Meet Hannah Bangs | Owner/ Founder/ Plant Lady/ Artist

I am deeply protective of my free time. As an artist, unstructured time to wander and ramble is essential for letting inspiration find it’s channel. I have always been drawn to jobs that allow me flexibility to exist as a human outside of work. Before Idyll, I worked as a barista, which allowed me to travel the world and to different places with some amount of job security. I would lump my work days together, so that I had two days off (usually Sunday Monday because all customer service jobs need us to work one weekend day) and then would jet off to the mountains after work and go spend time outside where poetry slips out of the streams and flowers. I used to relentlessly encourage people to quit the jobs they hated, demand raises, and move across the world if they felt called. Life is short, as they say, and the younger me, free from many of the heavy adulthood responsibilities was endlessly pursuing a life full of passion and candor.

I built my business around what I need as a human and artist. I set my hours so that I would have at least two days ‘off’ in a row. One, for life admin, one to wander and collect inspiration. In business there is always something else that you can be doing, which is why it is important to schedule days to do the things that keep me human, as a business owner. I haven’t compromised on free time, and I still think it is necessary to prioritize our needs as people outside of our business to be able to continuously show up for our businesses.

It takes discipline, and effort, and eventually you just have to say ‘I’ve done what I can’ and let yourself rest!

In addition to my shop, I also dabble with being an artist.  My art started as doodles on the sides of my notebook. It has taken many forms, the primary being pen and ink. I didn’t take it seriously until a friend of mine saw something I had drawn and said ‘Hannah you should sell this!!’ I was lucky enough to work in a coffee shop that offered to put it on display on the walls. I sold every piece! What made my work different, was that my illustrations would feel my poetry. My illustrations each have a corresponding poem. Most of my pieces are landscapes with the outline of bodies hidden in the hills and sea. I like the message of our bodies quite literally being earth.

I started idyll with a desire to create space for other artists like me, who didn’t know what they were doing, to be able to share their work. I find a great deal of joy in being able to offer tools and tips to other creatives who are producing incredible work. I feel extremely protective over the creative mind in general, because it relies on a certain amount of vulnerability and receptivity to the world around them, that can be painful! I find that the creative brain in general defies the way society has been set up (is not linear nor driven by money), and lately idyll affords me the opportunity to grant access to art as a way of life for artists who are starting to take their work seriously.

My business is now 2.5 years old, and I am finally getting back to my own creativity/ making art again! I have learned a lot about how much work it takes to truly put yourself and your work out there. It is a very vulnerable experience to share whatever you devote your time to, with an audience. No matter how good you are at the craft, there is still a moment of fear. I find it much easier to celebrate the artists in my shop than my own.

If i were to tell a story of my art brand, women who wave, it would be something along the lines of what it looks like to live with our hearts wide open. About the bravery of people who choose to love everyone they meet, or ‘wave’ hello, and to let the pain of the world in enough to catch it in art. My inspiration comes from the brilliance of wildflowers, the joy in the recognition between lovers of friends, the way the stars shine and spin each night, and how somehow our wombs are attached to the moon.