A DAY AT MAKER SPACE

FULL OF ORIGINAL CREATIONS AND CURIOUS CUSTOMERS, THE MSU-RUN WORKSHOP AND RETAIL STORE GIVES LOCAL ARTISTS A CREATIVE OUTLET

The back rooms of the Idea Shop smell like coffee, wood and cotton candy. The cotton candy smell comes from the eight 3-D printers lined up along a wall, said Ethan Welford, a junior at Mississippi State University and an Idea Shop maker specialist. The wood smell is a combination of pine and two kinds of cedar, the types most commonly used for woodworking at the shop. And the third scent comes from the in-house roaster that creates the Jitterbean coffee for sale in the shop’s retail space, Welford said.

The laser engraver at the front of the workshop intensifies the overall smell as it burns wood. It was already up and running, emblazoning the Starkville city logo on a slab of wood, when the Idea Shop opened at 11 a.m. on February 8. The shop’s arsenal of tools also includes a kiln, several kinds of wood saws, sewing machines and computers with design software.

“Obviously all this equipment is intended for members, so I can only use this when I don’t have a member here who wants to use it,” said Idea Shop manager Michael Lane, who planned to make 80 of the wooden signs for local businesses.

The Idea Shop opened in March 2019, but the Maker Space has existed since 2016. Lane started it through MSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Outreach, commonly referred to as the E-Center, when he was an engineering undergraduate. The 2,000-square-foot area on Main Street includes Turner A. Wingo Maker Studio and the MSU Retail Product Accelerator. It was funded both by private support and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business Development Grant program, and it is operated by the MSU College of Business and School of Human Sciences.

The store sells a wide variety of locally made products -- t-shirts and crocheted hats, handmade soaps and jewelry, wooden vases and bread boards, paintings and postcards. There’s a rotating rack of key chains, magnets and buttons decorated with pop culture references, specifically from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Stranger Things.

Lane compares the shop to a gym membership: students can use the Maker Space, retail space or both for $40 per semester, or $10 per month, and non-students can for $25 per month. He said the shop has about 80 members at the moment.

The shop isn’t just for those who want to make a career out of their creations. Welford helped Liz Hardgrave, a senior biological sciences major at MSU, measure and saw wood for some side tables she’s building. Hardgrave developed an interest in woodworking when she was looking for a new kitchen table a couple years ago and decided to build one instead of buying one, she said. She also enjoys laser engraving and other wood-burning techniques.

“I just don’t like to stay still and be bored,” Hardgrave said.

Meanwhile, Katelyn Jenkins, an interior design student at MSU, repainted the walls in the front display case. Jenkins is in charge of the seasonal design of the walls, previously blue for winter and now gold and coral for spring. Jenkins and Sarah Ashley Bealor, an MSU graduate student, work together on the presentation of the products in the shop. Bealor is the retail coordinator and Jenkins is the retail specialist, and they are responsible for displaying each product in a way that will best “carry on their branding,” Bealor said. One example is the handmade soaps by Renee Smith on display in a small wooden box with fake flowers to give the product “a garden feel,” she said. Another is the neon accents on the display of Creep Crochet products including scrunchies, earrings and coffee cozies. The presentation ideas come from meetings with the vendors, Bealor said.

“We sit down with them and talk to them about their product, and (we) get a feel for the inspiration behind their product and who they are and how we can tell an interesting story to the customer, and we develop a display around that,” she said.

Foot traffic from Main Street came in and out of the store throughout the late morning and afternoon. Lane explained to a few visitors how the shop works, and Jenkins showed a family of five around the workshop. It was one of the few times Welford hasn’t led a tour, he said, though his job description is mostly prototyping. He worked on what he said was probably the twenty-fifth revision of a design for a lead acid hydrogen generator, and he helped Bealor use the 3-D printers to create decorations out of cotton filament for the retail space.

The shop just implemented an online order system for 3-D printing, and Welford said he and Lane would like to be able to automate the printing system remotely.

“If we could get one of these machines started from our houses over the internet, that would be really cool,” Welford said.

The shop is an example of how Starkville supports its tight-knit arts community, said Gracie Conn, a senior ceramics major at MSU who stopped by while showing her visiting sister around downtown. Conn said she will consider becoming involved with the Idea Shop after she graduates as the next step into the professional arts world.

“It’s really cool that they offer a platform for people who may not be able to take out their own space,” Conn’s sister, Catie Robb, said. “I was asking Gracie when she took me to the studio today at school, ‘Where are you going to go when you’re done?’ (Students) have all these resources now, but after the fact, it’s kind of cool that they give you that transition.”