I Have Always Been Building Something

From the Founder & Publisher | Angela Boone

DETROIT — Looking back on my life, I realize something I didn't fully understand while I was living through it: I have always been building something. Sometimes I was building an actual construction project, and other times I was building a business, designing something, writing and publishing a book, teaching someone how to create, or figuring out how a business or organization could operate better. There were also times when I was simply following an idea without knowing where it would eventually lead.

Today, I am the Founder and Publisher of Community Economic Pathways, the flagship publication of Community Economic Pathways Media Group, but this isn’t where my story started. In many ways, my entrepreneurial and publishing journey began years ago when I owned a graphic design company. That experience taught me much more than how to create something that looked good. It taught me how to listen to someone’s idea, understand what they were trying to communicate, and turn something that existed in their mind into something other people could actually see. Looking back, I realize that even then I was doing something that would follow me throughout my career: taking different pieces and figuring out how they fit together. I didn’t have a name for that ability then. I just did it.

My professional career would also become deeply rooted in construction. I have spent decades in an industry where you learn quickly that having a vision isn't enough; eventually, somebody has to figure out how to build it. Construction taught me about planning, budgets, schedules, contracts, deadlines, coordination, people, and problem-solving. It taught me how to walk into a situation with many moving pieces and begin figuring out what needs to happen first, what needs to happen next, who is responsible, and how to keep everything moving when something doesn't go according to plan.

Eventually, I took that experience into entrepreneurship and founded my own construction company, A. R. Boone Construction LLC. Owning a construction company taught me that being good at your craft and knowing how to operate a business are two very different things. A business needs structure. You have to think about clients, operations, contracts, finances, people, relationships, opportunities, risk, and systems, and sometimes you have to make decisions without having every answer in front of you. Construction strengthened something that had already been developing in me for years: the ability to look at a situation, identify the pieces, and determine how those pieces need to work together.

While I was building professionally, my creative side never disappeared. My handbag business actually started as a hobby after a layoff, when I found myself sitting at my parents' kitchen table creating handbags from canvas, magazines, and whatever materials I could find. I would cut, paint, design, and put different pieces together simply to see what I could create. I wasn't sitting at that table thinking I was starting a handbag company. I was doing something I loved.

Not long afterward, my father suffered a stroke, and that experience changed the way I looked at time and purpose. Life can change quickly, and it made me think differently about the gifts God gives us and what happens when we continue putting off using them. Eventually, I took my handbags to my first vending event in New York, and the response was overwhelming. People understood what I was creating. They appreciated that the designs were different and that the handbags weren't something they were going to see everywhere.

When I returned home, however, the response wasn't always the same. Some people didn't understand the designs, and others were skeptical. I could have allowed that to convince me to stop, but instead I learned a lesson that has stayed with me throughout my life: Everybody will not understand your vision, and they don't have to. Sometimes you have to continue developing what you see before other people can see it too.

So I kept creating. What began as a hobby eventually developed into Angelique Collections, my handmade handbag and accessories brand. The early collage handbags evolved into wearable art created with hand-painted canvas, leather and other materials. Something that started at my parents' kitchen table had become another business, but it also became another classroom.

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