Rising Stars: Meet Josie Kennedy and Jolee Blankenship of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josie Kennedy and Jolee Blankenship.

Hi Josie and Jolee, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
JOSIE – It all started in the house that my father, Art, built. What started as a literal deer stand that he forged (and expanded to every time another baby was born) became our family’s home, roots, and sanctuary in the woods. My and my two sisters’ childhoods were spent wild and free, running barefoot through fields, splashing in the creek, picking fruit and veggies, and squealing with delight on our dad’s famous wheelbarrow rides. Our hearts knew only peace and love as we spent nights cuddled together around the wood-burning stove.

One frosty winter day in 2003, our father passed away suddenly, leaving our mom a widow and an older son, third grade daughter, and second grade twin girls behind. We held on tight together, weathering our worst storm.

After a dormant period of rest and becoming more deeply rooted in our faith in God, we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mom got back to gardening, we each discovered our love for the arts, and with our family’s roots tightly entangled, we experienced a re-blossoming together. Daffodils were planted by our neighborhood friends (who named us the “B Girls”) in the exact spot up the dirt driveway where our dad’s heart stopped that winter day. Each Spring when the daffodils rise, it is a faithful reminder of God’s promises, our resilience, and new beginnings … that hope, faith, and family can weather any storm.

It has always been a dream of ours to start a family business from the ground up (literally), working with each other in the solace of nature to create art that brings people together in peace. We have always valued nature and the healing and meditative properties it brings to the soul, and we each have a unique tie to it.

Since the day my mother, Jolee, handed me my first art book, a massive hard-cover of Georgia O’ Keefe’s most famous works, I have been absolutely and whole-heartedly mesmerized and in love with flowers and the arts alike! I was always the one to come excitedly running around the yard with a new flower I discovered to share with my mom, and I was always the one to pick a beautiful bouquet of flowers to set on the kitchen table after I “deep-cleaned” the house. Flowers have always been something special my mom and I have always shared. Even when I left to travel the world at 19, she would send me pictures of her home-grown flowers, and it felt like I was back home in the north GA mountains. After my dad died when I was only 7 years old, my mom enrolled me in oil painting lessons, and I will always be so thankful to her for doing that. I felt like I could finally breathe again! I really found my niche when I picked up my first chalk pastel. With every stroke of chalk on paper and every line smoothed out, I was filled with this immense peace and calm that quieted my busy mind and body. God healed my heart and soul through the arts. I have always dreamed of starting a business with my mom where we could work with flowers and let our creative spirits fly!

JOLEE – I am a tail-end baby boomer and retired teacher . . . just in time to grow into and embrace my inner flower child! I hunt and gather beautiful earthy things to satisfy my artistic passion. I strive to create unique pieces that evoke a sense of peace and gratitude.

I’ve always been drawn to flowers. From the time I was able to walk, I was mesmerized by the beauty, the smells, the colors, the vibrancy flowers added to our world. By the time I was a teenager, I grew every blooming houseplant my parents would allow, then eventually spread out to our open front porch and yard. My love for flowers never waned. When my husband and I married, we spent a lot of time outdoors beautifying our property with flowering stems and bushes, fruit trees, and three little girls who also loved getting their hands dirty, smelling the scents, and eating the bounty. Flowers, family, and friends have always gone hand-in-hand for us.

When the kids grew up and left home, I retired. I was going through some empty nest vibes and visited a dear friend in his art studio… where you could also get a haircut if you needed! When he finished, my hair looked fabulous and he had talked me into joining him and other artists to create in his shop space. I started drying flowers and began making wreaths at his shop, which eventually helped me carve out space at home to create with my girls. We love having the time to inspire and bring artistic joy to others. Blessings abound!

JOSIE – This leads us to our business, Bee Girls Art House! It started so organically…like it was always there waiting for us to discover (like those flowers in the yard as a child).

Where did the idea for our business come from? It wasn’t glamorous, that’s for sure, haha! I was in the thick of postpartum newborn bliss, covered in spit-up, a week’s worth of dirty hair, and a concerning level of mom-brain. I had just fed my 6 month old baby for the millionth time, and I laid him down to watch some “Sesame Street” to have a few moments of peace. Mom and I sat at the table ready to begin creating his baby footprints out of flowers (a project we had been wanting to do for a while). With an overstimulating Elmo song playing in the background, we played with flowers together and laughed and laughed (and almost blew all the flowers off the table from laughing and talking so hard)! We talked about life and motherhood and random things, and when his flower footprints were finished and we stood back to take it in…we looked at each other, and we both knew right then…this is it…this is the kind of work and medium and subject we’ve been waiting for…to create something meaningful and that evokes joy and peace … and being able to spend the most precious time together as we’re creating. This was the beginning of Bee Girls Art House!

If you’re wondering, no we are not in the bee-keeping business, haha (although we would love to learn!) Our long-time neighbors and friends have always nicknamed us the “B-Girls,” for short because our last name is Blankenship. And so that is where our business name derives from!

We are mother/daughter business built on faith. We create artwork out of preserved flowers that evoke joy and a sense of peace. We create baby hand/footprints, animal paw prints, family names, states, original works, and bridal bouquet and memorial frames out of preserved flowers (3d and pressed). If you can dream it, we can create it! Most of the flowers we use in our frames are home-grown by our mother using organic growing methods and drying them in high-quality silicon sand. The drying and pressing process takes anywhere from 1-4 weeks. It is a process that requires much patience, but it is highly rewarding to pull them out! Then the fun part begins! We get to arrange and re-arrange and play with the flowers to create pieces that are one-of-a-kind and are as special to us as they are to our clients!

As for our logo, our inspiration, hope, and mission for our business has always been to create a “hive” where all members of the community can come together and find joy, peace, friendship, & belonging through a shared love of art & flowers. With the current climate of our country and world right now, we feel it is more important than ever to let everyone know that regardless of race, sexuality, religion, etc, you are always WELCOME in our little hive!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
JOSIE – To tell you the honest truth, we’ve never had a “business plan” for Bee Girls Art House. God has truly been our planner every step of the way. Operating our business with full faith in God that he will always provide and point us in the right direction has truly made for the smoothest road. This business has strengthened our relationships to one another and our faith in Him ten-fold.

We have signed up for festivals last minute, posted new artwork on Instagram with fingers crossed, hung our artwork on walls of businesses with grateful hearts, sold homegrown flowers in a booth, and God has always made it the greatest experiences and connected us with so many amazing people in the community and with the opportunity to hear their stories! We’ve been creating for a year and a half now, and we still don’t have spreadsheets, QuickBooks, calculators, etc. We truly simply pray on it, stay optimistic, go in with no expectations, and we let God lead us to the next great opportunity! Even when we sit in a roasting hot tent in the middle of summer for 8 hours and don’t sell a thing, we truly feel so energized and blessed to have the opportunity to get to know new people and watch their faces erupt in a smile as they gaze at our flower artwork!

I think one of the biggest learning curves has been us, a daughter and mother, learning how to run a business with each other, haha! I am very Type B, very go-with-the-flow, and I try to see the best in everything (if a piece of art comes out different than I envisioned it, I will celebrate its imperfections even more!) Mom on the other hand is very much a perfectionist. She will glue and unglue and glue and unglue flowers until every one is exactly how she wants it. (She also did this in her career as a third grade teacher for 17 years). It took us a little bit to get a rhythm working with one another, but now we are full on cha-cha dancing! Mom teaches me to slow down, and I help hurry her along. Mom has taught me how to create more intricate works of art, and I have taught her that less is also more.

God has taught us so much about patience, kindness, adaptability, and empathy through working with one another. And above all, he teaches us that even if no artwork gets done that day, sharing time together is the most productive thing we can do!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
JOSIE – We are a mother/daughter business who specializes in preserved flower artwork. We use 3d preserved and pressed flowers (most of them home-grown in our mother’s garden!) to create original art pieces. We first started by making floral baby hand/footprints, and now we have expanded to making animal paw-prints, names, letters, family birth month flower frames, states, and bridal/memorial/event bouquet frames. It makes our hearts sing creating meaningful keepsakes for families out of flowers that evoke a sense of peace, joy, and comfort to them. You can really say so much with flowers!

What sets us apart from other flower preservationists is our personal touch. We do not cloud our customers’ experiences with commercialized instructions, guidelines, return policies, or unattainable pricing. We always engage in a natural flow of communication with our customers, really getting to know them as people and the experiences and stories that have shaped them and led them to our business. We want to share in their highs and lows and understand what kind of preserved flower frame would help them in their life journey. We learn about their style preferences and what designs inspire them most, and we continue to create a keepsake that they will always cherish! So if you use us, just know to expect lots of updates along the way and paragraph responses to your questions sprinkled with a million emojis (sorry, not sorry!) We simply can’t help it, haha!

We want to thank every person who has supported our small business in any and every capacity. As we grow, we always want to stay humble and remember our roots, where it all started in Art’s house, and all of the blessings God has provided to get us here today.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about our story! We hope we get the chance to meet you someday!

What do you like and dislike about the city?
JOLEE – I grew up in Decatur, GA during the 60s and 70s. My father worked out of a home office and occasionally had to get priority mail date-stamped after business hours. This warranted a night drive to the Atlanta Downtown Post Office several times each month. I never missed the chance to tag along! From 4 years onward, I was mesmerized by the city lights of Atlanta at night . . . much different in the early 1960s, but every bit as magical!

I lived off Ponce de Leon while attending Georgia State and working at Excelsior Mill, then eventually worked at the old Atlanta Flea Market on the corner of Piedmont & Lindbergh (now Lindberg MARTA Station). Atlanta has always been good to me! I met the love of my life there and we continued our journey north of the city to grow a beautiful family . . . and eventually, Bee Girls Art House!

Pricing:

• Bridal & Event Bouquet Frames ($300+)
• Baby Hand/Footprints Frames ($45)
• Letter/Name Frames ($45-75)
• State Flower Frames ($55)
• Family Birth Flower Frames ($50)

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beegirlsarthouse/
• Other: https://beegirlsarthouse.etsy.com