Sustaining Craft

Brittany Oaks made a few friends in Conway while a single mother and was invited to a home birth. “It was really, really incredible to see,” Oaks said. “And I’d given birth by that point myself. But this was an unmedicated home birth. She started out in the water and ended up going to her bed. And just the raw power and just the fact that she invited only those people she wanted there was really, really interesting to me. That’s who was in that house and I was invited. And someone threw me a camera while she was pushing and the rest is history. I was just in love with it. This is a story, and I want to tell this story. I want to capture these sacred moments because there are a lot of things worth capturing in life - momentous moments, but to me in that time, it made it really clear to me. I spent a lot of money on my wedding photography. The wedding was annulled. I can’t show those photos or care about them because you know. But it doesn’t matter what happened with that child. When you take photos of that new human being born, that’s always your child, no matter what happens. There’s nothing that’s going to annul that.”

Oaks soon remarried into the military and was stationed overseas. Unable to work, Oaks practiced her photography skills, homeschooled her three sons, and traveled with her family. “But I knew when we got back to the states, I wanted to hit the ground running,” Oaks explained. “I knew what I wanted to do. So I did. We got back in August last year and I immediately filed for my business, got insurance and all the stuff that makes a business. … I knew what I wanted and I’ve been hustling ever since to make it happen.”

Special Guest: Brittany Oaks.

Melissa Diller at first transferred her Verizon job and then quit and started Drama Kids, a franchise that has existed for the past 30 years. “We teach educationally-based drama to all school-aged kids,” Diller explained. “Basically all we’re doing is building confidence in public speaking through fun drama activities so that kids have the confidence to be whatever they end up being, whether it’s a doctor, or stage performer, actress.”

Working with a franchise framework still meant that Diller had to develop her business from the ground up, building relationships, growing her outreach, and finding business mentors. “As a business owner, you have to think outside the box, and my mentors were the ones who really taught me that,” Diller shared. “[It’s] thinking outside the box, [and] not listening to the voice inside your head that says ‘really?’”

Special Guest: Melissa Diller.

Kurtz formalized his efforts into D&D For Hire this summer. “The idea of D&D For Hire is to bring Dungeons and Dragons to people who don’t otherwise have the opportunity,” Kurtz explained. “And usually that winds up being children who would want to play but don’t know how or even some adults who just don’t have people to play with. The idea is you can bring them a game and it could be a one-time off, once a week recurring thing. It’s a fun experience for anyone and if you’re a kid and you want to this extracurricular thing, it can be fun and educational at the same time.”

As for what a Dungeon Master does, well--Kurtz guides the journey. “I set the questions that they have to answer,” said Kurtz.

He knows the rules of the world, the enemies, the setbacks, and the allies. “All I know is how the world is going to respond to them, and all the problems they’re going to face is something that they have to have to deal with,” Kurtz shared. “Everyone handles that in a different way. Some groups of people will just attack every problem head-on and that works for them, and some people want to sit back and think about it first. It’s a world without limits that we are creating together.”

Special Guest: Joshua Kurtz.

Brown's first performance was for friends, and he called himself Pizza Tom. “I gave myself the moniker Pizza Tom because pizzas were a recognizable object,” Brown explained. “It’s difficult to serve a miniature soup that’s kind of formless. Pizzas have this really wonderful aesthetic side to them. A pizza is visually quite beautiful. And a pizza is recognizable. I can also just give you a slice of pizza in your hand and you can eat it.”

And they loved it. “The reception was absolutely wonderful,” Brown shared. “People were thrilled to see me invest so much time and energy into a project.”

Brown changed his identifying name from Pizza Tom to Tom Brown Creates, calling his performance on the streets Feeding the Masses, and giving away the food for free. Strangers were just about as receptive as his peers. “It does really produce a sense of comfort with people when I have the kitchen out on the street and I’m doing the performance,” Brown said. “People are willing to try the food and sit with me and have a conversation and share a little bit about their own creative journey with me.”

But he’s doing more than just Feeding the Masses–he’s building community in another way with his second project, Finders Keepers.

Special Guest: Tom Brown.