A unique new business has opened up in downtown Weyburn. The CollabARTive Studios offers a wide range of possibilities and opportunities for nurturing creativity.

The venture is the brainchild of Krystal Glowatski from 'Olive's Branch Art Studio', and Malia Brackpool from 'Little House on the Corner'. The maker space is the result of bringing together the two entrepreneurs' diverse backgrounds, talents and passions.

Not only do Brackpool and Glowatski make and sell their creations in the space at 104 Third Street, they also facilitate makers in need of studio space. 

"We are just wanting to work with our community," shared Glowatski. "Weyburn is just an incredible community, and there is a crazy amount of talent in this town compared to other places, like, I think it must be higher per capita. It has to be. I don't know if there's studies done on it or not, but I'd be interested to see them."

Patrons of the CollabARTive Studios can purchase pre-made kits, and work on those or their own projects in their general studio space. 

"We have an art menu here, so you can see it's $5 to just sit on the floor if you wanted to stay in our studio to do a project, you can choose a You Create package, which is a variety of different supplies so you can choose painting, drawing, we have colouring with colouring pages, pastels, alcohol inks, and then we also have curated kits where we've already taken the time to pre-cut, pre-measure, everything is ready to go in a bag and you just say basically sit down and just put together this really cute little package," she explained.

"We also have imagination kits that have, they're just full of like everything, like paint and plasticine and little canvasses and brushes and glue and twine and gems and sequins and rocks and shells and like everything and it's basically you could probably make like five or six projects out of it," she noted.

photo by marna

 
Glowatski said they are also excited to be able to offer three self-contained mini studios, which are available for rent on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis, or as a longer six month contract. 

"We've had people come in and they're like, 'oh, this would be perfect for me, because I live in an apartment and I don't have a lot of room, and if I want to set up a painting and I want to work on it for a week, then I can't make supper, because I don't have the space'. So come in and rent like the studio space for a week and keep all of your supplies there, leaving it there at night, and then you just come in in the next day when we have our regular hours and you just keep working on your project. And then when you're all done, then we clean it up and you take your project." 

She said it's an ideal place for people who are looking to become a professional artist or make their craft into a career.

"This is about chasing our dreams, taking our businesses and propelling them sort of to the next level, and we want to just grab onto you and we want to grab onto this person and we want to grab onto everyone and just be like, 'come with us'. You can do this too." 

While the two ladies had only met in the fall of 2021, they have become friends more recently, since being business partners. Their vision was made possible through the help of Community Futures Sunrise and Theresa LaFoy, who taught them how to turn their dream into a profitable business.

photo by marna

"As artists it's difficult to find that space. It's difficult to afford to rent that space, so we tried to keep things really reasonable. We're just here to try to accommodate everybody who's looking to explore something, whether that's their talent or their interests, or exploring their own their own self, their being, their healing. We're just here to support people as much as we possibly can. We just can't wait to work with so many different people in the community." 

Glowatski noted the ideas have been flying since they opened their doors on March 31st. 

"People in the community want to do fundraisers with us already, and we're already booking birthday parties like mad, and we've got people coming in with new ideas all the time and it's just been freaking incredible." 

The studio is open Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Thursday and Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with private workshops and space rental available outside those times.

Glowatski and Brackpool said they will be hosting a Grand Opening sometime in early summer.

photo by marna