Today we’d like to introduce you to Genevieve Anderson.
Hi Genevieve, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I come from a family of artists and blue-collar workers. I was the first person in my family to go to college. Everything I have ever done has been motivated by a deep desire to push through boundaries imposed by what we are born into and what we perceive we are capable of. We were lower-middle class growing up and that instilled a very useful knack for re-purposing, seeing hidden potential in ordinary things, and thinking magically. I’m scrappy and determined (some would say to a fault) and curious, and I suppose this is what marks my work as an artist and an entrepreneur.
I am a filmmaker and producer by profession, so I believe in the power of storytelling to create new narratives and reshape the world. I started WUNZ Apparel in Action after a devastating divorce took me and my young son to the desert to be near family and rebuild my life. I created the Supersuit because I needed a new skin and a new story, a way of re-entering the world as the most powerful version of myself. The process of creating it took over three years and seven prototypes – learning, trying, failing, trying again, failing some more – not unlike the process of crafting a screenplay. You don’t know how you’re going to reach an end with something concrete and useful intact; you just know you have to do it. Through the process, I realized how powerful and redemptive the act of creating something with your hands can be. It felt like the seed of something much bigger than me and my personal transformation.
When I came back to LA after being gone four years, I could not believe what had happened with the homeless crisis. I had read Blake Mykowskie’s (Toms Shoes) book, Start Something That Matters, and decided I was going to make a similar business, but with the jumpsuits. In late 2020 I bootstrapped making 100 Supersuits in LA, formed a partnership with the LA Mission, started volunteering, giving portions of my sales and other fundraising, and most importantly, getting to know the community I am working to serve.
The dream with the business is to build a brand that creates employment pathways for women who have been homeless and are coming through recovery. In the past almost two years now, I have laid the groundwork for a workforce development program with veteran sustainability consultant Vanessa Watson out of Sydney, Australia Make It Work, teaching women to cut and sew (https://www.shopwunz.com/
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?
Smooth, HA!!! Creating something that hasn’t existed before is nothing but a struggle. Struggle and grace. It’s not unlike making a movie, an impossible task with way too many moving parts that cost more money than you’ll ever have, but somehow you make it happen. I believe it’s a crucial element of realizing what is in your mind in the material realm – for something not yet realized to be realized; you have to work in the dark, with conviction and faith, in the space of the not-yet-realized. If you could see it, it would already be in the past. But in creating, you have to make peace with working with what is not yet visible, through intuition, feeling, prayer, meditation, trust. The grace part is what holds it together when you think it’s all falling apart. I constantly struggle, but it’s to be expected, and I am making progress. Not in the straight line I thought it would go, more like zig zags, mysterious periods of nothing then a big leap – the pattern and cadence of creation itself. That sounds esoteric, but it’s exactly how this business is unfolding. The biggest struggle is the one in my mind, always. Entrepreneurship is a great schoolroom for personal growth.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a filmmaker, my work has been primarily with puppets and animation – it’s what I’m known for (www.genevieveanderson.com). My first feature film is live-action, distributed by House of Film and available on Amazon Prime (www.dustwunmovie.com). I have one puppet/animation feature in development (www.tooloudasolitude.com) and a female-driven psychological thriller in development that I am particularly excited about. I went to film school later in life and then for critical studies, so don’t have a classic education in film. I’ve always approached the medium from an intuitive place – film for me has always been about capturing feelings and sensations, the inner world, far more than what happens on screen. It’s an x-ray for the human psyche, and puppets in particular, because they access the realm of the magical.
I produced some of the biggest works for video artist Bill Viola between 2007-2015, work I am proud to have been a part of. Working with him helped shape for me how to trust human emotion as a subject unto itself, not just a byproduct of a dramatic event.
I am most proud of my social enterprise, WUNZ Apparel in Action, and the Make It Work Program, which has been harder and scarier than any film project I have ever done. It’s a massive undertaking with a great vision for transforming the way business and communities intersect, and one I feel very hopeful and excited about.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I think most people who encounter me think of me as pretty driven and serious, so it might be surprising for people to know that I have a degree in clowning! Actually corporeal theater, the kind of physical comedy you see in shows like Cirque du Soleil, but corporeal theater sounds erudite, which is the antithesis of clowning. I studied with world-renowned physical theater artist Sigfrido Aguilar at the Estudio Busqueda de Pantomimo in Guanajuato, Mexico after studying with James Donlon at UCSB. One of the best chapters of my life and a skill I utilize in just about everything I do. Although the craft I studied rarely entailed wearing a red nose (the mask of the classic clown), I do keep one in my car in case I get pulled over. It worked once! The spirit of the clown is solitude, innocence, and playfulness, and these are all qualities deeply embedded in everything I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.genevieveanderson.com. www.shopwunz.com, https://chuffed.org/project/makeitwork
- Instagram: genevieveheatheranderson, thewunzworld
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genevieve.anderson.509, https://www.facebook.com/WUNZWorld
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genevieve-anderson-1b318746/
- Other: https://chuffed.org/project/makeitwork
Image Credits
David Blumenkrantz
