In addition to Anna Edwards' jewelry, Dustmade offers a variety of other handmade works, such as pottery, by other local artists.

This interview is the second in a series spotlighting local women entrepreneurs in honor of Women’s History Month. Today, we bring you notes on a conversation with Anna Edwards, founder of Dustmade Studio, a downtown store that specializes in handmade jewelry, ceramics, watercolor paintings and prints, and other unique gifts made with love. Anna studied at the University of Georgia and has been making jewelry for years. After selling her creations online for a short while, Anna and her husband returned to their hometown of Moultrie and launched Dustmade Studio as a brick-and-mortar store in 2016. In this conversation, we discuss inspiration, serendipity, family, and the centrality of community to Anna’s philosophy of life and business.

Hello, Anna! To begin, could you please describe your business to our readers and tell the story of how it came to be?

Yes, absolutely. Dustmade Studio is a thoughtful gift boutique that specializes in handmade jewelry, florals, ceramics, artwork and home goods. We offer creative workshops, private parties and custom wedding registries.

About our journey … my husband, Christian, and I tend to characterize our life, our adventure, like this: An idea sparks, or a door opens. We walk through it, and then it turns into something else, opens into another door. And then we walk through that one. 

Dustmade started as something we dreamt up during a car ride. I went to school for jewelry and metal work, and I wanted to continue that after our marriage. That dream turned into the actual shop, an online store we began when we got married in 2014, when we were still living in Athens. When we moved back to Moultrie in 2015, I continued to make jewelry out of set up a studio in my garage.

As we moved into a community that we found a lot more personable and hospitable, we saw that there was a demand for handmade jewelry, which was so sweet. People would want to meet in person to pick it up, or have it delivered to church, things like that. Over time Christian and I saw the need to have a physical space, to move out of the exclusively digital space – but a store was not something that we had ever planned for or even dreamed about, until we came back to Moultrie. We saw a need and a desire for it here. 

We wanted to bring something different to Moultrie. We both grew up here and we both love it so much, but we felt like there was space there to bring something new and different and creative. And we wanted to couple that creativity with the tradition that we love about Moultrie, the hospitality and the community.

I remember saying to my husband during one of those daydreaming car rides, what if there were fresh flowers?  I’m not opening a shop unless there’s fresh flowers in there. 

But when the time came to open the business, we struggled with the name and what we wanted to call it. Now, we lived in New York for a month after we got married. We were both there for school. We went around to different artists’ studios and heard from them. Everything that we heard were all of these successful artists saying, I’m kind of hitting the wall. I’ve been in this gallery, I’ve been in that gallery, and I’ve made it, because New York is like the pinnacle of everything you’re trying to do in the art world, right? But there was this sense of, there’s got to be something more, or I’ve done when I was trying to do, but I still have not felt that satisfaction in that. 

Walking away from that trip – actually, on that trip – Christian came up with the word or the phrase “dust made.” And we fell in love with that right away. We knew that we didn’t want the business to be name-centered – like, Anna’s Place, or something like that. That didn’t feel profitable to us. It didn’t feel valuable to us. And we saw that reinforced as we heard and listened to other artists saying that making a name for themselves had not been ultimately fulfilling or satisfying. 

So we made Dustmade as an ode to the fact that that we don’t want to be remembered just for our names. It’s a reminder to everyone, that’s actually offered the Scripture. In Psalms 103:14 and it says, “He knows our name and remembers that we’re dust.” That’s a reminder, like “Pressure’s off!” We’re just dust, you know, we can mess up and do whatever. It doesn’t have to be about making a name for yourself. 

What sorts of challenges have you faced bringing Dustmade to where it is today? 

I don’t know if I would call them “challenges” in the negative sense. But, you know, when we first came to Moultrie, this was something totally, totally new. It’s not that no one valued homemade goods in Moultrie – of course they did – but it wasn’t naturally present in the market. And so we really have tried to hone in and preserve a focus of handmade, and over the years, we’ve had multiple other artists step under our covering in that endeavor. So initially, when we opened Dustmade Studio in 2016, at our old shop, it was just me. One year later, we had Leah Garcia join us. She started selling her pottery and watercolors. 

And so over time, we’ve continued to gain more artists in this collective, and I think even that model was something different for Moultrie at that time. Even the natural value, and cost of handmade, was something different. It wasn’t something that people gave pushback to, of course – because I feel like our community really rallies behind their own, and values what you value, because people are for each other here, which is so refreshing. So starting off with handmade wasn’t challenging in the sense of the value not being accepted, but rather in the sense that it was definitely something new, something that we wanted to cast vision for. And to bring greater value, greater attention to in our community. 

Other than that, I think we’ve just had the constant desire to stay creative, stay fresh, and figure out new ways to invite people in. Dustmade is definitely a place that we want people to feel welcome and known, so there’s the challenge of always wanting this place to feel like something more than retail, or for there to be a depth there. We want there to be an atmosphere change when people walk in, a positive one. 

Contra the challenges – or rather, the opportunities, as you framed them– what have been some of your favorite things about this journey?

I would definitely say getting to know and to serve our community better. It’s been a space that a lot of different people walk in daily. And some people are obviously familiar faces, but there’s a lot of new faces too, and looking around as we’re out and about, I realize, oh, wouldn’t know that person if it weren’t for the shop! I’ve built relationships with people because I get to serve them in this space. 

It’s also given me, personally, the ability to have the flexibility that I want as a mom, which is probably – well, not probably – which is the most important thing for sure, to me. The thing that I feel most passionate about overall in life is definitely being a mom.

When we started Dustmade, the brick-and-mortar store, in November of 2016, my husband and I had just found out that I was pregnant. The same week that we opened! That had been a huge desire of ours.  So moving through that, it’s been a blessing that I’ve been able to do the business and be a mom the whole time. Sometimes, in certain situations, those would be competitive desires. But I think for us, it’s been such a sweet blessing of getting to do what I love, but also getting to love what and whom I love, and hold that where it needs to be, if that makes sense. 

Getting to choose the priorities of those things, that’s the key, and that’s how I see being a business owner works. Instead of seeing my life in with the frame of, oh, I’m responsible for all of these things, and if I don’t do them, nobody else will, or whatever – instead of that, I’m getting to say, well, because I get to make those choices, I can also rate certain things as greater or lower priority. So, sometimes that means I don’t pursue growth in business, because that’s not the season that I’m in with my family. With that choice, I say that my family is more important. This chance to rank priorities and levels of importance, from business to family, has just been a gift to me. I can’t imagine having a job that didn’t allow me to do that.

Do you face any difficulties balancing your commitment to family and your work? 

Absolutely – I think you’d be crazy if you didn’t! We feel like we’ve been constantly busy, which, well, who hasn’t been? My husband is in medical school. So our days look very different than if he was going, say, to a regular job every day. Honestly, the Lord has just been really faithful to us in that act of balancing, given us ways to get by. My husband was a really big part of setting up the store in the beginning – now, obviously, his role has changed. 

I think you’re constantly hitting those challenges of, for example, being with the kids, but the phone is ringing. Or being at work, and something comes up with the kids. I value professionalism and I value consistency, I value those things greatly in our shop. So, if our hours are on the door, you know, that’s our commitment to what our hours should be. There’s always that balance of loving your customer well, serving your customers well, and being who you feel called to be to your family. 

Again, this raises the question of priorities – you’ve been given choices in how you live, how you conduct business, and you can set yourself up for success in those realms. It’s about taking action steps and auto-correcting as you do so. One way I solve for that is always having someone else in the shop, like Amber or Abbey. I can step away because someone else is here who is trained well to serve our customers. 

So, yeah, learning to auto-correct, learning to keep your values in mind – asking yourself, what is valued most in our business? For us, that’s loving our customer well, and I don’t ever want to compromise on that core value. 

Then there’s the question, what do I value the most at home? The process of balancing those and figuring out how to come alongside both, and recognizing the grace in that because we do make mistakes, we tip over to one side or another. I’ll say, Oh, I’m so sorry to do this, to miss this appointment, for example, because something came up with the kids, and people are so receptive to that when you’re humble and kind about it. They understand that you’re a person. 

Looking back, what would you have done differently in the history of your business?

Let’s see – oh, goodness, I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. Because, as I said, I feel like Christian and I just look back and laugh, thinking, what if we would have tried to plan that? In every season, we look back, and we see provisions that were made that we didn’t even understand were being made. So I think the thing that we’ve just gotten to delight in the most is just walking through a door when it opens, and knowing that that was the right door. That doesn’t mean that hard things don’t come up. That’s part of the process, it’s meant to be there. Every move that we’ve made, from our old building to our new building, or even opening the doors down there in the first place, was totally an act of faith. 

So yeah, not to be, like, cheesy, but I don’t think I would have changed anything. Because we’ve just learned and grown so much in the process. And we’ve been able to build our team in the process, people who have just tended to come and hunker down and say, I want to do this. People who don’t leave, but stay as a part of the team, whatever that looks like for them. It’s just been such an open place of growing together and figuring it out together.

Excellent. Do you think that being a woman lends you a unique perspective to your work to being a business owner?

I would say yes – but, if the situation was reversed, and you were asking me about being a man, that giving me a unique perspective, I would say yes too! We’re just gifted in different ways. 

I absolutely think that there are aspects of womanhood, as I guess you would say, that lend us a unique perspective. Personally, I think that looks like the ability to multitask, or the ability to nurture when and to realize where people are at when they’re walking through the door, to stop what you’re doing and speak into that space. 

I think just we’re created differently, male and female, and we operate differently. We operate in different giftings. I’ll say that I’m always very thankful to have my husband to help me out with the things I feel like he’s more gifted in. Yes, I would have drowned if I was by myself!

The complementarity can be a blessing. Who have been your biggest supporters along the way?

Definitely my husband, he helped me bring this dream to reality. 

I’m just laughing, remembering how this brick wall, this whole wall, was covered in plaster. He literally came in with a wire brush and scrubbed every brick. He was very faithful throughout the process. It’s always been something we did together. 

Also, the girls on our team, Leah and Amber and Abbey, and the other girls that I’ve gotten to work with. We’ve had a very unique group – there’s just no discord. That doesn’t mean we don’t have hard conversations, that’s a part of business. We have hard conversations, but they’re preserved by genuine relationship. Anytime that we’ve hired someone for the front or for sales, that’s the first thing we emphasize: This is a different environment, and we’re gonna love each other, we’re gonna walk with each other, we’re gonna be here for each other. Setting that expectation has truly been a miracle, you don’t ever have to wonder if somebody is talking about you behind your back, or gossiping, because nobody does that here. That’s been a gift to us. 

There’s been transparency, and when you walk in transparency, people rally alongside you. There’s been a lot of times that I fall way short, but usually nobody knows, because the girls really cover me. They all bring something really unique to the table, not just their work that they make, but who they are. Everyone has different gifts and different ideas. And we tap into those constantly. 

Beautiful. What’s on the horizon for Dustmade? 

Oh, wouldn’t I like to know! I feel like I never know. I don’t know. I think we only think about it. We always feel the need to stay really, really open. Because I feel every year brings a new chance for creativity.

I always laugh – we think, if we could just not make any huge moves this year, maybe. But that’s what we’re always doing, making moves. We’re always doing something crazy or overhauling something, but I think it just lends itself to the creative process we enjoy, you know, bringing new things into being. I would be lying to myself if I said that I wouldn’t do anything big this year. That’s not what my husband and I do. We either have a baby or renovate a building. That seems to be our pattern: baby, renovate, babies, renovate. 

But I think we are looking forward this year to just hunkering down, you know? We feel really grounded in the actual space that we’re in. We love our neighbors, we love downtown Moultrie. Amy [Johnson] and all of the downtown office who work to bring such awesome things to us, they are such a blessing. So we’re excited about being present and continuing to have the opportunity to welcome people in, continuing to be creative and resting, in a way, but resting ready. Being who we are, and waling through doors as they open. 

What is your favorite thing to do outside of work?

Definitely being with my family. We live outside, as my son said to someone the other day: “We don’t actually live inside, we really live outside, we just sleep inside!” So we love to be outside, playing around. I would say that I’m just seeking to be present in that. The more kids that Christian and I have, the more I realize how true that kitschy saying, it goes by really fast, really is – the years really do go by really fast. I’m learning to put my phone down, learning to just be with the people around me, step by step, that’s what I enjoy the most. So, first, I love being with my family, but I also love art, design, and renovating spaces, things like that. 

What makes your business unique?

Probably the fact that we produce a lot of what is on the shelves. There’s definitely value in that, because we have a huge custom side of our business. It’s a very common thing for someone to walk through the door and say, “I want something special, I want something unique, what can you do?” 

It’s our job to hear the realm of what they’re thinking, and be able to turn that intuitive idea into the perfect gift or the perfect product. We’ve gotten to do that for local businesses a lot – whether it’s gifts for the staff at the hospital, or customized mugs for a business. We work with Georgia South every year on a custom ornament to give their residents. So we’ve been able to develop wonderful relationships in our community. 

The actual product is different for every relationship. But it’s the idea that they’re not coming in because they see something that we have, they’re coming in because they know what we can do and they want us to dream up something for them. So the custom nature of who we are, and what we do, is huge, but also, we love to do Moultrie specific things. Moultrie mugs, Moultrie pillows, Moultrie sweaters, and so forth. We believe in our community and love our community. We like to celebrate who we are and to give people something to take into their home that is not cheesy, but has the feel of a well-designed ode to Moultrie. 

What would your advice be for girls or women who aspire to become entrepreneurs?

I would say, finding what you love to do, believing that you can do that, and believing that you can also do that alongside other things. 

You don’t have to be all one-hundred-percent one thing. You don’t have to be one-hundred-percent girl boss. As you aspire to become an entrepreneur, you get to choose in what percentages you’re doing what – family, business, planning, marketing. In some sense, yes, you have to deeply commit yourself to the business, and you have to go after it. Our business flourishes the most when I’m fully present. That’s when I love it the most, and I’m gonna do the best things for it.

At the same time, when your years are drawing to a close, you look back, and you’ve hopefully built something to last – well, you get to make those choices. You get to decide what you build, what you’ll have to look back on. 

I think there’s often a fear of letting the things that are most important be the most important. There’s a fear that that’s going to result in the failure of something else. But I also think that there’s an authenticity in being who you are, following true priorities, that people love. They can see that you’re a person. You love your business, but you also love people, you love your kids, you love your family. 

So honestly, I’d say, don’t buy into the law that being a woman in business means you have to prove yourself. I don’t think we have to prove ourselves in, you know, our culture, I think we can just be who we were uniquely created to be. That comes with a set of gifts, and we get to walk in those when we live that life. Yeah – walking into your unique gifts, figuring out what you love to do, and being confident and going after it. Don’t be afraid to be multifaceted.

Find Dustmade Studios downtown on the Square at 120 South Main Street. For more information, call Dustmade at 229-529-0950, visit their website at dustmade.com, or find them on social media.