Longtime maker keeps on creating despite COVID disruption

Aug. 18, 2020

By Molly Wetsch, for SiouxFalls.Business

Normally, Heather Cool would be well into her summer schedule of art and craft festivals.

This year, the 605 Made Night Market on Saturday will offer one of her only chances to sell her work publicly.

“Most of my work is sold through word of mouth and art and craft shows,” said Cool, who owns Superior Quality Cornhole and Heatherly Studios. “Almost all of my art shows and craft shows were canceled for the entire year, which was pretty tough.”

For Cool, art is not only a method of expression but a business venture as well.

Superior Quality Cornhole specializes in custom cornhole boards and bags, and through Heatherly Studios, Cool creates her own art, often out of wood scraps. She began Superior Quality Cornhole when she noticed someone was making cornhole boards, and she offered to sew bags to sell with them.

“That led me to try to bring some bags to a craft show that my cousin was putting on, and they sold fantastically,” Cool said. “And then years later, we’re Heatherly Studios and Superior Quality Cornhole, and we’re making boards and bags.”

While Superior Quality Cornhole has offered her much success, Cool said she enjoys Heatherly Studios because she is able to bring out a different side of herself.

“I was worn out from it (cornhole board making) not being a creative process, and I wanted to get back to art,” Cool said. “I get my creative inspiration from nature and from my logical, mathematical brain, so in my artwork I incorporate that mathematical and nature element in my mandala and Zentangle designs that I do. I always have scrap wood laying around, and you’ll see things like yard dice and wine caddies that I have made.”

Although there have been some setbacks this year, Cool said she hopes to grow her business more in the future.

“I guess in terms of what I see my company doing in five years is not necessarily growing in quantity but improving my quality and improving my skills and creating a larger selection in terms of my art,” Cool said. “I do a lot of commissioned work, and my business has grown in that way, and I’d like to nurture that.”

You can visit Cool and buy her work at the 605 Made Night Market from 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday in the Cherapa Place parking lot. The event is free and co-organized by Knotty Gnome Variety & Salvage and SiouxFalls.Business. It is sponsored by The First National Bank in Sioux Falls.

There will be social distancing precautions taken, hand sanitizer offered and masks strongly encouraged while shopping at the event.

To follow the 605 Made Night Market on Facebook, click here.

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Longtime maker keeps on creating despite COVID disruption

This longtime maker is making the best of a season with few art festivals — make sure and pay her a visit at this Saturday’s 605 Made Night Market.

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