like making a collective, going using Kickstarter, like, you know, seeing this guy driving around. I don't think honestly, the I the concept of somebody riding their bike around to do beekeeping. I mean, given the amount of like equipment and, you know, just like when you get propolis on your hands and you can't touch anything and you gotta go from one place to another with your handlebars and your bike just covered in propolis. Oh yeah. But just like the idea that you're like, I'm gonna make this into a thing that I would never think that could, you know, like I would never think to create a biking or a company. I'm buying my bike everywhere. And then when you made the crossover, like there had to be a point where you had to like get a car, I'm assuming, because you uh had to stop being the biker. And was that like a moment?

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Yeah, it's it's been an ongoing, evolving moment. Um, and the real issue is that I have way more hives and I have apiaries that have way more hives at a single location. So I can't like if I was still, you know, 35 hives, Janna bike would be, I could still be totally doing it by bike. Um, but I have a couple apiaries where there's like, you know, over a dozen hives. And so at a single time, the amount of equipment that I need to bring out to that apiary is more than I can carry on my bike trailer um comfortably. And so, you know, I I got a my grandparents gave me their old PT cruiser and I used that for years as the bike a bee car, and now I have this little jelly bean hatchback. I really I really wish I had like a nice, like a like Trevor has a transit connect, and that's a really nice car for hauling stuff. But yeah, I still if it's just a maintenance thing, I'm just going, I'm still going to the apiaries by bike, but when I need to bring a significant amount of equipment, I have to use a vehicle. Um, and also having further flung like uh apiaries that are like like I have an apiary in Beverly and it would be really dangerous to get there by bike, so I'm doing that one by car. Yeah. Um to go back to the inspiration. Yeah, I you know, it's funny because you were you were noticing yourself like like that that moment in time in my life with the people around me when I created both Goodle booth and Bike A B, there was just that energy, you know. And there's certainly like I have to acknowledge, you know, certain privileges too of just like I was healthy and able-bodied, and I had a huge network of people. I never had like a lot of money, but I was always willing and I understood just through life experiences, and bike touring teaches you this a lot. Like you really don't need that much. Like you truly need like shelter and food. And so much of the stuff that I learned around that 2010 period, and some of it mostly through that guy I was dating who I was really fascinated with, was just like how to make your own food, like how to stretch things really far, like how to be really um thrifty. I've always had a big passion for garbage and reuse and all those things. So I was always willing to live kind of at a substandard level to make myself like happy. Um, and I've always had a very like even today, it's funny. I think like, you know, I have conversations with friends that are, you know, wildly successful, and they're like, okay, here's what you need to do. So, and they like are coming up with these business ideas, and I'm like, yeah, but that sounds like a lot of work that I don't want to do. And it's like the reason for it uh for wanting to do it is to have more money. And I kind of just want to have as little money as possible. Like I I don't have any desire to have more than what I I have right now. And every time I get bigger, it's just so that I can like my standard of living starts to change slightly. Or, you know, like now that I, you know, have a house and all that stuff, my my expenses have gone down in some ways, but then have gone up in other ways. But just what I'm trying to say is like a big part of both of my businesses and all of my endeavors is just like what is what is really intriguing to me and how do I do it at a level that's really satisfying and fun that addresses my basic needs in a monetary sense. But most importantly, like how does it like in a lifestyle sense, like am I happy, am I enjoying doing it? And I think, you know, starting both of those businesses at that age with the resources that I had and the friends that I had kind of was the big enabler. Uh and it's just a lot harder to talk to people now, now that I'm like, you know, late 30s, a lot of my friends have children, like it's harder to take those big risks to go do that fun, spontaneous business thing. Um so I really the the advice is really hard to give now, and it's like really, you know, I have to tailor it to everybody's specific thing where they're at. So you know, when I I really love talking with young people because they have that energy and I can talk with them and be like, you can do these crazy things now, and you really should start planting the seed for that because yeah. Oh, I was talking with my friend Alex, like he he said he was like speaking with somebody and the person was trying to start a beekeeping business, and Alex was like, Oh, you should speak to Jana. And so then Alex gave me the heads up, like, hey, there's this guy, he wants some advice on starting a beekeeping business. And I'm like, I have no idea how to advise that because like I just like started a project, and then the whole success of my project is my entire lifestyle. Like everything I've done in my life has been like married alongside Baikabee and and like all my other little endeavors. So it's just like it's like a lifestyle choice. It's not like how do you start a business? It's like when I was young, it's just like how do I turn this into my life and make it work somehow?

SPEAKER_03 55:31

That's such an interesting way to see it, you know, because the thing is I think that what you just described though, as well everyone.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Your business has grown.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Well, yeah. I mean, it's it's yeah. I mean, I I it it's funny because I feel like, you know, it's I I think I I think you're saying the kind of the same thing. It's like I look at what my business is now and like I don't know how I would advise somebody to do this now because there's so many more like technologies, and you know, there is it's like in some ways it's way easier, but it's also super saturated. When I started my business, probably the I mean, the exact same thing for you was there were no there were very few, you know, uh BJ companies. There is probably there probably still is very few beekeeping companies. I mean, it's you know, there's there is a lot of beekeepers. I don't know of I wonder if like what the what the what the code is for a beekeeper in like the the census or whatever. But I guess my point to all of that is that when you are becoming an entrepreneur, in many ways it's because you need your lifestyle to be around your business. Like you're not most people who start a business aren't like, well, I'm gonna start a business and I'm gonna work from nine to five, and that's all I'm gonna work, and eventually I'll turn a profit. Like, no, you you're sorry, you now have an a a spouse that is your business that needs to constantly be fed and attended because it's more of like a child. Um and you know, it's it's more maybe it's more recognizing that about yourself is like when you think about starting a business, like what is your life like now and how do you want it to be different? And like making the business kind of like blob on that.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Yeah, it's a very eloquent way to say it. No, but it it's like yeah, what are you willing to like give up? Like what creature comforts are you willing to give up? Like how how long are you comfortable not having any money for this thing? Like at what point are you gonna throw in the towel? Like, I think it was like, yeah, year seven, I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. Like I I miss having money. Like I was like not making any money. This wasn't I didn't know how to make it work. And I almost threw in the towel with the bikeaby thing. But you know, you have to be willing to get really uncomfortable. And I think a lot of people have a lot of um they don't have tolerance for like low risk tolerance. And I think that's um that's a very real like thing that hinders people. And it's also just, you know, the amount of upfront work and like finding that really cool concept that I just happened to stumble into both of those things and they evolved with me. Um that's kind of just you don't know when that's gonna happen or if you're gonna get that. And I think, you know, a lot of people who pursue their own businesses or are entrepreneurs like those things bomb. It just wasn't the right time. But I I built into both of my businesses. This is another key aspect. I built into both of my businesses that it was all like mostly just my labor. So with Doodle Booth, my overhead is like paper pens. Um, so it wasn't like going into debt. Yeah, exactly. One-time purchase of a scanner. Um, and then with Baikabee, it was just my own labor, and I just had to make enough money every year to like buy new colonies if I needed it, and then buy more equipment. And every year Baiku B got bigger because I made just a little bit more, so I was able to buy a little bit more equipment. I never took on any debt, I never took out any loans. The Kickstarter thing was the only thing, and I got a couple grants like along the way, like I got the Frontera grant a couple years ago. Um, but I never had any debt with either business. So it made for very slow growing, which was able to happen because I lived the lifestyle that I did where I didn't need much. Um, but for a lot of people, that's not an option, especially as you get older. Um, so how do you find that thing, you know, that's gonna be really tiny and you can just let it grow? And some people have a little thing that lets they let it grow while they have their full-time job, and that's great. So yeah, I don't know. Every every situation is unique.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

Well, and I think also just living living lean is such a I mean, and it's hard because once you start getting one, you know, it's like a mo money mo problems thing. And like you Oh, yeah, that is so true. I didn't have any debt at all, zero until the pandemic. And absolutely, you know, on the other and and now I had I had to take out a hundred and fifty thousand dollar loan that it's a 30-year loan. And, you know, and I I've never had debt. Like that was it's and it kills me. And I'm like one of these scenes where I'm like, why didn't that get forgiven? Like I had to take that money out to make my business happen. Everything else was forgiven. I'm sure that there's like, you know, giant corporations that, you know, took millions of dollars they didn't need. And it's like, God, I wish someone would just give me the $140,000 I need to pay off the stupid loan that I have. Exactly. That I had to get that I had to take out to like keep my business. Like, I don't think I'd be here right now if I hadn't taken out that loan, but I also wasn't planning for a pandemic. So um anyway. Well, Janet, it we've hit an hour, which is crazy. Um and you're a goddamn inspiration. Uh, how can people find you? Can they buy your honey?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

Um, they can buy my honey, bikeaby.com slash store. Um, bikeaby on the website. Can you buy it online? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I ship everywhere. Oh. What do you charge for shipping? What did it cost? I think it's like uh if you get it to like Wade, Noirville, California, it's like $11, but everywhere else it's somewhere between six and eight dollars for two jars, three jars, four jars. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

All right, Jenna. Well, thank you so much for being on All of My Lady Business.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

This was a delight. I had so much fun. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:35

Thanks for listening to All of the My Lady Business with me. Uh we'd love to like, subscribe, and follow us to All of the My Lady Business All of the Land, and if you're a identifying person, Identifying.