KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Every business owner’s pandemic experience is different - one woman expanded her company’s reach in Kansas City just a few months ago.
"Knew that Kansas City was a very supportive place for entrepreneurs and for artists," said Chentell Shannon of Convivial Production.
Her team has gotten their hands dirty for seven years.
"We do everything from scratch," she said of their ceramic wares. "We cast everything, which is the initial form that's being created, and then we do all the cleaning the refining carving glazing and then firing, packing, shipping."
They make roughly 2,000 pieces per week at their West Bottoms location, sold online.
"Convivial means jovial and liveliness and connection," Shannon said.
They make garden pieces too, and you can fill them at Verdant in the Crossroads.
"Verdant is an exploration of our garden line. so all of our planters and all of our vases. It's the pairing of plants with our planters, fresh flowers that will always fit our vases," Shannon said.
It took two years from Verdant’s birth until this past September to open the retail space.
Shannon and her team pushed ahead, boosted by an e-commerce boom and high demand for brightening the home.
"A lot of people are spending more time at home and wanted freshness and flowers which were just like, a moment of beauty for a lot of people," she said.
Behind the scenes, growth took time.
"I think it's like really normal to look at what other people are doing and think that it's easy and so I would just say, nothing's easy," Shannon said.
Like the ceramics they craft, it smoothed out. Like the flowers that fill them, business bloomed.
"Kansas City is really unique in the sense that it like rallies behind its people, and I found that to be really wonderful," Shannon said. "We've created something that's beautiful for the city."
Verdant is open Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
