Check Out Imani Tkalec’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Imani Tkalec.

Hi Imani, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am not sure what Sara mentioned so here is probably more details than you need 🙃
I always identified as an artist, graduated high school thinking I’d be an art teacher and went to college to do so. Started at Pratt MWP trying to follow my “artists in New York dreams” and realized that was expensive and unreasonable. So I came back home went to UNG to finish my core classes before transferring to UGA to finish a BFA in art education. From there I wanted to dip my toes in art education so I did long term substituting for art teachers on maternity leave. That was great but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in a public school setting. At this time my friend mentioned Susan at Love.Craft was looking to hire someone to help in the pottery studio. I met with her at the end of 2019 and began working for her at the beginning 2020 at twelve hours a week. At that time Love.Craft had about twelve crew if that, Susan and a couple volunteers and we all worked at one table in a tiny studio with no windows in Chase Park warehouses. I loved Susan’s mission and quickly became obsessed with the crew. Now Love.Craft is eight years old, we just moved into a building we now own in June of last year and we have serve just under 50 crew members.

So now we can get into Love.Craft and what we do. We work with differently abled adults once they’ve aged out of high school. We have a pottery, music, and farm program. Through those we learn about our crew and teach them skills. They help to take care of the studio/building as if this is their job, through this they learn practical skills like laundry, dishes, and cleaning. Tasks they typically would not be doing at other programs similar to ours. After sometime and depending on what the crew is looking for we find them purposeful engagement opportunities in the community. That could be a volunteer opportunity at the humane society or the food band, bingo at a brewery, working a market with us or a paid job elsewhere. Everyone’s path with us looks a little different as everyone is a little different. We also have and theater/improv and dance classes! So our number one thing is promoting and fostering inclusivity for our differently abled adults in our community, second is empowering the homies through art and creative expressions (dance and improv) and last but not least is educating our community and local businesses on how to better support our crew in the community.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not always. We are a “figure it out” kind of team so we always hustle to fill the gaps and make the ends meet. We have not always had a ton of staff so we’ve all worn more hats than maybe we should at times or would if we were working elsewhere. But there is something so special about this work that even when it’s tough watching the crew be happy and engaged in our community makes it all worth it.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am the studio manager, running the pottery program, farm program and the day to day for the crew in the studio. I was the first hire for Love.Craft and have helped to build our pottery program to what it is today. Now I am helping to build out our farm program which started in August of last year at Woodland Gardens with Celia Barss.
As far as our pottery we do a lot of slab work as it is accessible for all crew. We use templates we’ve created or cookie cutters and molds to create a lot of our pieces. Hand building is far more accessible than throwing so that what we mainly do although we are breaking into slip cast and are about to do a lot more of that thanks to a recent donation! We make a lot of awards for local business, as well as functional ceramics. We have artists that don’t do any pottery at all either. The pottery is really the front of sorts to pay the bills and learn the skills. But if a homie or crew comes in with an interest or skill we will work with them on that to create “products” to then sell at markets. Some homies pass through and just need help to find jobs and that’s awesome too.

Love.Craft is different from the other programs like us because we do not require the waiver and we often make it work for families to have a crew in our program regardless of how they can contribute financially. We fundraiser a decent amount, get some grants, and all the money from pottery, merch, etc goes right back into the program to cover the ends for those who cannot afford it. We also provide transportation which is a difficulty for a lot of the crew.

We also have an all abilities band, The Lovecraft Band (@lovecraftband on Instagram). 4 crew members and two other members who were our first music teachers. It’s been a very special thing to watch from the beginning. They’ve toured and there is a documentary being made about them by Chispa House.

I am just proud of our organization to as a whole. In the beginning it was three of us doing everything, and that was a lot but we made it work. We grew as time went on growing with the addition of other programming and more staff and more crew. Always more crew. There is just such a need for these guys to get of out of their homes and to actually be engaged. There are so many programs where they just hang out, watch movies, color, there’s not task demands, no skill learning. We are constantly trying to better our crew in one way or another, if that’s what they want. For some of them it is just “yay you’re out of your house” it’s great they are just tolerating being out of their comfort spaces and away from their caregivers. But for some we are getting services secured and getting jobs to provide an income without rocking the boat and losing benefits.

How do you think about luck?
Luck has seemed to put me in the right place when meeting Susan and getting the job at Love.Craft. I had no idea what I wanted at the time, I just knew I wanted to be teaching in some capacity in art… When I started at Love.Craft I was doing just that. The crew filled a cup in me I didn’t know needed filling and now I’m addicted lol I fell in love and I’ll be with Love.Craft forever. I would have never guessed I’d end up here or thought I’d be working for a nonprofit full time. Our mission is so important and the work we do I believe is different than the other programs who serve the same population. Now after years of encouraging and polishing crews work I’ve grown the confidence to sell my ceramic creations. So that’s been cool to create my own thing and to sell at markets for myself now. I’m @cosmic_tings on Instagram. I’m make silly lil tings I say. In our world right now I needed to make art that made me giggle after a long day at work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lovecraftathens.org/
• Instagram: @lovecraftathens @thelovecraftband @cosmic_tings
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCPoJ4sycyYr9ajhdUy5GHZw?si=tbPaaGGaqPmxCify