In last week’s column, Karen Eckberg, owner of Owl Arts, said that most artists don’t start doing art with the intent of starting a business. It is more likely that art is started as a hobby and the artist stumbles into it becoming a business.
That is true for Irene and Randy Belongia, owners of Willow Buck Creations in Stiles. What began as a hobby is now a successful business.
Irene, whose family came to the United States from Europe in the 1950s, spent most of her younger years on a farm in Crivitz. Her dad, who she credits for instilling a solid work ethic, had moved the family from Chicago, where they initially settled, to the quiet rural community. After graduating from high school, Irene never considered moving anyplace else. She stayed nearby and spent decades working in sales at a lumber yard.
Her husband, Randy, who grew up on a farm in Lena, also learned his work ethic on a farm. After graduating, he spent 37 years working in pulp processing at a paper mill. When it was time to decide whether to retire or keep working, he was having health concerns and decided to retire.
But it hasn’t been much of a retirement.
Irene said, “When we retired, we thought, ‘What do we do now?’ We’re not the type of people who sit around. We wanted to do something and that’s when we headed for the swamp.”
Their vision was to create willow furniture, and that required going into a swamp to gather it. Since willow needs to be wet to be pliable, they harvested it in the spring. Randy, who is a skilled crafter, quickly found his stride and began to turn out unique pieces.
Once that happened, they began to stockpile pieces and needed to start marketing them for sale.
“In 2013, we went to a little shop in Crivitz and asked if we could sell our pieces there. The owner was very nice and she welcomed us,” Irene said.
With the furniture at that shop, they were delighted to see that it was selling. The first piece sold was a large willow chair. From that beginning, they decided to sell at art shows and traveled around northern Wisconsin with their inventory.
At one of those shows, Randy saw some pieces another wood-crafter had made. Those pieces were made with reclaimed wood and didn’t have the limit of when it could be harvested.
“With the willow, it was difficult to keep up with demand,” Irene said. “We were so limited in when it could be acquired that we decided to go with the [reclaimed] wood.”
In 2015, they switched to reclaimed wood and a whole new search began. Reclaimed wood is popular and can be hard to find. They scoured Facebook Marketplace and traveled around the state looking for barnwood and reclaimed beams.
“Sometimes you can find it, but it keeps getting harder,” Irene said.
Randy continued building side tables, chairs, benches and other furniture, but keeping up with items that sold quickly was difficult. Their furniture was popular due to its rustic and unique look, but reclaimed wood was in short supply. To achieve the same look, they found weathered woods like basswood, elm, maple, and old pine.
“To give it an authentic look, we use natural stain instead of store-bought,” Irene said. “We stain with things like mud and leaves. The store-bought stains can’t compare.”
Preparing the wood takes time. Irene said Randy often gets up in the middle of the night to go out to the shop to work. His retirement hobby is now a 40-hour-a-week business.
Randy is the craftsman; Irene is the one who does the administrative tasks. She creates social Facebook posts, found at facebook.com/willowbuckcreate, handles the bookkeeping, takes orders, works with customers, cleans up messes, puts together displays, and inventories supplies.
“I run the household and business, but Randy is the actual creator of whatever he’s building. He is extremely talented and amazes me every day. He doesn’t even need to work with dimensions; he just looks at something and he can build it,” she said.
Together they come up with new ideas to keep up inventory. That turned out to be a challenge at Christmas markets last year.
She said, “We weren’t prepared. We started making framed prints and they were especially popular. We didn’t expect everything to go over as well as it did. After the shows, we had people coming to the house to pick up orders.”
This year, they are trying to stock more goods to be ready for a busy season. (Shows are listed on their Facebook page.) The first show, one of five held at this location, will be on May 23 at the Front Porch Market in Coleman. Overall, they are planning on selling at about a dozen shows, including Christmas markets in Green Bay.
Randy will be busy preparing. In addition, Irene said he is trying to finish a shop on their property that will be a showroom and retail store for their items. It is being fashioned to resemble a saloon, like the one seen on the old TV show “Gunsmoke,” and will have a wood stove and undeniable character. They hope to have it completed this summer.
As far as stumbling into being a business, they would agree that is exactly what they did. They never wrote a business plan or set goals. Instead, they learned by talking to other vendors and responded to customer demand, and demand was greater than they had imagined.
Irene said, “When you start out you have some self-doubt, but we gave ourselves grace and ended up being very successful for two people who never had a business before. It is a rewarding job, and while it is nice to make money, the best part of it is meeting so many nice people.”
Her advice to others embarking on the same journey is to have a hard shell and not take criticism too seriously. When something doesn’t work out, she recommends taking a look at what you’re doing and being willing to try something different.
“My favorite quote is, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.’ If something isn’t working, change it. We’ve made things that didn’t sell so we just burned them and said goodbye,” Irene said. “If you hang on to it, it will just be a bad reminder. And when you burn it, at least it provides some heat for the house.”
The few things that didn’t work are small in comparison to everything that has worked. The comments from customers are gratifying, and Irene said that if someone is dreaming of a certain piece of furniture or wood product, they can create it. Often those pieces bring the most joy.
She said, “We had donated a framed picture for a church raffle and one of the people who wanted it was out-bid. Her husband contacted us and surprised her with a similar one for Christmas. On her Facebook page, she held it up and showed it off as her favorite gift. That was a huge compliment.”
Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and past district director for SCORE, Wisconsin.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Stiles couple turns retirement hobby into successful, growing business
Reporting by Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt, For Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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