Conversations with Katie Wilson and Scotte Grover

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Wilson and Scotte Grover. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Crush & Touch Art Supply began in 2018 as an art-focused gift shop and has since expanded to include a full selection of art supplies in addition to a wide range of artist-made goods. We are both artists (we met in art school in Minneapolis) – Katie is an illustrator and also has a line of stationery called The Good Twin, and Scotte is a photographer and multimedia artist. We started the shop hoping to create a space that would combine our worlds of design/illustration and fine arts. Once we opened, we quickly realized that our Highland Park neighborhood was looking for a local spot for art supplies, so we expanded our offerings. Today, Crush & Touch offers a wide selection of supplies ranging from student to artist-grade goods, and we’re adding new options all the time. It’s a little bit of a hodgepodge, but we feel that the combination of tools to make art and beautiful things made by artists is a natural one. In 2020, we were fortunate enough to collaborate with museums here in LA including The Broad and The Huntington to create art kits for their various outreach programs, and in 2022, we began our own community outreach program to provide art supplies to local organizations and events here in our neighborhood. We aim to create a welcoming space at Crush & Touch for artists of all experience levels and also to give back to the neighborhood where we live and work.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We opened in 2018 as Crush, and in 2019, we opened Touch Art Supply just down the street. Things were feeling relatively smooth until March of 2020 when Covid meant we had to close our doors. We immediately moved all our inventory to our small apartment so we could offer online ordering and began to sell art supply care packages. These were individually curated bundles of supplies – the customer told us how much they wanted to spend, and we carefully selected options based on their preferences. The care packages kept us afloat until we were able to reopen in May of 2020. At that time, we decided to do what we felt was safest for our team and turn our stores into walk-up shops – we created huge displays right at the door to allow us to sell from behind a plexiglass barrier. This way, our customers could still come shop in person, but we were able to keep ourselves and our employees safe.

In 2021, we combined both locations into the former Crush space, expanding the shop footprint to accommodate Crush & Touch. We rebuilt all our shop displays and fixtures, reusing the materials from our previous stores to create custom furniture for Crush & Touch. We are a very DIY operation – every piece of the shop has been built and painted by our hands. Once we were able to secure vaccinations for our team, we finally reopened our space to the public in May of 2021 – a very happy day filled with lots of hugs!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Crush & Touch is a very special place – it’s a shop where you can find anything from handmade paint to a salt shaker shaped like a pug and many, many things in between. Our unique watercolor selection is definitely a draw, as well as our extensive offering of hair claws and a very large sticker wall. We aim to have options for any price point and any mood, and we hope a visit to our shop inspires play and creativity. The elements of surprise, beauty, and function are considered in every aspect of our shop, from the fixtures to the products we carry, and even the way we work together. That mindset means that we are always looking for new things to learn, and we hope to welcome all kinds of artists and interests into our space.

What makes you happy?
We surround ourselves with what makes us happy! Learning new techniques and experimenting with new art supplies is a huge source of joy for both of us, and helps us to find new ways to express our inner selves visually – it allows us to relate to the world. Every time someone comes into the shop looking to follow that same impulse, it makes our day. On the gift side of things, we are delighted by the products we carry. There are so many functional items that cleverly and beautifully move art into the everyday. Seeing an artist we love translate their paintings into a hair claw, for instance, means that we can keep a little bit of their art close to us (literally). The Crush & Touch team also makes us very happy – everyone who works with us is a creative in their own right, and we love to see them grow and share their work. We feel very lucky that this group of people spends a part of their life with us!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.crush-la.com
• Instagram: @crushandtouch

Image Credits
Scotte Grover