My Soapbox: Hayes Shanesy, co-founder, Brush Factory

While studying at UC's College of Design, Art, Architecture & Planning, Hayes Shanesy helped Rosie Kovacs create wooden pendants for a class project. That project started a partnership that has been growing for six years.

The pair created the Brush Factory in 2009, selling handmade clothing and furniture. Shanesy's specialty is woodworking and Kovacs is garment-making, but they create everything from candlesticks to t-shirts to canvas bags. The Brush Factory has been located in Brighton and Oakley, but after closing shop in Oakley last August, Shanesy and Kovacs decided to focus on creating a better website to distribute their goods beyond Cincinnati. Soapbox's Evan Wallis talks with Shanesy about their design process and what inspires him and Rosie. 

Soapbox: Since you closed your shop in Oakley, what have you done in terms of changing your business? 

Hayes Shanesy: We knew we were less interested to sit behind a counter waiting for people to come in. We have always been more hands on. We tried it out to see how it works, but we know we belong more in the field. Once we sat down and talked about it, it was a pretty simple decision. We want to be more wholesale-focused. We've also found a strong need for custom work for local companies and will sort of split our business between those two. It's much more interesting than sitting in the store. 

SB: Your work, clothing and furniture, has always seemed to go hand-in-hand, but with your new website, you've intentionally split them. Why?

HS: It had started to become a little bit cloudy -- a lot of people thought it was exclusively a clothing brand that sometimes sold tables and things, so we separated it into two more focused approaches. It's easier to explain what we offer that way. People have known us more as a clothing line, but we want to show people everything we do. 

SB: On your website, you have everything from candlesticks to bags to shirts. How do you decide what to create? 

HS: I wish I could say we had market research that went into it, but essentially it is just inspiration that comes from anything and anywhere. The candlestick was formed when I was polishing some parts on an old motorcycle and decided to try some work with copper. It's all fairly based on getting materials to do something interesting. I think the amount of products we have has to do with the amount of experience Rosie and I have with different materials. I come from an industrial design background and she has always worked with clothing. 

SB: How do you keep a cohesive feel between all your products?

HS: Personally, for the woodworking, my design tends to be super simple types of form. My father and grandfather were cabinet makers, so I grew up with woodworking as more of a trade. I grew up around a lot of Shaker-based furniture. Rosie has a pretty similar aesthetic. We intentionally talk about design together, so that helps. It's a matter of limiting yourself in terms of materials. Limiting yourself is an important part of design. We limit ourselves to very few colors and materials and it's fascinating how much you can make out of so little.

SB: How is this city for growing your kind of business? 

HS: It's the same old Cincinnati story. There are a lot of good and bad things about it. It's a great place to set up shop. There are spaces everywhere to work out of, and they're affordable. There's great timber in the area for my woodworking. Even in Brighton, I can go down the street and get supplies. The West End has always been a manufacturing community, so it works well for us. For Rosie, I think it's a lot harder. She has to work with fabric mills in other cities to get some of her materials. It's also difficult to get your products to market here. There is certainly interest, but not the same as in other cities. That's the reason we are trying to reach out to the wholesale world. In the past year we have started relationships with six new local boutiques, which is amazing. The siren from big costal cities calls to me a lot, but I have no intention of leaving Cincinnati. 

SB: Does Cincinnati inspire and influence your work?

HS: Oh, definitely. For as sleepy of a town as it is, there are a considerable amount of interesting things happening. I'm totally influenced by the city from a historical standpoint. I love the old river town, Queen City experience. Being down in Brighton is a big part of that. We work out of an old brush factory and there are still old forms for the brushes sitting around. Rosie's studio is down the street in the Brighton Bank building, which is an historic landmark. I look out my window and imagine the streetcar going up the approach and the canal being right there on Central Parkway. It's absolutely inspirational, even if it's in a daydream-what-used-to-be kind of way.

All Photos by Scott Beseler.