How A State Program Helped Flip One Photographer’s Dream Into A Community Studio

By Williamena Kwapo | OBSERVER Staff Writer

After returning to Sacramento from New York, photographer AmaYah Harrison-Bryant introduced again greater than only a portfolio of labor; she introduced a imaginative and prescient. While learning and dealing in New York, she had entry to studios that had been each purposeful and galvanizing. But when she got here residence, she seen Sacramento lacked areas the place creatives reminiscent of her may collect, collaborate, and create with out limitations.

She dreamed of constructing a artistic hub: a studio the place photographers, podcasters, and artists of every kind couldn’t solely hire gear and shoot in skilled settings, but additionally join, be taught, and thrive collectively.

SCALE, led by the California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity, or CAMEO Network, is a statewide initiative created by the California Office of the Small Business Advocate to assist small companies entry the instruments, data, and financing they should succeed. Through SCALE, Harrison related with the Alliance for Community Development and a mentor who guided her by the basics of beginning and sustaining a enterprise.

She then was launched to Working Solutions, a neighborhood growth monetary establishment that makes a speciality of microloans for small companies.

That connection was pivotal. Harrison-Bryant secured a $15,000 mortgage, sufficient to buy professional-grade gear, furnish her area, and rework a naked warehouse into the inviting artistic atmosphere she had envisioned.

The result’s Sage and Silver Studios. Located inside a once-overlooked Sacramento warehouse, the studio now greets guests with a hanging mixture of light and heat. Earth-toned partitions, wooden paneling, and pure furnishings create a welcoming atmosphere, whereas broad open areas invite creativity to flourish.

At the grand opening Sept. 3, Dr. Tara Lynn Gray, director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate, highlighted the broader influence of Harrison’s journey. “This really demonstrates how small businesses are the engines in our neighborhoods and in our economy as a state overall,” she mentioned.

For Harrison-Bryant, the opening was greater than a enterprise milestone, it was the fruits of years of persistence. “The business coaching I received and my connection to Working Solutions was made possible by California’s SCALE program,” she mentioned. “Having trusted business advisors in my corner has helped me push through uncertainty.”

Today, Sage and Silver Studios is formally open and filling the hole Harrison as soon as felt. 

“California is investing in entrepreneurs who might not fit traditional lending models, but who have so much to contribute,” Harrison-Bryant mentioned. “That support has made all the difference.”

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