Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990 TAG: 9004130512
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOBBIE SLOUGH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I don't think I could work for anybody else," says Wiley. Judging from the success of her new shop, which specializes in stained glass, Wiley may never have to work for somebody else again.
She received a degree in ceramics from Mountain Empire College and worked as a professional potter for two years. "I started out working in clay," Wiley said. "Clay is a lot of big heavy equipment. It ties you down - you can't pick it up and put it down the way you can other things.
"I took a class in the basics of stained glass and that was it," she said. "I love it. I've been doing it ever since."
Before she opened the retail shop, Wiley worked in a studio in her home and traveled to art and craft shows all over the southeastern United States. These days, she still attends about six craft shows each year, but all of them are local.
"That's the best advertising," Wiley said. "You reach a lot of potential new customers."
She had been doing subcontracted work for a company in Roanoke, but began to think about branching out when the company went out of business. Then she received a call from a friend who had the shop for rent in Salem. "It really just fell in my lap."
So far, Wiley has been putting most of her profits right back into the business. "I didn't take out a business loan, but then it's not like I walked in cold, either," she said. "I've had my business in this field for 11 years and that's made a difference."
Through her work at arts and crafts shows, Wiley became involved with the Virginia Mountain Crafts Guild, an organization with more than 200 members from the Southwest Virginia area. Now, Wiley is a board member of the guild, which provides valuable networking for artists and craftsmen in the area. "It's one of the strongest [arts and crafts] organizations in the state," she said.
Much of what she sells in her Custom Originals shop comes from members of the guild. "It gives them a vehicle to sell and display their works," she said. "Besides, I always wanted to open a gallery. It gives my customers more variety."
Variety is a good word to describe Wiley's shop. In addition to her own stained glass, she carries a wide range of items, including ceramics, soft-sculpture dolls, sand sculpture, jewelry, and hand-carved wooden items. Everything in the store is hand-made, and most things are made by local craftspeople.
Aside from Wiley's own stained glass creations, the hand-crafted jewelry is the most popular item in the store. Wiley carries jewelry made from almost everything, including paper, porcelain and 18-karat gold.
Even though she has a number of stained glass items on display in the store, Wiley says the backbone of her stained glass business is custom work. She has provided stained glass windows for area churches and restaurants, as well as windows for customized tour buses.
Custom work is not only the most lucrative part of Wiley's business, but for her, it's the most fun. "If I thought I had to make a hundred of the same thing, I'd die," she said.
"When you do custom work, you have to be an artist . . . I use patterns to go by sometimes, to get an idea of what the customer wants, but I mostly design my own."
In addition to making and selling her stained glass items, Wiley sells materials and tools to other stained glass artisans in the area. She also teaches beginner and intermediate classes in her studio.
Even though Wiley has faced a lot of the same problems as most new small businesses, she has a very positive attitude about her new enterprise.
"I haven't had any major obstacles. That's the way I look at life."
by CNB