Tanaisha Coleman, the heart and mind of TC Consulting has been diving into getting crafty during the pandemic. For the longest-time, Tanaisha told herself, “I am not crafty or artsy.” This negative thinking around arts and crafts stemmed from having a desire to craft and not believing her crafts would be worthy of monetary value.
Tanaisha decided to liberate herself from this belief and started painting for fun. Then, in 2020, she started gathering art supplies and supporting artists who create encouraging and empowering stickers for a home decor project. She made some decorative wood frames, and her dear friend suggested that she sale them.
The first part of 2022 has been the building season for this expansion to sell crafts on Shopify. TC Consulting and Crafting will be selling wood frames, wood hangings, stickers, mixed media art pieces, and canvas paintings.
Besides wanting to liberate the negative belief that crafting was not a possibility for Tanaisha, she is pursuing this business expansion because art is a pathway for social justice work. Art can communicate the meaning, importance, and multifaceted purpose for change with social movements. Intentional language like protect trans kids and stop Asian hate with powerful visuals can ignite a need to learn more about marginalized communities.
Likewise, art can spark change by bringing community members, supporters, accomplices, leadership officials, and more together for fostering opportunities to center community justice efforts that aim to redistribute power and resources. Art can also serve as a reminder of what we are working towards with social justice and why it is needed.
The wood frames, wood hangings, stickers, mixed media art pieces, and canvas paintings are made with the intention to uplift various communities and empower others to have goals and action plans for social justice on individual and collective levels.