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- Chantel Olson and her mother, Pennie Ogden, co-own and operate Art Moms and Friends, a Sioux Falls-based gift shop featuring locally made goods.
- Originally a traveling pop-up shop, Art Moms and Friends now operates seasonally out of Park Place Mall.
- The store features work from nearly 50 local vendors and emphasizes community and support for small businesses.
Chantel Olson did not get along with her mother growing up.
She even wrote a letter to her dad asking him to divorce her. Her mom was an artist, and she was just annoyed.
“Oh, I was a pissy teen!” Olson said.
But the protest she pitched didn’t make it nearly into adulthood. By age 19, Olson called her mom from college to say she was missing her.
“It turns out, I wanted to be just like her,” said Olson, who today runs Art Moms and Friends Holiday Boutique with her mother, whom she now calls her “best friend.”
“Well, I still don’t like you!” mom Pennie Ogden quipped.
Art Moms and Friends is a family-owned, female-led treasure box of locally-made goods, an effort that began as early as the ’80s, when Ogden ran a pop-up called Woodpennies right out of her living room. The home art show would have neighbors “lined up all the way around the house” to peep primitive wood furniture, dolls, bears and antiques. Olson said it would take nearly an hour just to sift through the “junk” to get to her bedroom.
Hence the surly teenager?
By the early 2000s, the house became too crowded and so Ogden and Olson hit the road, setting up their traveling pop-up at art festivals in Colorado, Texas, Omaha, Minneapolis or Kansas City, to name a few. They started off with affirmation gift cards and hand-lettered home décor. All are welcome here, just be you, reads a 5×5-inch canvas. You aren’t too small to make a difference, or Be a buddy, not a bully, you’ll find on a sticker.
Their own handmade illustrations still pile the racks today, but they stay put now, in the corner of Park Place Mall off 41st Street. Inside is a musical menagerie of gifts and trinkets, magnets and blankets, novelties and homemade Rice Krispie bars that never idle on the shelf.
There is so much to see! Where to even start! But only look to the mother-daughter darlings themselves. They are the ultimate prize in the room.
This is Art Moms and Friends.
Family-owned business empowers local makers
The gift shop packs in nearly 50 vendors today, in what now runs as a seasonal pop-up. Their spring show hosted its grand opening earlier this week and will now be open every weekend through June.
Ogden and Olson are like the matriarch of makers, extremely well connected and, above all, advocates. They provide a physical space to sell, but they know the market well, are in tune with their loyal shoppers and educate artists on affordable pricing and how to grow their work.
“Pennie and Chantel are excellent with communication, which in this industry is key,” says Jordan Bourne, who owns Bourne Family Bakery and sells her sourdough loaves at Art Moms. “That level of partnership and responsiveness is really special. It feels more like being a part of a family than just another name on a vendor list.”
Laura Yost of Dog Farm Crafts in Sioux Falls says her special orders have increased 150% since joining Art Moms last year, which thus far is her only footprint in town.
“And my booth there paid for itself thanks to their robust social media presence,” she said.
That’s all Olson. While mom does the bookkeeping and the “junking” — “vintage for young girls is so hot right now,” she says — Olson handles all the marketing and branding, even spending the past three years taking online classes at home.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” Olson says. “Sometimes I’ll work 16 hours in a day, but I love it. I wake up early in the morning, and I can’t wait to get started on the work.
“This is my identity, I’ve never known anything else!”
But she needn’t say it. It is felt. Olson is our bubbly Miss Congeniality, and Art Moms is the stage. It is a loud, socializing-type energy yet with a cozy vibe, like a tea party-themed bachelorette getaway on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
“And their customers reflect that same spirit,” Bourne says. “Fun, loyal and just genuinely good people. It’s such a rewarding experience.”
You might discover a new macramé or plant, vintage plate set or handmade earrings, but you will definitely have found a new friend.
“It’s a place of magic,” said felt vendor Kathryn Daniels.
‘Wow! Look what we did!’
At 71 years old, Ogden says she still wouldn’t consider herself a business owner.
“Mom! Are you just figuring that out now? Of course you are!” Olson says.
The two talk over one another, laugh at the same time, and each with the same inflection and decibel. But there is respect in the in-between, two women who share an adoration for one another that indeed keeps the doors open at Art Moms.
“She is such a hard worker,” Olson says of her mom, who still makes butterscotch pudding for Olson whenever she has a sick day. “She has taught me compassion and empathy, forgiveness and good work ethic, and how to love people.”
Ogden was the maid of honor in Olson’s wedding.
“Oh, I’m so proud of Channie,” Ogden says. “She is the best daughter ever, hands down.”
Art Moms and Friends will celebrate its 15th anniversary as an official brick-and-mortar this year, but it’s been more like a home away from home.
“I love this place,” says Ogden. “If you look back, you do think, ‘Wow! Look at what we did!’ I feel such comfort here.”
She hints of retirement, in hopes of traveling or painting more, but could she ever miss a workday with her “best bud?” They’ve created a space that even the owners themselves will always return to for a dose of the joy.
“If you take everything out of it and say, ‘What do you want?’ It’s that,” says Olson, who looked around Art Moms with her arms open and stars in her eyes. “I want people to say this is their self-care store. I want to be inclusive and for everybody to feel welcome. It’s just so happy here.”
If You Go
The Art Mom and Friends Spring Pop-Up opened April 10 and will stay open weekends through June.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Location is 3101 W. 41st St., next to Plato’s Closet.
Their Summer Pop-Up will be July-September and the Holiday Pop-Up will be October-December.
This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.
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