What Do We Want to Create Together?
I worked at the publisher Lark Books for six years, and halfway through those years we formed what would very soon become the imprint Lark Jewelry & Beading. The founding LJ&B team of six included me as group lead, two art directors, two editors, and an editorial assistant. I loved that job, and even more I loved that team. The size of the group grew some over the three years I led it as our jewelry and beading publishing program and social, marketing, and publicity efforts expanded. It was a privilege to work with and learn from all of the fantastic pros at Lark, on team and off.
That founding LJ&B team holds a special place in my heart. Occasionally, my two art directors, Kathy Holmes and Carol Morse Barnao, and I get together for a mini reunion, as we did today at the Tunnel Road Papa’s and Beer, an old Lark lunch haunt. It always makes me happy seeing them.
It had been a while, though, and when I came home later I was drawn to look for this little sign on my wall, pictured below: “What do we want to create together?”
Right after we formed the team, I asked Carol to make this up, and we placed a sign in each of the hallways framing our team’s work area on the second floor of 67 Broadway in Asheville. It was so early on that we were still Lark Jewelry and hadn’t added in the explicit “Beading,” which soon became very important to our publishing efforts, strategic planning, and brand identity. The idea of “What do we want to create together?” was literal (art and craft books, with a play on the idea of what people could make with our books) and less literal but just as central—what did we, our group, want to create together and what did we want to be together.
We were co-creating something special, a community inside and outside of our building.
I found the signs in a box last year, and I put them up in my home, because they remind me of all you can do working as a team with talented, smart, kind people you appreciate, respect, and love.
Kathy and Carol worked alongside me all three years I led that group. They were excellent—just the very best—at what they did professionally, and as importantly together they were the heart and spirit of our team.
I’m deeply grateful for them, then and now.
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