As is often the case with thriving businesses of all types, the two women who run KnoxCrafts — which puts crafters together with fans for onsite workshops in a variety of local venues — have good synergy.

Taylor Bento, who markets her handmade eco-friendly, sustainable bags under the name Bags by Bento, has a background in corporate finance. She knows her way around a financial spreadsheet, and is an online marketing expert.

Victoria Walsh of Macrame Momma found her calling in the knotty arts during a college internship, offering art therapy to patients in mental hospitals. She’s geared toward people, with a rich history of teaching workshops and doing community events like the 400-volunteer-strong Yellow Ribbon Project she spearheaded for veteran support in her native Orlando, Florida.

Together they run an agency in which makers, small business venues and fans of crafting all benefit.

“I think a lot of people are looking for community, especially post-COVID,” says Bento. “It’s still around, but people are starting to get out again. And so many are looking for creative outlets.”

KnoxCrafts’ unique offering of people + places + projects started when the two women met after they both “dove headfirst into the Maker Community,” says Bento.  

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“I was teaching workshops in Orlando,” says Walsh. “I moved to Knoxville, started teaching at Trailhead Beer Market and made lots of friends. Taylor and I met at last year’s Maker City Summit. We noticed that there were a lot of neat makers but they might not be good at marketing. We’re trying to fill in that gap.”

When the two hosted a series of cooperative crafting events, the fire was lit. “We did a couple of crochet circles at a local brewery and it was a lot of fun,” says Bento. “We realized the more we did it that we could help our friends and get a lot more eyes on their work.”

And how’s it going? “We’ve already sold out all the workshops we’ve done so far. We’re ramping up very quickly.”

The two women handle all the details required for setting up a craft workshop in a local small business — choosing the location, working with the artist who will lead the workshop, setting a time and date, managing rental fees and ticketing, deciding on a package to offer participants.

Walsh says, “we cycle our artists around to our various venues — it also provides them an opportunity to experience a place they haven’t been in before. We’ve been adding on an event a month and a venue a month and we have more artists that we’re hearing from all the time. Small business communities, small business artists — we’re connecting the dots for that.”

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They also do corporate events, having recently wrapped up a macrame plant hanger workshop with Asen Marketing & Advertising Agency. “It really provides a very nice environment for teams to socialize that you don’t get in a cubicle,” says Bento. Both women say that the workshops are filled not only with new learning, but laughter and fun, creating fond memories that strengthen office friendships.

The two give a big shout-out to the Maker City and the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center’s (KEC) Co.Starters, a 10-week business program that helps aspiring entrepreneurs put ideas into action. Bento says, “we’re on the right track to make sure the artist benefits from this, but we’re able to keep the business going as well.”

And, of course, it helps that KnoxCrafts’ two founders were a good fit from the get-go.

“I really like Taylor’s and my relationship,” says Walsh. “It’s yin and yang; she’s very business-oriented and it’s great to have a business partner who can play devil’s advocate. At the core we just want to make crafty friends. We both have two kids — these workshops are a way to get out and meet people and form our own tribe. The people who attend the classes seem to have that same intention and it just snowballs from there. You can’t go wrong with finding someone to share a hobby with.”

Visit knoxcrafts.co and instagram.com/knoxcrafts.

The Maker City is the greater Knoxville-area community of makers, artists, creatives, and small-scale manufacturers and supporting entities. Led by the Mayor’s Maker Council, we facilitate collaborative partnerships, programming, and opportunities in an effort to create a sustainable creative community. For more info, visit us at http://themakercity.org/.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville makers use KnoxCrafts to marketing Maker City businesses