The Hive Collective

Posted by Melissa Dow in Alumni

Santa Fe University of Art and Design alumni Mariah Romero, Darnell Thomas, Charles Austen and Callan Jane Ramirez, all May, 2017 graduates, have been collaborating this past year on building a creative co-working space called The Hive Collective. Interest in this collective first came about when Romero posted in the SFUAD Connections Facebook page, asking if anyone would be interested in co-working space to work, host events and hold creative work sessions in Santa Fe. Right now, the group is in the beginning stages of building this start up, so while they may not have a public Facebook page, they do have a private one. Anyone interested in joining the page should contacted Romero or Ramirez through Facebook. As this collective grows and as they further plant their roots in Santa Fe, Jackalope Magazine will follow up on their progress.

After an informal meeting, Jackalope Magazine was able sit down with one of the creators Callan Jane Ramirez for an inside look at The Hive Collective.

Jackalope Magazine: In your own words, how would you describe the Hive Collective?

Callan Jane Ramirez: So far, it’s a very small, not necessarily a start-up company but it’s a small idea that we want to turn into something bigger for the community. Right now, the Hive is a co-working space. It’s a collaborative space, for people our age and anyone who’s really interested in being in a creative environment. So, we’re going to promote creativity and promote everyone around us to be better artists. So that’s kind our start-up goal, as of now.

JM: So tell me a little bit about your friend group that are involved.

CR: Mariah’s one of my very good friends. I met her day one of orientation, freshmen year, and we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve worked a lot together. We’ve been in the graphic design program all four years, so we’ve been in many classes together. We kind of started this idea because I went to her saying, ‘I’ve graduated, I’m bored, I want to do something creative.’ She and Darnell run the 1905 Magazine, so they’re business partners. They, Darnell, Mariah and Austen, we’re all talking about a space like this. And I said, ‘I’m really interested in finding a space like this to be creative again and express myself.’

JM: What’s your role in the Collective?

CR: Right now, we’re all trying to find our place. Right now, myself and Mariah are both designers. So we’re both trying to come up with the mission statement, tagline, logo. I personally came up with the name, but of course we all collaborated and agreed on it. So that’s kind of the role right now. But we’re all looking for potential spaces in Santa Fe, and we’re also looking for anyone to connect with. We’re trying to use all of our skills as best we can to make this collective stronger.

JM: What interests you most about the Hive?

CR: What interests me most is I really enjoy being in a creative space and that’s really important to me. It’s great because whenever you’re stuck on something, you can go out to peers and say, ‘hey, can you critique this for me or do you have any ideas?’ And just being around other people that are creative can really spark something. I just really enjoy that and it helped me a lot when I was in school. But now, it’s kind of just me and myself wanting to do something creative but I don’t know where I should start. And I feel like that could really help me express myself in that way.

JM: Do you have any goals right now?

CR: It’s already the end of September and this is something we shouldn’t rush, because we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, even though we are really excited about it, but it would be really great to have a space by the end of the year. Or at least something a little bit more established. So I’d really like to have our mission statement, our tagline, our logo down and ready to go, and have a decent amount of connections. And get our name out there and get a little more of a bigger following. So maybe at the beginning of next year, have a space. If that happens sooner, that’s great, but we’re actually going to meet here soon and talk about the next steps. Yeah, just seeing where it goes. But I think most importantly getting the word out there would really help start up things and make things happen faster.

This interview has been edited for clarity.