Park West — a dining, entertainment and lifestyle center — is set to welcome Hawaii Fluid Art, a full-service art studio and local artisan boutique, as a new tenant this fall. This will be the second franchise location in the greater Phoenix market managed by co-owners Pete Carels and Seth Lowy.
“We are very excited (to be joining Park West),” Carels said. “We understand the importance of community, giving back, grassroots, and we are very focused on what art can bring to people from an art therapy standpoint. I am personally big on experiences. So, the moment you walk into a Hawaii Fluid Art location you get the full experience ranging from what you see on the wall, to what you smell, to what you hear, to what you touch when you’re playing with the paints. So, it’s the full experience when you walk into a Hawaii Fluid Art.”
Hawaii Fluid Art offers community members 20 local artisans to choose from in its boutique and five to six experiences that it teaches. The experiences include resin tumbler making, a patch party — where customers can create their own trucker hats with badges, patches and beads —, creating resin beach scenes, charcuterie board and wine glass painting and fluid art/paint pouring, which is where participants take four or five colors, layer them in a cup, pour the cup onto the canvas in a certain technique, put some glitter on it and top it with a resin coat.
“When you walk in the front door you encounter really cool artists, nothing that’s purchased in bulk,” Carels said.
“There’s nothing purchased from Amazon, it’s all local artists and we are big on shopping local. Then when you walk into the back, that’s where the magic happens.”
The cost of the different experiences varies — the resin tumbler experience costs from $45 to $65, the fluid art costs from $35 to $65, the resin beach scene starts at $85 and the hat patch party costs $25.
According to Carels, the way that the partners got involved with Hawaii Fluid Art was almost fate. Carels worked for Microsoft for 25 years before retiring and deciding to become a snowbird and spend the summer in Seattle and the winters in Arizona. His next-door neighbor when he moved to Arizona with his wife happened to be Lowy.
“The ladies started talking and I found out that Seth had bought into this and it just so happened that I was looking into opportunities post-Microsoft to not be fully retired and to have my own business,” Carels said. “And I happened to look into Hawaii Fluid Art a couple of months earlier. So, the fact that I was in the middle of retirement from Microsoft, the fact that he’s my next-door neighbor, the fact that I was looking into Hawaii Fluid Art a couple of months earlier, there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Things happen for a reason.”
Carels and Lowy then decided to buy 10 locations, seven that will be in the greater Phoenix market and three in Washington state.
The tagline of Hawaii Fluid Art is ‘a place to create’ and the goal is that every person that walks in the door gets personal attention and a great experience.
“We want to make sure that everybody that walks out tells their friends, tells their family and has an amazing experience,” Carels said.
“We joke that literally anyone from five to 105 can do this art. It’s not your typical paint-and-sit where you’re sitting there painting a stick figure, cat or dog and the person beside you is painting a Picasso and then you feel a little intimidated by it. There is no intimidation whatsoever. It’s literally the greatest experience that you can have in terms of expressing your artistic ability. You’re picking your color, you’re picking your technique, you’re picking your style and then you create something that you’re extremely proud to hang on the wall.”
Carels recalled a 7-year-old who had Down Syndrome coming in and being very closed off and shy in the beginning but by the end of her experience not only did she create an amazing piece, he said, but she was high-fiving everyone and laughing.
“That’s the biggest thing I can bring is the experiences that art can bring somebody, so that’s really what I focus on,” Carels said. “And we’ve had countless experiences like that where people are just a little intimidated. They come in, they don’t think they’re an artist and we always say, ‘Everybody has an inner artist.’ You just have to put yourself out there and kind of take a chance and then just go for it. And then by the end, you’ve created something that you’re very proud of, but you’re also proud of yourself.”
Carels said he is excited to collaborate with other small businesses at Park West and in the community as he truly feels that Hawaii Fluid Art brings joy to people’s lives.
He noted that Hawaii Fluid Art will be taking part in Park West’s Saturday markets on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month. It will have a booth where attendees can watch demos and talk with workers and then “hopefully” head over to the workshop to check it out for themselves.
“It’s a great experience and people love it,” Carels said.
“I’ve never had one person come out of there saying it wasn’t a great experience. So (we are) just trying to get our name out there, get people in the door and have a great time.”
If You Go…
WHEN: Opening TBD
WHERE: Park West, 9744 W. Northern Avenue, Peoria
INFO: hawaiifluidart.com
