noseyAF: Conversations about Art, Activism, and Social Change

Ep #154: Joy Is Infrastructure with Janell Nelson of Englewood Arts Collective

This episode was recorded live at Lumpen Radio 10.24.26

What if joy wasn't a nice extra, but part of the infrastructure of a healthy neighborhood, right alongside the sidewalks and the streetlights?

Recorded live at Lumpen Radio, I'm talking with Janell Nelson, creative strategist, artist, and Director of Englewood Arts Collective, about the EAC Arts Village Sculpture Park at 63rd and May and what it takes to build something beautiful on three vacant lots with almost no money.

What We Talk About

• Why she calls community engagement an art form, and how a graphic designer ends up stewarding a sculpture park
• How a lot deal that fell through turned into a pitch to her alderman and a three to five year agreement on three vacant lots
• What a long form pop up is, and why it matters in the years before the big developments are ready
• How the 40 foot mural happened with zero funding, starting with her being, in her words, extremely annoying to the guy who owned the building
• Why she asked for Chicago's Magnificent Mile star sculptures back, and the history of 63rd Street that makes that symmetry land
• The juicy turn: the keyboard warriors who assumed she was getting rich off this, and her answer, which is that she's rich in relationships

If you love neighborhood history, design that actually serves people, or the behind the scenes of how a thing gets built out of nothing but partnerships, this episode is for you.

Chapters

00:03 – Recorded live at Lumpen Radio

02:25 – Janell Nelson on joy as neighborhood infrastructure

19:49 – From a failed lot deal to three vacant lots

32:43 – The Arts Village, and the partners who actually built it

41:55 – Permission and momentum: creating a mural with no funding

57:17 – Stories of Us: Englewood's public art partnership

Takeaways

• Joy isn't a bonus. It's infrastructure, same as the sidewalks and the streetlights.
• We deserve to play where we lay. Every neighborhood deserves beautiful spaces, and a vacant lot is not a description of the people who live there.
• Community engagement is an art form. We all wake up and design the life we live.
• The park got built on partnerships, not money. Pro bono architects, donated bricks, a muralist who cold called, and a neighbor named George who tarps the boards when it rains.
• Own your dopeness and stay humble enough to recognize everybody else's.
• Artists are stewards, not decorators.
• Rich in relationships is its own kind of rich.

All about Janell Nelson

You're gonna love Janell. She's the person who will tell you to own your dopeness and stay humble enough to recognize everybody else's in the same breath.

Janell Nelson is a Chicago-based creative strategist, artist and Director of Englewood Arts Collective whose practice uses graphic design, public art and creative placemaking to build connection, cultural visibility and investment in communities. She's a 2026 Leaders for a New Chicago awardee, recognized by the Field and MacArthur Foundations, and her leadership of EAC's Arts Village Sculpture Park helped earn the project a "Designing a Better Chicago" Award from the Driehaus Foundation and Chicago Design Museum. Her guiding principle is simple: good design should do good.

Born in South Shore and raised in Englewood, she went to Whitney Young and UIC, and her proudest work is at home.

Things We Mentioned

• EAC Arts Village Sculpture Park, 63rd and May, open daily 10 to 4 → englewoodartscollective.org/support
• Last guided tour of the season, Thursday November 19, 9:30 to noon
• Stories of Us, the traveling African drum sculpture exhibition, on view through November 22
• Englewood Arts Collective, founded 2017, turning ten next year
• Tonika Lewis Johnson and Unblocked Englewood
• Grow Greater Englewood's We Deserve Beautiful Spaces campaign
• 16th Ward Alderman Stephanie Coleman
• Ryan Tova Katz, the muralist behind the 40 foot mural
• Folded Map, EAC's nonprofit home

Connect with Janell Nelson

• IG: @jtothenell
• EAC on IG: @englewoodartscollective
• Website: janellnelson.com (Janell, no E on the end. She will know if you let AI write the email.)
• EAC: englewoodartscollective.org

Sponsor Shoutout 💖

This episode is brought to you by Artist Admin Hour. Every Wednesday, 7 to 9pm Central, artists get on Zoom and knock out the applications, grants, budgets and invoices we've all been avoiding. Two hours of body doubling with structure, no shame, and real community. artistadminhour.com

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch, all the month's episodes straight to your inbox once a month. → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook, simple ways to show up for the people on your block. → Download it free

Behind the Mic

noseyAF is a project of Stephanie Graham's art practice: photography, film, and documentary work rooted in community and curiosity on Chicago's South Side. → See the work

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported, thank you for being here. 💛

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

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Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex | Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam | Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep #153: I Did That: Celebrating Yourself When You Finish Something Big with Ayana Major Bey

You finished the thing. Did you stop and say I did that, or did you just move on to the next thing?

It's my birthday, and I'm spending it catching up with Ayana Major Bey, the actress, voiceover artist, podcaster and multi hyphenate creator who came back on the show right as I was coming up for air after 31 Days of Black Business. This one is a shoot the breeze, artist to artist conversation about celebrating yourself, protecting your time, and what it would look like to make your work without needing it to pay the bills.

What We Talk About

• Why finishing something big and immediately moving on is baked into how freelancers are trained, and how to interrupt it on purpose
• How Ayana actually celebrates, including the single thrifted champagne flute she keeps in the cabinet for exactly this
• What the bare minimum baddie philosophy really means, and why her 65 percent is still more than most people's 100
• Why planning your off days is the work, and the case for putting laundry on your Google calendar
• The behind the scenes of 31 Days of Black Business, including how Threads built the whole guest list
• The juicy turn: separating your artistry from capitalism, and what happens when you make something just because you wanted to

If you've been grinding and forgetting to stop and say I did that, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:03 - Host Introduction and Episode Release Date

• 04:22 - Interview — Celebrating Completion & Joy with Ayanna Major Bey

• 16:13 - Summer Recap: FIFA, Concerts, and Creative Projects

• 26:36 - Origin of '31 Days of Black Business'

• 35:51 - Surprising Insights from Guests — Artists, Entrepreneurs, and Career Pivots

• 51:56 - The Artist Pivot — Is Podcasting Part of Your Practice?

• 01:01:53 - Listen & Follow: Ayanna's Podcast, Website, and Socials

All about Ayana Major Bey

You're gonna love Ayana. She's the friend who will tell you to sit down, rest, and stop apologizing for it, and then quote Beyoncé at you. She's an actress, voiceover artist, mentor, and the host of the two time award winning podcast The Artist Pivot, where she talks with creatives about the turns their careers have taken. She's written, produced and starred in her own cabaret, she's a production assistant with an events producing company and moving toward event producing herself, and she describes what she's doing these days as intentionally finding her joy every day while surviving these people's capitalism.

Things We Mentioned

• Ayana's first time on the show, Ep #
• Pastor Brian's episode, where he prayed for our country, Ep #
• My write up about 31 Days of Black Business in Lex Roman's Revenue Rule Breaker newsletter
• The Artist Pivot, including her Broadway to fitness CEO episode with Michelle West
• 31 Days of Black Business, the full series
• Denzel Turner and Black Fridays, the conversation that started it all
• Park Manor 75, Charlette Stanton and Jacare Thomas
• CocoaLuxe, Semoine Boyer
• Obsidian Book Archive
• Van Leeuwen ice cream, for the record

Connect with Ayana Major Bey

• IG: @ayanambey
• The Artist Pivot on IG: @theartistpivot
• Website: ayanabey.com

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch, all the month's episodes straight to your inbox once a month. → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook, simple ways to show up for the people on your block. → Download it free

Behind the Mic

noseyAF is a project of Stephanie Graham's art practice: photography, film, and documentary work rooted in community and curiosity on Chicago's South Side. → See the work

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported, thank you for being here. 💛

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex | Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam | Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 152: The Red Pill Is Not the Only Option with Rayviation

A room full of men, four cameras, one boom pole, and a conversation most of them had never had out loud.

This week I'm talking with Rayviation, a Chicago based producer, filmmaker, playwright and teaching artist, about Loving Men, the film he made with the Boston Ujima Project, the vintage store documentary he's making now, and why he thinks we are living in a golden age of indie filmmaking. Recorded live at Lumpen Radio, no edits, no retakes.

• Why mothers turned out to be the biggest audience for a film about men, and the ones who told him they were gifting it to their sons immediately
• How you get people to be vulnerable on camera, and the turtle metaphor that explains why most men won't
• Why Loving Men has never played in a traditional movie theater, and why that's on purpose
• The distribution platform every indie filmmaker should know about, and why an RSVP email is worth more than a follower
• What a vintage store on North Avenue has to do with risk, segregation, and a ten year anniversary nobody saw coming
• The honest conversation about content creation, algorithms, and where you put your validation when the app won't even show your work to your own followers
• The no sew Sesame Street puppet he built for his girlfriend, and the weeks of hiding green fur in an apartment

If you love hearing how a film actually gets made and gets seen, this episode is for you.

• 01:36 - Introducing Rayviation— community culture, film & social change

• 06:49 - Loving Men — the Film and Its Community

• 20:42 - Introducing the Melvin Project

• 26:41 - Discovering Harper Studio: Vintage, Community, and Melvin

• 33:18 - Teaching Artists, Creativity, and Social Media

• 50:36 - A Practical Assignment: Make a 5‑Minute Documentary

• 53:26 - TV & Media Favorites — Real Housewives, One Piece, and Public Access

• 58:48 - Fair Pay and Building Respectful Production Teams

You're gonna love Rayviation. He's a Chicago based producer, filmmaker, playwright and teaching artist whose work sits at the intersection of community, culture and social change. He got his start at his local public access station in Lowell, Massachusetts at thirteen years old. His first documentary, Days of Division, covered the fight over his hometown's high school. He produced and edited Loving Men with the Boston Ujima Project, and he's currently in pre production on The Call to Harper Studio, a feature documentary about Harper Studio Vintage and its owner, Melvin Thompson. He teaches with Free Spirit Media, where he's currently running a class called Puppets for Positivity.

• Loving Men, available through Kinema with a watch guide for hosting your own screening
• Days of Division, his first documentary
• My Call with Melvin, the short film, and The Call to Harper Studio, the feature in pre production
• The Boston Ujima Project
• Harper Studio Vintage and its owner, Melvin Thompson, celebrating ten years on the block
• Kinema, the screening and distribution platform
• Free Spirit Media and its Creative Pathways earn and learn program
• The Chicago Tool Library
• Trisha Hersey, Rest Is Resistance **affiliate link**
• What he's watching: One Piece, Mr. SOUL! about Ellis Haizlip and the show SOUL!, and Sherman's Showcase

• Instagram: @rayviation.rocks
• Website: rayviation.webflow.io
• YouTube: search Rayviation

This episode features Artist Admin Hour. Every Wednesday, 7 to 9pm Central, artists get on Zoom and knock out the applications, grants, budgets and invoices we've all been avoiding. Two hours of body doubling with structure, no shame, and real community. $25 to $45 a month. If that's not doable, email me and we'll make it work. artistadminhour.com

Sign up for the noseyAF Dispatch and grab the Good Neighbor Playbook.

noseyAF is a project of Stephanie Graham's art practice.

[email protected] | @stephaniegraham | noseyaf.com

Rate and review the show, and send this one to a man in your life.

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex | Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam | Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 151: I Make Films for Black People and Everybody Can Watch with Barbara Allen

Two little girls saw a movie camera in a mail order catalog and spent a whole week on the phone building a case to bring to their parents. They both got a yes. Fifty some years later, one of them is a filmmaker and the other one is her writer.

This week I'm talking with documentary filmmaker Barbara Allen, the person behind Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender, DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis, Colorblind: Rethinking Race, and House Music: A Cultural Revolution. Recorded live at Lumpen Radio, no edits, no retakes.

• How an 8 year old talks her mother into a movie camera, and how that kid and her best friend ended up in an editing room together twenty years later
• Why the Vivian Harsh Collection at Woodson Library is the place to go for Black Chicago history, and what's in there that the big museums don't have
• The Black pilots of 1930s Chicago: Cornelius Coffey, Willa Brown, and the man they called the one man Ethiopian Air Force
• Why she deliberately cast white male experts in a documentary about racism, and why it worked
• Time travel, virtual reality, and putting a viewer on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina
• Where she lands on AI, and the dark comedy about AI she's making right now
• The one thing she wishes more interviewers would do

If you love Chicago history, oral archives, or anybody who has been following their curiosity since childhood, this episode is for you.

You're gonna love Barbara. She's a straight up walking archive with a great sense of humor about it. She's a producer, director, editor, engineer, and journalist who has spent decades telling stories about Black history, culture, and Chicago. Her documentaries include Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender, DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis, Colorblind: Rethinking Race, and House Music: A Cultural Revolution. She was a Knight Fellow at Stanford in 2013, where she built one of the first immersive VR journalism pieces, a Hurricane Katrina rooftop story narrated by Harry Lennix. She's currently raising funds for Realignment, a dark comedy about AI that is a pilot for a series.

Chapters:

• 00:22 - Settle In — Live, Unedited Conversation on Nosy AF
• 02:15 - Origins: Making Films at Eight
• 06:14 - Wearing Many Hats: Learning Every Side of Filmmaking
• 14:27 - Film timeline — Paper Trail and other works
• 20:50 - Social Media as Archive: Self‑Documenting and the Future of Storytelling
• 31:51 - Show Return — Barbara Allen: A Walking Archive
• 34:43 - AI, Authenticity, and Immersive Storytelling
• 42:01 - AI and Storytelling: When Technology Becomes the Story
• 49:16 - Lessons Learned Behind the Camera
• 52:45 - Advice for the Next Generation — Passion vs. Fame
• 59:43 - Episode Closing — Thanks & Credits

• Paper Trail: 100 Years of the Chicago Defender
• DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis
• Colorblind: Rethinking Race
• House Music: A Cultural Revolution
• Realignment, her AI dark comedy in development, fiscally sponsored and currently fundraising
• The Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library
• Michael Flug, archivist
• Timuel Black, Chicago historian
• Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and Provident Hospital
• Cornelius Coffey, John Robinson, Willa Brown, and Bessie Coleman
• Susan Cayton Woodson and her grandfather Hiram Revels, the first Black U.S. senator
• The Chicago Defender's WWII Victory Edition and the Double V campaign
• Gail Baker, her writer since they were 8
• Tim Wise and the Brandeis researcher who coined "the Black tax"
• Jeremy Bailenson and Nonny de la Peña
• Harry Lennix
• Donald Crossley of the House Music documentary
• Felicia Kreger, who made the introduction
• Recent screening of DuSable to Obama at the Chicago Cultural Center with DCASE

• Barbara’s Production Company “Middle Passage Productions”
• House Music: A Cultural Revolution is on the WTTW YouTube channel

This episode features Artist Admin Hour. Every Wednesday, 7 to 9pm Central, artists get on Zoom and knock out the applications, grants, budgets, and invoices we've all been avoiding. Two hours of body doubling with structure, no shame, and real community. artistadminhour.com

Sign up for the noseyAF Dispatch and grab the Good Neighbor Playbook.

noseyAF is a project of Stephanie Graham's art practice.

[email protected] | @stephaniegraham | noseyaf.com

Rate and review the show, and share this episode with a friend who loves Chicago history.

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex | Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam | Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Recorded live on Lumpen Radio 105.5 FM, Saturday, September 12, 2026

A teacher looked at her painting in front of the whole class and called it a knowledgeable failure. She took it as a compliment.

Chicago painter Megan Williamson has been painting for decades and is nowhere near finished figuring out what painting can do. From a hundred Zoom portraits to a room full of circus figures, her work is about looking, searching, and following an idea wherever it goes.

What We Talk About

• What a teacher meant when he called her painting a knowledgeable failure, and why she now tells that story to her own students
• Why the circus, and what an E.E. Cummings quote and a nun have to do with her new exhibition
• How a hundred Zoom portraits during the pandemic changed what she knew about painting people
• The unexpected turn: what she does when she has no idea what's going to happen in the studio, which is more often than you'd think

If you love hearing an artist talk honestly about not knowing, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:12 - Live, Unedited Conversation Begins

• 01:12 - Interview Begins — Megan Williamson, Chicago Painter

• 12:54 - Studio Companion: My Dog Tao Teo

• 20:19 - From Classroom to Studio: How Teaching Shapes Her Art

• 30:43 - Ad Break — The Inner Guide: Finding Answers Within

• 42:11 - Learning to Be Brave — Childhood, Horses, and Early Lessons

• 48:44 - From Coloring Pages to a Calling: Teacher Memories

• 59:30 - Closing Remarks — Exhibition Details & How to Follow Megan

All about Megan Williamson

You're gonna love Megan!

She's a painter who is genuinely still curious after decades of doing this. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and this October she has a solo exhibition at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, titled Damn Everything But the Circus, after an E.E. Cummings line. She studied at Knox College and the New York Studio School, teaches landscape painting, and keeps a studio here in Chicago.

Things We Mentioned

• Damn Everything But the Circus, Swope Art Museum, opening October
• Her hundred Zoom portraits project
• Knox College and the New York Studio School
• Gabriel Laderman, the teacher behind the knowledgeable failure
• Risha Brown Inner Guide Podcast

Connect with Megan Williamson

• IG: @meganwilliamson_art
• Megan’s Website

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch — all the month's episodes, straight to your inbox once a month. → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook → Download it free

Behind the Mic

noseyAF is a project of Stephanie Graham's art practice — photography, film, and documentary work rooted in community and curiosity. → See the work

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported — thank you for being here. 💛

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex | Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam | Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 149: All That and a Bag of Chips: 31 Days of Black Business Reflections

No guest. No theme song. Just me, a cup of coffee, and whatever came out of my mouth. 🖤

We made it. Thirty-one days, thirty-one Black business owners, every single day of August. And then two days into September, because that's how it goes.

This one is unscripted. I sat down and talked off the top of my head about what this series actually took, what it reminded me of, and the thing I realized halfway through that I'm still sitting with.

What I get into

• How this started, and why Denzel Turner of Black Fridays is the reason the whole series exists
• What it actually took: the intake forms, the rescheduling, the Chicago storms that knocked our power out, and editing every single episode myself
• The thing I realized halfway through — that I've been making oral archives my whole practice, from So This One Guy to The Black Kid Table, and this is just the first time in podcast form
• Do it scared. Every single story in this series had a moment where the thing almost didn't happen.
• Have friends who see you. Several of these businesses exist because a friend kept asking when they were going to start.
• Word of mouth as a whole thread of the month, and why relationship marketing kept coming up
• And the last thing: I really am all that and a bag of chips. I did that.

Chapters:

• 00:01 - Introduction to Nosey AF Conversations
• 02:21 - The Journey of Black Business Month
• 05:15 - Transitioning to New Perspectives
• 08:46 - Overcoming Fear and Embracing Support
• 11:55 - The Power of Relationships in Marketing
• 13:55 - Gratitude and Reflection

Thank you

To Off the Grid for partnering on this series and believing in it before it existed. To every guest who gave me their time, their story, and their trust. To Queen Lex and Freddie Bam Fam, whose theme song I played every single day this month and still love I got my money's worth. To Emma McGoldrick for the cover art. And to you, for listening, sharing, buying, booking, and being nosey with me.

Where to start if you're catching up

There's a therapist in this series. A credit expert. A handyman. An economist. A woman who will take you to Ghana. A woman who will make you a swimsuit that fits. A bookstore for the dark fantasy girlies. Thats just a start, there is someone there for everyone!

Go be somebody's first customer. Or their second. Or their five thousandth.

All 31 episodes → noseyaf.com

This series was supported by Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients. Find them at offthegrid.fun 🖤

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook → Download it free

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported; thank you for being here. 💛🫶🏾

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 148: Serious Training for Everyday People with Sean Armstead of Phenomenal Fitness

Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤

He trained 33 people last Saturday. Starting at 4 in the morning.

Sean Armstead is a former Marine Corps infantry officer who served in the Persian Gulf, and he's been running Phenomenal Fitness since 1997. The slogan hasn't changed in almost thirty years: serious training for everyday people. His whole book of business comes from referrals. He calls it old money.

What We Talk About

• Successful aging, what it actually means, and why he's training you for the body you'll have at 70 rather than the one you had at 25
• The five pillars: structural integrity, movement skill, work capacity, body composition, and power
• What it's really like your first day, and why he says if you get sick twenty minutes in, that's the trainer's fault
• The unexpected turn: he started with no certification, no business background, and no idea what he was doing. A mentor kept telling him to burn the ship.

If you love a conversation with somebody who's been doing it long enough to know, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:13 - Reflecting on the Black Business Series
• 04:49 - Building a Team: Lessons from 30 Years in Business
• 12:35 - Transitioning to Entrepreneurship
• 17:52 - Understanding Fitness and Aging
• 38:01 - Engaging Clients: The Importance of Retention and Revenue
• 44:47 - Building a Sustainable Business Model

All about Sean Armstead

You're gonna love Sean. He's a former Marine Corps infantry officer turned strength and conditioning coach who describes himself as a triple threat leader: know the way, go the way, show the way. He founded Phenomenal Fitness in 1997 and has been a brick and mortar gym owner since 1999, operating out of the South Loop. His model is semi-private training, which keeps sessions around $50 rather than the $120 to $130 that private training typically runs. He writes his first name in lowercase to remind himself of humility and gratitude.

Things We Mentioned

• Phenomenal Fitness, South Loop Chicago → new website coming, with free exercise and programming content
• Serious training for everyday people, the slogan since 1997
• The five pillars: structural integrity, movement skill, work capacity, body composition, power
• The four principles: mindset, muscle, metcon, modification of lifestyle
• Semi-private training, averaging $50 a session

This series is supported by Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients. Find them at offthegrid.fun 🖤

Connect with Phenomenal Fitness

• Website
• IG: @phenomenalfit1

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook → Download it free

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported; thank you for being here. 💛🫶🏾

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 147: Vintage Is a Form of Luxury with Jennifer Kelly-Nichols of Vintage Frills

Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤

She was too scared to sign a lease, so she bought a short school bus and painted it pink instead. She'll tell you she cheated a little.

Jennifer Kelly spent years as the logistical backbone at Chanel, Tiffany's, and Neiman Marcus before burning out during COVID. Now she runs Vintage Frills, a Chicago boutique organized entirely by color: a red room, a blue room, a neutrals room she called the dungeon in her business plan. People fly in from around the world to shop it. The pink bus is still running pop-ups.

What We Talk About

• The difference between business and luxury business, and what luxury retail taught her about making people feel taken care of
• Where she actually sources: estate sales, not thrift stores, and why Hyde Park has the best ones in the city
• Her honest advice for anyone about to open an online boutique, including the friend who researched herself out of ever starting
• The unexpected turn: she says people move too fast and lose everything. She wanted Hyde Park first and didn't get it, and going slow is the reason she's still here five years later.

If you love a conversation with somebody who tells you the truth about the hard parts, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:06 - Introduction to the 31 Days of Black Business Series
• 07:52 - Starting Vintage Frills: A Journey into Luxury Resale
• 11:47 - The Transition to Entrepreneurship
• 26:42 - The Art of Sourcing Vintage Luxury
• 29:21 - Navigating the Challenges of Starting an Online Boutique
• 37:44 - The Slow and Steady Journey of Business

All about Jennifer Kelly

You're gonna love Jennifer. She grew up around resale and retail and turned that into a career at some of the biggest luxury brands in the world before building her own. Vintage Frills hit five years this past July and has been recognized by American Express and Business Insider. She started with Vintage Fleet, a short school bus she painted pink and had graffiti'd, which still does pop-ups and, in her words, saves them from financial peril. She's a curvy cutie herself, so yes, there are plus sizes, and yes, she'll pull things from the back for you.

Things We Mentioned

• Vintage Frills → https://www.vintagefrillschicago.com/
• Vintage Fleet, the pink school bus, still doing pop-ups including Logan Square Farmers Market
• estatesales.net, where she sources
• American Express and Business Insider features

This series is supported by Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients. Find them at offthegrid.fun 🖤

Connect with Jennifer Kelly

• Website:https://www.vintagefrillschicago.com/
• IG: @vintagefrills
• Visit Vintage Frills at 2846 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60618

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook → Download it free

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported; thank you for being here. 💛🫶🏾

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 146: Your Customers Are Doing Economics Whether You Are or Not with Dr. Kristi-Warren Scott Bishop of Verity Consulting

Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤

She was going to call herself the corniest economist. Her friend said no, you're the baddest economist I know. She was terrified to use it. Her friend said do it scared.

Dr. Kristi-Warren Scott Bishop is a PhD economist and the founder of Verity Consulting, which she launched in fall of 2025 after spending over a decade doing economics across the federal government. She started it because she was tired of watching businesses make what she could plainly see were bad decisions.

What We Talk About

• What an economist actually does for a business, and why there's no wrong time to bring one in, whether you're just starting or something just feels off
• What supporting Black business actually looks like from an economic perspective, at both the micro and macro level
• How Hump Day Economics started, and why she couldn't find a credentialed economist explaining why the eggs cost what they cost
• The unexpected turn: she's not a subject matter expert in your field and doesn't try to be. She brings the tool. You bring the business.

If you love a conversation that makes something big feel usable, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:07 - Celebrating Black Business Month
• 05:08 - Understanding Consumer Economics
• 13:20 - Understanding the Role of Data in Consumer Behavior
• 23:31 - Engaging Economists: Timing and Strategies for Entrepreneurs
• 32:21 - Understanding Consumer Values in the Black Community
• 46:34 - Transitioning to Business Insights

All about Kristi Bishop

You're gonna love Kristi. Dr. Kristi-Warren Scott Bishop translates how economics shows up in ordinary decisions, from why the gas tank waits until morning to why grocery prices feel different than the receipt says. Under the banner The Baddest Economist You Know, she turns ideas like present bias and revealed preference into weekly conversations her audience actually finishes watching. She's spent over a decade in federal economics work, including at the CDC and the Social Security Administration, and now runs Verity Consulting, a boutique economic consultancy helping consumer-facing organizations understand the economics driving their customers' behavior. Verity offers two tiers of monthly subscription with a three-month minimum, plus larger project engagements. Their first big one wrapped in April for a Black-owned spirits brand in Prince George's County.

Things We Mentioned

• Verity Consulting → verityconsultingllc.com · [email protected]
• Hump Day Economics, her weekly Instagram series
• Courtney Walden of Chicago Massage, her best friend and one of her clients
• The K-shaped economy, and what it explains about the airlines

This series is supported by Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients. Find them at offthegrid.fun 🖤

Connect with Kristi Bishop

• Website: verityconsultingllc.com
• Email: [email protected]
• IG: @verityecon

Stay Connected

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More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

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⭐ Rate & Review the Show

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Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick

Ep 145: Leadership Without Burnout with Janelle Alba Garner of Tanglaw Advisory

Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤

How do you keep a mission alive without burning out the people carrying it?

Janelle Alba Garner is the founder of Tanglaw Advisory. She spent years supporting founders doing genuinely great work and watched them sacrifice themselves to do it. She doesn't think that's the deal. Tanglaw is a Tagalog word meaning guiding light, and that's roughly the job.

What We Talk About

• What regenerative leadership actually means, and why she shows up to meetings in a hoodie rather than a three-piece suit
• Why an outside advisor hears things from your staff that you never will, and what that unlocks
• How hard it is to slow down when everybody around you seems to be moving faster
• The unexpected turn: this is her third business, and the one that finally felt right started when a client made her dread Mondays until she remembered she could just fire her

If you love a conversation about building something that doesn't cost you everything, this episode is for you.

All about Janelle Alba Garner

You're gonna love Janelle. She's a strategic advisor working on a version of social impact where organizations can sustain both the mission and the people serving it. Her point of view comes from a decade inside mission-driven organizations and from becoming a founder herself, which is how she learned what it costs to carry a mission that's outgrown the structure holding it. Alongside the advisory practice she runs Tanglaw Collective, the community and philanthropic arm, offering pro bono and low-cost support to community-based organizations on Chicago's South and West Sides: office hours, quarterly partnerships, workshops, monthly volunteer days, and resources.

Things We Mentioned

• Tanglaw Advisory → tanglawadvisory.com · [email protected]
• Tanglaw Collective, the community arm
• Monthly community volunteer days, third Saturday, with partner organizations
• Her monthly small-group conversations on a single topic, unrecorded, open to whoever shows up
• She's on LinkedIn, where she describes herself as yelling into the void about taking a lunch break

This series is supported by Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing their clients. Find them at offthegrid.fun 🖤

Connect with Janelle Alba Garner

• Website: tanglawadvisory.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janelle-jasmine/

Stay Connected

📬 Get the noseyAF Dispatch → Subscribe here

🏡 Grab the Good Neighbor Playbook → Download it free

More ways to connect

• Email: [email protected]
• Follow on IG: @stephaniegraham
• Listen to more episodes: noseyaf.com

Support & Feedback

noseyAF is listener-supported; thank you for being here. 💛🫶🏾

⭐ Rate & Review the Show

📣 Share noseyAF with a friend who needs to hear this

Episode Credits

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Stephanie Graham

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Cover Art: Emma McGoldrick