Artist collectives on the rise in Atlanta

“Over the past few years, I’ve found people really want to give back money locally and they want to shop for unique gift ideas,” Fine said. “They don’t want something made in China.”

As shoppers begin to get serious about holiday buying, artist collectives are offering products that customers won’t find at the mall. They are capitalizing on Atlanta’s growing interest in local, handmade products. And because they’re small, locally-owned businesses, the collectives are able to provide highly personalized service.

For example, At The Collective in Inman Park is offering private after-hours shopping events for groups of friends or colleagues this holiday season. Other collectives have stocked special holiday-theme gift items.

The Beehive in the Edgewood Retail District is probably the best-known artist collective in Atlanta. But it now has company. Gifted, for example, opened in 2008 in Roswell. At The Collective opened in Inman Park in 2009. And Decatur’s HomeGrown opened earlier this year.

Each collective is a bit different. Some, such as HomeGrown, sell only locally-produced, hand-made wares. Other collectives act as specialty retailers by stocking items that are made elsewhere but can’t be easily found in Atlanta.

Each has its own style, as well. The Beehive, for one, showcases clothing, linens and decorative items that feature a modern take on traditional design, said co-owner Malene Davis.

“If you can see it everywhere, then we probably don’t want it,” said Davis of Riverside, who sells her own jewelry line at the shop and at 60 other locations around the country.

At The Collective, on the other hand, has a wider range of products. It’s home to an organic mattress mini-store. Fine’s collective, which will be called Bella and will open on Roswell Square in April, will be part of a nonprofit foundation for adults with learning disabilities.

For many artists, collectives are the best way to reach shoppers, especially during the holiday season, without opening a stand-alone retail business. Collective owners make sure the lights stay on and handle marketing and back-end chores such as credit card processing for a fixed cut of artists’ monthly sales.

Some collective members know from experience that operating a store is time-consuming and thankless.

For nearly two years, Carol Held operated EcoEmporium on the city’s West Side. She opened the organic mattress and linen store in 2008 just as the economy was faltering and closed it earlier this year, after months of surrounding vacancies, among other things, had taken their toll.

Held, who lives in East Cobb, said customers told her about At The Collective just as she was closing her shop. She quickly decided to relocate it there.

“I went over to talk to them and an artist was moving out and the space he was vacating was the perfect size and my thought was, ‘This is the way to go in this economy as a small business,’” Held said. “Retail just takes a lot out of a person because there are so many hours you have to be open for the public.”

Not only have more collectives opened in Atlanta in the last few years, but the existing collectives have grown in size. Since opening in 2009, At The Collective has doubled the number of its artists to 55 and more than doubled its space to 5,400 square feet. The Beehive began with 16 artists in 2004 and now has 78 members.

At many collectives, the vetting process for artists can be fairly stringent. Davis and Beehive co-owner Preeti Ayyangar said their artists must be serious about making a living from their craft.

“We want to make sure the designers are not hobbyists,” Davis said. “They have to be thinking of it as a business because the health of their business is the health of The Beehive.”

The strategy is paying off. Many of the established collectives don’t have room for new artists and are supportive of the new collectives opening up.

“We have a waiting list,” said Sally Larsen, a co-owner of At The Collective.

Not that there haven’t been bumps along the way. The Beehive, for example, nearly closed earlier this year after its original owner left for New York. Davis and Ayyangar, who had been members of the collective, bought it and moved the shop from south Buckhead to Edgewood.

Davis said parking was tough at the old location, which didn’t help sales. And the shop’s neighbors were restaurants, which opened after The Beehive closed for the day.

Those problems are long-gone. The Beehive immediately tripled its sales after moving to its space on Moreland Avenue near Target and Home Depot. Davis and Ayyangar are already considering additional locations in metro Atlanta. But in the meantime, they are focused on the holidays.

“We told all of our artists to triple the amount of product for the holidays,” Ayyangar said.