#ian b

[upthewitchypunx]

(A Laffy Taffy level witchy joke inspired by Ian B, my partner who last week was washing out a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce remarking about how much he liked the bottle)

Ian B: What’s a witch’s favorite brand of hot sauce?

me: I don’t know, What?

Ian B: Crystal

[callanthas]

Ian Brook

[callanthas]

Ian Brook

[callanthas]

Ian B

[callanthas]

Ian Brook

[upthewitchypunx]

If I may ask, are buttons and zines your full-time job? How did you get started building a career out of this cool niche thing?

Ya, sure!

Basically I stated small and things grew organically over 20+ years.

I stated making zines in the 90s and got lots of friends and penpals that way. I moved to Portland in 1999 because of zine friends. I started dating someone that had a record label and distro and I brought zines into the mix. In 2000 I stumbled across my first button machine and stated supplementing my income with button making. My partner and I grew the distro of records and zines and added custom buttons to the mix.

By 2002 it was my full time job making buttons and eventually the distro grew into publishing and in that year that I first published my book about zines: Stolen Sharpie Revolution. My partner and I also got married that year. In 2005/2006 after a lot of back and forth I left my partner when it became clear how abusive he was. In an effort to disentangle things I suggested I take the house and my button business and he take the publishing and distribution aspect.

From there I was mostly selling my zines and custom buttons and supplementing my income with rent from housemates in the house while I lived in it when we couldn’t sell in in the last economy crash.

In 2012 I opened a brick and mortar shop with a business partner who also made zines and custom buttons. he left after only 6 months leaving me with a lease and a giant zine distro that was too much for one person to do. I was not pleased and struggled to do both jobs for a few years. The store front was a lot of work and really frustrating. The plan was for people to order buttons online and pick them up in the shop. The zines and our catalog of buttons were for browsing. We would have people come in and demand buttons right away and then get made that our business wasn’t what they wanted. Around this time I was starting to get paranoid about my ex-husband for a variety of reasons and actions taken.

In 2016 I moved the shop into a secured warehouse of art studio. We got a mobile doorbell that we could put out on velcro when expecting customers and take inside when we were not. This made my anxiety so much less and I felt a  lot safer. Ian B helped me from time to time but started working more at the shop. We bought a big fancy automatic button machine and grew the business more. We have a lot of repeat clients. Ian B stated working full time at the shop about 2 years ago and that really helped me streamline work.

For about 9 months I’ve been running a business and trying to build the new website I’ve been dreaming of and it’s finally functional! A few months ago I had the revelation that I had a business license and could actually get wholesale accounts with other distributors. That’s when I added witchcraft books to our witchy zines and other stuff.

I’d say 80% of our business is custom buttons and 20% catalog of zines and our own button designs.

Being self employed can be rough and is definitely not for everyone. I joke that you can work any 100 hours a week and sometimes you can do it in your pajamas. I take my job very seriously. If someone entrusts me when their hard earned cash it is my job to get them what they need with the highest quality and efficiency that I can. I also means that my travel to zine events are business expenses and sometimes on days like today when I finish my work early I can fuck off for the day and go work in my garden.

Oh, and if you were wondering. My business is Portland Button Works.

[upthewitchypunx]

[upthewitchypunx]

Ian B is in, like, 8 bands. Heaven and Earth Association is more of a synthpop thing. They are playing a show at the High Water Mark in Portland this Friday. This song Repeating Pattern gets stuck in my head.