So my name is Oluwakemi Oritsejafor.
Folks call me Kemi.
I am from Brooklyn, was born and raised in the South,
but have been living in Brooklyn for the last six years
and I am the founder of SOLA Market
We are a marketplace dedicated to artists to be able to buy, sell, trade.
New Pre-loved, art materials, gear, tools and equipment.
So, yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell.
I'm an artist,
a creative.
I'm also an entrepreneur,
and I've been working in the startup industry between business development
and operations for the last about eight years.
So yeah, I'm a multi hyphenate
and in many capacities and really excited to be here today
with SoMad and be sharing more about myself and solo market
and you know why sustainability and eco consciousness
is a part of solar market in our, you know big dreamy vision.
I have had a career in the startup industry
and in corporate America for eight years and have a lot of experience.
And I would say the bulk of my experience has been working at mission
driven companies that use technology to allow for us
to live better lives and easier lives and be able to connect.
Especially rooted in, you know, the idea of community.
And, you know, I, I also am an artist
and I have had to learn
to be resourceful as an artist
and especially as an artist who's, you know, first generation American,
who doesn't, you know, come from wealth, who doesn't come from access
and how to teach myself or, you know, teach myself as I've gone
and really challenge myself to find the materials
I need to tell the stories that feel
most important, important to me or feel urgent for me to tell.
And, you know,
SOLA Market really came from that experience as an artist
and being able to have
that that experience also
of working in the tech industry, working at startups
to see how even how,
how in my art practice, the things that frustrated me,
I still was able to solve and also found that those
those those difficulties were not shared by me alone.
And knowing that, you know,
if technology is good for anything, it's to be able to break down barriers
in our our daily lives and how we connect to each other
and how we build networks and how we share resources.
So that is really the root
SOLA Market and how I got to here
and how I am pursuing this Big Dreamy Vision
that is SOLA Market
So there's
a lot of different things that inspire me.
I would say it's a lot of my
my friends and the community that surrounds me,
the ways in which they uphold their values
through their work and through the way in which
they they live and create.
Of course, my family, I was raised by Liberian refugees
and my father is also Nigerian.
So, you know, I've always just kind of had a mindset for, you know,
being really purpose driven and dedicated and also, you know, hard work.
And I think for me, what also inspires me is knowing that
I am allowed to give myself breaks and having compassion for myself
and for others along this journey.
You know, what I shared a few weeks ago,
I would say is really the heart of solar market and what I'm building
with solar market and all those all all of those who are involved.
I'm not alone.
I have, you know, several people who've supported me
and championed me have volunteered their skills and talent.
But yeah,
for me, sustainability has always just been a way of life.
It's been,
you know, the ways in which I have been taught
to be self-aware of my possessions,
be self-aware of my environment, of my community, and just,
you know, always taking note of, you know, in my daily life
how what are the things that I possess that I can share.
And also, you know, mutuality.
What is something that, you know, I can be have shared with me?
And that, for me is really like the root
of sustainability and living sustainably.
I find that a lot of sustainability has been kind
of drilled down to consumer choice and not
really about how we live
and how we interact with our
our friends, our neighbors, our networks,
and how the things we possess power those networks
and allow us to have, you know, valuable relationships while at the same time
being able to create the work, create the art, create the visions
that are reflective of our our times, reflective of our histories,
and allow us to, you know, go unforgotten forgotten honestly.
So sustainability for me is, you know, really
I define it as, you know, what are the things that you have
in your possession that you can use in a way that is innovative
and of those things that you have in your possession that you can use
that are innovative, how are they also investments in your community
and in your networks and other folks’
path of life and in these paths of life
You know, how do they reflect and ensure that the most important stories
and experiences are told and documented and remembered?
So yeah,
I call SOLA’s goals and our mission a Big Dreamy Vision
for a reason.
Because, you know, I you know, in this journey of entrepreneurship
and, you know, being who I am, I don't want to limit myself.
And so for me, for SOLA, it's really about
being able to empower the individual in order for them
to empower everyone else around them and also help them see their work
not only siloed within themselves, but a connection,
you know, to to,
I guess, just like their own big dreamy vision.
So for SOLA, you know, right now we're really focused on
building a strong product, technical product
and platform, a marketplace
that, you know, is akin
to, you know, the traditional ecommerce marketplace, but digs a little deeper
and really focuses in on people's personal networks
and also sort of local economies and furthermore, circular economies
and helping people see their possessions, their materials, their art tools or gear
as not only investments in their own practices, but,
you know, investments in their networks and their peers.
But I guess, see reimagine what value is
is really what I'm trying to say and reimagine what can be valuable
and how that
how how value permeates,
you know, what is new and, you know, is really a reflection
of what you do with what you have.
What makes me SoMad is paper straws.
I think paper straws are such as scam.
Like, I think you know, and I think this is just reflective of the fact that
with sustainability, you know, it's
been so focused on consumer choice
and they're sort of like quick fire solutions that are created
but not often thought about how actual
how they are actually useful and if they cause more waste.
So I would say paper straws that get soggy and unusable
after drinking a cold beverage for 5 minutes.
Paper straws that last the duration of drinking, the drink.
I support it.
I get it. I'm with it. I'm down with it.
But soggy paper straws make me so mad.
You know, for me, with
sustainability and art, it's always been rooted in the fact that,
you know, we all we have everything that we need.
And, you know, so much of SOLA Market came from my own
personal experience as an artist, not being able to afford equipment,
not being able to afford materials, not being able to afford space.
But it's through the fact that,
you know, I had those barriers that I really began to understand
who I really am as a creative, what my values are, what's important
to me, and the stories that I want to tell.
So I guess my lesson or what I want to share to folks
is just, you know, me extending out a hand of grace
and encouraging grace that, you know, a lot of a lot of the work
that we may have to create as artists come down to our circumstances.
And though we're not defined by our circumstances,
our circumstances allow us to unlock our truest ingenuity and our truest stories
and allow us to be the most vulnerable we can be.
And, you know, as I hope to solve that with SOLA Market,
definitely to make access to materials
and tools and resources and equipment
more easy, I hope that I can still help
folks still tap into
that, that special place within creativity
and being resourceful.
So, yeah, I think that's my lesson to folks
is, you know, allow your circumstances
to Yeah.
To to be your fuel and to be
what allows you to, to be your truest self.
I work across
a few different mediums, so when I was younger, my mother
had an interior design
business that she started to help us survive.
And my mom has amazing
talent as a seamstress a sewer and a crafter.
And so she spent a lot of my childhood teaching me
how to sew and to make and craft.
And actually when I was like applying for university colleges,
I really wanted to go to art school design and specifically design school,
but couldn't afford it. So I went to business school.
I figured if I can't afford this, I better go learn how to make money.
So, oh,
I really started off working in like fibers
and sewing and textiles.
But in high school I got really interested
in photography and image making.
So I'm also a self-taught photographer,
and more recently, I've really been bringing that all together
and have been doing a lot in terms of set design.
I've made some furniture recently for photo project,
painting Backdrops
and yeah, and still doing a lot of photo work.
And you know, every now and then I return to sewing.
I do love making garments,
but sewing is like a unique special challenge
that takes a lot of time.
And like, I have so much respect for designers
as much like those who work in like the technical design space.
So yeah, I mostly enjoy working with fibers and in photo
and from time to time I dig into garment construction and design.