An Interior Design Firm Stole A Black Artist’s Work. She Responded By Opening Her Own Studio On The South Side

ARMOUR Square — There are number of Black interior designers — but Marissa Nelums hopes to make the marketplace more accessible and encourage other individuals by opening her studio, Glasshouse Inside Structure.

Nelums celebrated the showroom’s opening Saturday at 2910 S. Wentworth Ave. The spot of her shop — the initial brick-and-mortar showroom she’s had — is intentional: It’s ideal off the expressway and on the South Facet, the region she fell in like with as a pupil at the Global Academy of Style and design. It’ll allow her to encourage a lot more Black Chicagoans to get into interior design, and she’ll provide providers for customers who may well not assume they can find the money for a designer.

“I normally preferred to hold my neighborhood at the forefront of how we construction factors,” Nelums mentioned. “I started off this for the reason that there was not a whole lot of illustration for persons who look like me in style. We’re incredibly happy to access much more than just the persons who can afford design expert services.”

But Nelums’ dream studio just about didn’t transpire.

Nelums was intrigued in inside style for a lengthy time, but the previous visual merchandiser did not go after that enthusiasm right up until she acquired a press from the universe — in the form of one more studio thieving pictures of an apartment she’d decorated.

“I imagined, ‘If I’m fantastic enough to steal from, perhaps there is anything to this. It’s possible this is a thing I can do longterm,’” mentioned Nelums, whose perform can be noticed in Architectural Digest and Coming Household journals.

Now, what started out as a pastime to maintain Nelums occupied just after her father’s dying has come to be a vocation, for good shifting the trajectory of her daily life.