As lovers of all things handmade and local, the vibrant and unique BuxieJo bags have been on our radar since 2014. Kerrin Pogozelski opens up about how it all began, and how her designs and humble business have evolved over the last 9 years.
Kerrin, we’ve been following your work for years. Can you tell us a bit about how this all started for you?
Thank You! BuxieJo was born after taking a few basic leather-working classes, finding a beautiful piece of leather and wanting to make myself a bag. I began posting my progress on my facebook page and low and behold, that bag sold before I was even finished. I was raised with entrepreneurs around me my whole life, so owning a business has felt somewhat natural. After having some initial success selling bags at small events for a few months I went full-time, meaning, BuxieJo has been my sole income for 8+ years now. We’re still a woman-owned business, but I do have help now-a-days as we have been able to grow and expand, and now BuxieJo supports both my husband and I, as well as some of our family members who help us make things part-time.
What is your creative process and where do you find inspiration for your creations?
Creativity comes to me from life as a whole. I love color combinations found in nature, style compliments from architecture and interior design, fashion and textiles. Honestly, sometimes the materials talk to each other and then inform me of what they should be! I purchase all the leathers in-person, and sometimes the hides will sit in the studio for months before they are combined with other leathers and fabrics to create a collection. I see the special-ness and sit with materials until the capsule is complete.
You’ve been in the handmade space of Colorado for a long time. Have you ever had an opportunity to collaborate with other artisans?
I have started collab conversations quite a few times in the past and have been too deep in the trenches of growing my presence and building my brand to allocate the time to dedicate properly to partnership. It can be difficult to take two separate businesses with very different voices and come up with something that works well for both parties, but there are a couple creatives I am very excited to pair with once we get a clear path – Dante Perozzi and Maggie with Create Good. Both these amazing small businesses are here in Colorado and embody different but powerful values I resonate with very strongly.
Do you incorporate any sustainable practices with your business? There seem to be several local businesses who would love to work with your scraps.
Sustainability is one of our main business fundamentals and we take sustainability in mind when designing our collections as well as where we source our materials and what materials we use. We always prioritize using as much of the materials we work with whether that’s leather or fabric. We start with large bags and then work down to smaller pieces to use up all our own bits and pieces, and anything we don’t use is donated to local artisans and schools for use in their projects. We’ve even donated leather to local Scout troops and have seen some very fancy knife sheaths and ax covers made using our passed-on materials.
How were you able to sustain your business through the pandemic and how does it continue to evolve?
The pandemic was a crazy ride! But we survived by bringing all manufacturing in-house. We did make masks donating 1/1 to local shelters and also found refuge in one of our schedule main-stays, Vail Farmers Market and Art Show! After finding my stride in fine art shows around the country, I found the opportunity to show my work at the farmer’s market (which had special designation during the shutdown because they sold mostly fruits and vegetables). I can’t say enough about Angela, the show director, who jumped through countless hoops in 2020 to provide literally over one-hundred small businesses a place to earn money. She and every other show promoter who made it happen during the shut down, will be in our hearts for the work they do to allow artisans a place to meet their customers. There are a million ways to do business, and luckily for us, we learned early on that a brick-and-mortar wasn’t a good fit for BuxieJo. Since day 1, we have been crafting our website and online presence and thankfully had diehard BuxieJo customers all across the country who bought new bags during the pandemic, even though they had nowhere to go. Now, with things being back open and us being back on the road, we continue to try and meet new customers in new places, but put a lot of effort into growing our email list to follow up with customers after we have packed up and moved on to the next adventure. The fine art show circuit can be a very humbling arena, where artists like us may not get into all the shows that they have done for many years for whatever reason, and that can be devastating if you let it, but we try and look at one show’s rejection as the universe inviting us to find a new opportunity and adventure.
What can we expect from you in the future?
We are continually reinvesting in our work and trying our best to stay true to our values, uncompromising quality, and eye for detail. One thing we are VERY excited about to introduce for this year is the ability to personalize your BuxieJo bags or straps with letters, shapes, and numbers with our fire brands! We saw some of our favorite travel buddies in the hat industry pop-up with hat bars where you can customize felt hats, and it clicked for us that we could easily do the same for our bags and straps. We have this available via our website as well as in-person events. We have had so much fun so far seeing what brands and combinations our customers have come up with, and it adds an element of excitement to literally burn customers designs permanently into their accessories! I don’t know what’s more BADASS than that?!
We will also be adding more artistically forward designs as well as continuing to offer the combinations of uncommon textures and colorful treatments we are famous for! I’m very excited about a collection we hand-painted on leather, and we also have recently added the ability to offer our fancy bag straps with more colorful leather tabs that we can rivet on the spot, so that our customers can get their own one-of-a-kind BuxieJo bag and strap that they can use and cherish for years to come.
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Kerrin! We’re inspired by your bold concepts and designs and can’t wait to see how you continue to grow and thrive as a Colorado artisan. If you would like to learn more about Kerrin and see her vast array of designs, visit buxiejobags.com.