#bossbabesATX: A Living, Breathing Community
By Hayley Labrum Morrison
I recently chatted with Alex Perez-Puelles, Culture and Operations Officer on #bossbabesATX’s (bbatx) board, and Jane Claire Hervey, Founding Executive and Creative Director of bbatx, and it didn’t take long to see how these rock stars have created something so magnetic and influential. Over the last five years, and due to the hard work and passion of many contributors, bbatx has steadily transformed the way Texas small business owners and creatives connect and collaborate. It started small with the simple goal to unite people through in-person meet-ups, but now, bbatx has grown to inlcude large-scale festivals, conferences, and fundraisers that truly shape the small-business landscape of Central Texas and give women and non-binary creatives, leaders, and thinkers “A Room of (Their) Own.”
Panel at Babes Fest, 2019, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
Hayley Labrum Morrison (HLM): Jane, how did you decide to get bbatx going?
Jane Claire Hervey (JCH): bbatx came out of a study I was doing in my final semester at UT. I had been interviewing women in the creative industry. I was looking at branding trends and trying to show my professor that people don’t verify news sources. The internet has democratized us to a point that anyone can be a journalist. And if we are all journalists, what is journalism?
The focus of my publication I used for this looked at women in the creative industry. Particularly, creative jobs that interact with festivals. I started interviewing different women in that sector, and just out of my own curiosity as a college student I would ask “Where do you go for resources in your field?”, “Who do you turn to for support?”, “How do you deal with the barriers you experience?” I was experiencing ageism and sexism working at a startup and also observing racism on a day-to-day basis. I had no idea what to do about that so I started asking these questions. Everyone said “I have no idea where to go”, “I have no idea where something like that would exist”, “I’m not sure who you should talk to”, and I just found that kind of startling. When I graduated from college I continued the interview series and archived them on a website called bossbabes.org.
In early 2015 I asked some of my friends if they would be interested in hosting a meet-up and Leslie Lozano and Ashlee Jordan Pryor-Pitluk were available to help out. I wanted to get all the people I had interviewed together and I thought maybe we could BE the support we were all looking for. That first meet-up was May 14, 2015 and the vision was to provide support and spaces for people to connect and collaborate. It blew up really fast and we had 250 people come. A lot of the people that were at that first meet-up are still involved today. We officially became a non-profit at the end of 2017 and a charity at the end of 2018. We are still at the beginning and those that have worked with us to get here are also like founding members. That’s how everything came about. It’s been a reflection of thousands of people who have contributed to this project over the years.
From that spirit we have begun to answer a lot of different questions, like “How can we use our collective power as a community to create spaces that push diverse small businesses forward”, “What does it look like to expand our concepts of community building and access beyond the lens of gender?”, and “What does it look like to exist outside of binary?”
bbatx Founding Executive and Creative Director, Jane Claire Hervey. Jane also runs a boutique experiential marketing studio and makes, writes, and produces music. Image courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: Okay, give me your official bbatx spiel!
JCH: We are a Texas-based non-profit that amplifies women and non-binary creatives, entrepreneurs, and leaders through festivals, conferences, and community spaces and marketplaces. We started off grass-roots and hyperlocal. A lot of what we do is to provide affordable and accessible education and exhibition opportunities. Our belief is that if we can make education more representative of the experiences that are out there and the communities that we’re a part of, and if we can also create spaces where people can see themselves, whether that’s entrepreneurial or something like Babes Fest, together we can all collectively create communities that are more representative and resilient—resilient to navigating change and crises like we see today. That’s what we do, is provide the opportunities and the space, and the community does it’s own work. The community in and of itself is a living breathing network outside of us that provides so much support that we can’t even measure it.
Alex Perez-Puelles (APP): I kind of think of bbatx as its own ecosystem at this point. It’s just so community driven and we’re really at the point where our collaborators know to reach out to us for their resources and space needs. I had a birthday party a couple of years ago and everyone was asking each other “How did you meet Alex?” and pretty much everyone’s answer was some sort of bbatx event. I feel like I could walk into a bar and be like “Hey! I’ve seen you at craftHER” or “Hey you were a vendor at that conference!” and it’s just really beautiful to see people take these chances and use these opportunities that they might not have had to begin with. It’s also incredible when you attend an event and hear a vendor say “I just made more today than I made the rest of the year.” It’s seeing folks use the tools that we are helping them to craft and how to execute it in their life.
craftHER Market, 2019, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: Professional spiels aside, what has #bbatx meant to you personally?
APP: It’s a community full of creative folks that are just incredible. I feel that they are so ready and willing to help and come together and it’s encouraging to see. I also see the bbatx community as super supportive human beings. I have met so many friends through it and I’ve learned so much. I’m not what’s considered a traditionally “creative” person, I majored in Sociology, but I feel there is still space for me within the bbatx community. Just because I’m not a creative doesn’t mean my thoughts and opinions aren’t valuable to the community. It really is great to see how different perspectives can come together to make something beautiful.
JCH: I mean, this has changed my entire life. I was working in startups and media before this and had a practice on the side as a musician. The personal impact alone of being in a community that trusts me and trusts this network of collaborators we’ve built to create space and do things—what a life-changing opportunity. Part of why we all ride for it so hard is that our concept of creativity is not industry-specific, it’s not “You have to be an artist,” or “You have to fall into a specific bucket.” And it’s the same for how we perceive leadership. We think people deserve the chance to figure out who they are, to do that in community, and to really explore and become a part of the spaces they live in. That to me is the impact of #bbatx. We don’t say you have to be a certain thing to show up, or act a certain way, like—just show up. The kind of people we attract are just REALLY good people. It’s kind of emotional sometimes. For this project I had so many ideas for what living in a community like Austin is like and we all come to the table with so many biases too. I think that being in a community like bbatx where everyone’s first priority is learning, like BEING a learner, it’s remarkable. It attracts a distinct group of people across industries that is unmatched. And when you find friends for life, or collaborators, or the community you’ve been looking for that might even exist out of our programs and what we do, it’s so much bigger than what you might initially see. That’s the impact. It’s not about being a member, it’s about being a person first. I like to see how beyond us it can be.
WORK Conference, 2020, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: Alex, how did you get involved with bbatx?
APP: I moved here (Austin) almost five years ago and only knew one person. Somehow I stumbled upon bbatx online. I attended my first event, which was a sleepover retreat, it was very cool. After that I was like “Wow, I need to know everything about the (bbatx) board,” so I was scouring the website and social media stalking all the members. Then I reached out on Facebook asking how I could get involved. I got in touch with Jasmine Brooks, the volunteer coordinator at the time. I started volunteering at most events, the meet-ups, craftHER, Babes Fest, SHE TALKS, like all sorts of events, just really getting my stripes. I was wondering how I could become even more involved, so I reached out to Jane. That was right around the time when bbatx was launching their new committee program and Jane encouraged me to apply. That was our first year of having a committee, which consists of about twenty folks that apply and are selected. They help decide on and execute the programming for the year. It’s a very hands-on role and you get to hit the ground running in event planning, though there are other ways you can explore being a committee member. After my first year as a committee member I became a board member as well and loved seeing the higher level of how #bbatx operated. It was nice to have all of these different perspectives within the same organization. Now I am only on the board and it’s been great so far.
JCH: Nonprofits don’t typically recruit their board members from their volunteers. It’s different and it’s a cool thing about us. We are a community of people and some of us have worked on this project for years in various capacities.
Alex Perez-Puelles serves on the bbatx board as the Culture and Operations Officer and is a Membership Associate for Abortion Care Network. Image courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: So what ARE the ways people can get involved with bbatx?
JCH: The ways people can get involved now are actually kind of changing. Right now if you are seeking exhibition or education from us you might attend a conference or a workshop, or a meet-up looking to connect with other people, or you might apply to craftHER or Babes Fest so you can plug into a broader program. But if you truly want to get involved and sink your teeth in, we are introducing a new learning community membership sometime this summer. It will be for people that are really looking to get involved and plug into a community. Our programs will be just as accessible as they were before, you don’t have to be a member to attend anything, but getting involved will be a lot more streamlined. The feeling of community already exists, but it doesn’t have a home yet. The membership will be a new way for people to get involved beyond volunteering, attending events, or being a vendor.
We are also bringing back some really fun stuff that we have had offline for the last couple of years like our community newsletter and jobs board. Another way to get involved is simply by being a supporter. You can come to us just looking to learn. You don’t have to have any other agenda beyond wanting to support representative leadership and non-binary and women creatives, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Most of our events are free and open to the public or a low-cost ticket. You can also become a supporting member, too. If you donate five bucks a month, even if you aren’t involved in programs, you’ll get special access to interviews of people we support, or coming out to showcases, etc. We’re still building it all out, but it’s going to be a great way to be involved.
HLM: Supporting non-binary and women-identifying humans is what bbatx does best. But how can those evolved cis straight white men out there get involved?
JCH: There are many no-pressure ways to learn and get involved. You could be in a state of learning, of assessing who you are and how you want to show up in the world, and how you feel about your privileges. You don’t have to be a cis white dude to do that, you could be a cis white woman or any number of identities that experience privilege. What we try to make possible with our programs is a place for education where people can begin to change their world view and interrogate those aspects of themselves. Don’t get me wrong, we are not by any means doing the big and beautiful work of anti-racism training or reform discussions, but we are trying to cultivate a space where you can have access to diverse ways of thinking. In any capacity of what we do, we amplify women and non-binary voices, but our programs are not gender-descriminate. Anyone can get involved, anyone can support what we do and attend our events. We invite everyone in because you have to be able to interrogate your privileges as a human being in this life and we invite you to do that work. bbatx is not the end-all be-all or final destination, but we are a great place to start.
APP: First of all: Donate (laughs). Second of all: Engage in our programming. An easy first step would be to subscribe to our bimonthly newsletter that will have tidbits of how to get involved. You can engage in our blog, social media, and you are also more than welcome to attend our programming. We’re hosting a book club so if you’re interested in reading a book and joining the discussion, that is more than encouraged. We act as a stepping stone, or 101 level to understanding race and gender.
Easy ways for anyone to contribute:
Donate directly, which will help offset our operational and staffing costs
Attend an event and learn about a new topic
Check out our merch!
Confessions of a Creative Entrepeneur: A Conversation with Sharon Mays, 2019, Image Courtesy of Tess Cagle.
HLM: What’s one of your favorite moments with #bbatx?
APP: It’s been cool to see how bbatx is able to pivot. We’ve put out so many fires recently, but we’re still here. There were many times in the past couple of months where the future of the organization felt up in the air and we did not know what was going to happen. Luckily we recently received a grant from the city of Austin. The (bbatx) board was on a phone call having a very difficult discussion about the future, and as we are about to wrap it up Jane started losing her mind saying “Oh my God guys, we got the grant!” All of us almost started crying on Zoom. It gives me goosebumps even now, thinking about it. It was really scary. I don’t think a lot of folks realize that we ARE a nonprofit and we need donations.
JCH: Alex can tell you, I almost fell off my chair (laughs).
Honestly, my favorite moments have been over the last two years. We have transformed from a small infrastructure that didn’t have much to lean on. Through our collective leadership, brainstorming, and cooperation with each other we’ve been able to build a solid foundation for an organization that will extend into the future. To be able to be as small as we are and pivot in this crisis, and receive funding, and cooperate with one another, and we just made some major changes to our board, and to be able to have that kind of capacity to make those transitions is really exciting to me. It’s reflective of where we are at with the team. We have four part-time employees and that’s unprecedented. We’ve never had that kind of support and it’s because of the community and what we’ve been able to do as a leadership board. My favorite moment is a series of moments (smiles).
bbatx Team Members at Babes Fest, 2019, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: With everything that’s been going on, tell us about any updates or changes to your programming.
APP: You can read our response to COVID-19 on our website. But, we recently dropped quite a bit of new programming including:
May 28, 2020, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
May 30, 2020, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
June 6, 2020, 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Financial Self Care - Kara Perez, Bravely
June 13, 2020, 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
June 15, 2020
Second Edition of Stay-Home Book Club: How To Do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell
June 20, 2020, 11:00 AM - Sunday, June 21, 2020, 11:00 PM
Digital craftHER Market and craftHER box launch!
June 27, 2020, 10:00 AM 5:00 PM
HLM: Tell us about this mysterious craftHER box.
JCH: We’ve been working really hard to pivot during this time and serve our community’s needs. Much of what we do is in-person so we had to reimagine our outcomes and translate them to a virtual setting. The craftHER box came out of that. The craftHER Market is a mini business incubator of sorts because the exhibition fee is (way) lower than other markets of that size and it’s a great place to test products and get them in front of thousands of customers in one weekend. Beyond that, all vendors are guaranteed some margin of sales due to the numbers alone. No one walks away without generating sales. We’ve been experimenting with that in a virtual setting and took it a step further with the box. We were like “How can we provide some of the artists in the market with guaranteed income?” It won’t be a gamble (for them), we’ll buy all of the stuff from them up front. So many creatives and makers are small business owners. With craftHER we are driving it home that 80% of new small businesses owners are women, and beyond that, majority women of color, and beyond that, majority making something with their hands or doing some sort of freelance/solo work. These are the types of businesses that come to craftHER. We are trying to communicate what that truly means with this box and that investing in creatives is not just something you should do because you like art. It’s a great way to redistribute your income, invest in diverse businesses of various sizes, and cultivate a community where there are resources spread to all. It’s a great first step. All of the choices we make are political and if you don’t assess where your money, energy, and attention goes, then you can’t be surprised at the inequities in our communities.
Radical Girl Gang at State of the Uterus, 2020, Image Courtesy of Maya Coplin.
HLM: Congrats to bbatx on celebrating five years this month. Where do you see the organization in five more years?
APP: (Laughs) Oh man. The world is our oyster.
JCH: We could’ve answered that question quite well two months ago (laughs). For me, ideally our work would manifest into an accessible headquarters that is open every day of the week, offers advice and support from experts and leaders in our network, and you can get one-on-one coaching. That is ultimately what we are trying to embody: a space where people can turn. Currently we don’t office out of a space that makes that realistic and neither do we have the operational bandwidth or capacity. I’d also like for us to have a physical store and the ability to offer coworking. And just space—like literally make our concepts of space available on a day-to-day basis. We want our programs to grow and we want to continue creating educational resources and exhibition spaces. Bringing this membership online is going to be huge for us. We have a grand plan for what it could look like and how it will exist in the long-term. I also see us having a bigger team.
APP: I am excited to see how we continue to build a digital community. I think that we haven’t fully gotten down the online engagement part yet. COVID is kind of giving us this rare opportunity to help it flourish more and make us way more public and accessible. Whenever I tell my mom about our events she’s always so excited and says “I wish we had something like that here.” I want that for everyone. I want everyone to feel that support, to get that knowledge, to get those resources.
JCH: Yeah, that puts it perfectly. I do think the last two months have changed a lot for us. We realized that we truly do have the institutional knowledge between us as leaders and the community interest to be virtual. We were completely blown away at the amount of support and attendance we had at our stay-home club. Events saw anywhere between 50-125 participants and we hosted like all-day marathons of events for four saturdays in a row. I was NOT expecting that. Another thing I am personally really hoping for in the next five years is for us to be solvent enough to offer micro grants on a continual basis. Funding is so limited in Austin and in Texas in general. You kind of have to have a really big business idea in order to receive funding. The primary path to being a leader or business owner is typically built step by step. It doesn’t really make sense to me that the visions and ideas of people that are already at that point of pitching something big picture are prioritized. I’m excited about the prospect of us having a micro grants program where we can give out $500-5,000. Those types of things are paramount in giving people access and breathing room with unrestricted funds to get their projects off the ground. This whole project (bbatx) started with $100. I think we don’t to our communities justice if you are required to already have access to funding (to get funding), which women founders, queer founders, and founders of color typically do not.
WORK Conference, 2019, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
HLM: If you had to choose one phrase to shout out from the rooftops to all of Austin, what would it be?
APP: Stay inside. Like with all my heart, stay inside.
JHC: If I had one message to say… I think it would be “Do you know your neighbors?” Austin’s rapidly gentrifying communities concern me. There’s a culture of gentrification and this idea that we can be whoever and whatever we want without consequences and that everything is ours, which is like a whiteness concept, like I just think... “Do you know your neighbors?” I’d be really curious to know! I want to live in a community where people know their neighbors. I want to live in an Austin where people care about what’s next door. I’d like people to ask themselves that question, because if we did, we’d probably notice things outside of ourselves and be more aware of how to help and be good neighbors.
APP: I think the people that do tend to know their neighbors are clustered. It took a while to find a larger mutual aid network in Austin and for the most part I don’t know if the people that really need the help are getting the help.
JCH: What we are trying to argue is “Get to know the people that live here,” and if you do you will see that Austin is not white, it’s just branded as such. Austin is also not a liberal pinnacle, it is just branded as such, there are a lot of inequities that still exist here. I love this city and I have met so many amazing people here by paying attention and getting to know what’s around me and asking questions and getting involved. If I had to talk to the whole city at once I’d just be like “Do you know your neighbors, do you know who they are, do you know their needs?” It’s a big loaded question.
HLM: Totally, but that’s the point.
Babes Fest 2019, Image Courtesy of Jinni J.
Keep up with #bossbabesatx on Instagram, attend one of their virtual events, and become a member.
Written by Hayley Labrum Morrison for concept animals.
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