The Agora Borealis proves its worth
Katy Larsen has a dream.
A dream to have a place in the country. The wide-open country, where people can teach and learn art, paint and draw pictures, all while soaking up God-made art. You know, like the blue sky, colorful butterflies and clean, soothing streams.
But to make that dream become reality, Larsen saw a need for something more urgent. "We needed a place to connect with artists in the community here locally, right away," Larsen explained.
"I knew from my background in architecture and cultural preservation that when a city shrinks or expands, the core stays the same, and that is your hub. Like downtown. That's why we decided to be in that space."
"That space" is The Agora Borealis, at 421 Lake Street in downtown Shreveport. The artist marketplace recently celebrated its ninth anniversary, validating Larsen's love for the arts.
"When you have all the time in the world, and nobody knows who you are, and you're not from this place – it was a lot of work to prove your worth," Larsen said. "Prove what you're saying is true. Prove that you do care, that you're passionate, and you're not going to lead (artists) astray. There are a lot of things that come up and die out quickly. I really wanted to show people that I wanted to live here and start a community here and be fully committed."
The 39-year-old Larsen, from McKinney, Texas, spent seven years at Louisiana Tech. She began studying art but earned a degree in interior design and minored in architecture, cultural resources and preservation. She played in Tech's band, where she met her husband, Keith. They moved to Shreveport in 2009 and married a year later. Katy and Keith have a daughter (Keegan), who is 10 years old.
Nervous, skeptical and excited are all emotions Larsen remembers having when she opened The Agora Borealis in 2014.
"I had never run a business before. I don't have a business degree. I only had an interior business degree, so I only knew how to run a small, interior design business, not an arts marketplace. But the passion was there."
A few years in, that passion collided with reality. "The three-to-five-year mark was the hardest financially," Larsen remembered.
"It was very draining. You're not the newest, exciting thing on the block at that point. People haven't seen you be established very long. The new and exciting part had rubbed off. That was the grittiest, hardest part – sticking with it and sticking with the community and saying I'm still here, and I'm going to continue this work. Now, I feel very much like a part of the arts community and the fabric of Shreveport."
Success can be defined in different ways. And nine years in, Larsen declares The Agora Borealis a success.
"It's unbelievably successful, in ways that aren't always monetary." Larsen said.
"Some months, you're not doing well. You're like, 'Those aren't good sales (numbers).' But there are other things that happen that warm your heart, and you go, 'We are doing such good work!' I just realized how much we're doing. In the very beginning, it was me and one or two other people. It was a very fragile system. Now, there are seven of us. We all have our own strengths and parts that we play."
As executive director of Shreveport's Downtown Development Authority, Liz Swaine meets with a lot of want-to-be business owners. Many have an idea, but not much more. However, Larsen's drive and desire helped her rise above others.
"If you're a small businessperson, you know that a gift shop is one of the most difficult places to keep open," Swaine said. "There's a lot of competition, both in-person and on-line. Gift shops have a very high failure rate. But the way she made her gift shop stand out from the crowd is that she only sells items from local and regional artists and creative crafts people. Everything you get out there is one-of-a-kind. You will never see it anywhere else. Everything you get there has a story behind it that is unique to that piece, be it furniture, a painting, jewelry, a piece of clothing."
Speaking of clothing … Several months after The Agora Borealis opened, "I had a friend ask me, 'What's not selling in your store very well, and what needs to be presented in a new way to sell it?' I said, 'Really, it's the clothes.' People don't know there is locally made and designed clothing for sale in our marketplace. She was like, 'Let's have a fashion show!' I said, OK!'"
For five years, Larsen staged "The Fashion Project," which she said was "wildly successful."
So successful it caught the attention of Gregory Kallenberg, founder and executive director of Prize Fest. In 2019, Kallenberg added "Fashion Prize" to Prize Fest's list of events.
"Selfishly, I feel incredibly lucky that Katy and I found each other through her doing the Fashion Prize through the Prize Foundation," Kallenberg said. "Our goal has always been to elevate creative entrepreneurs and to generate positive outlooks for our city, and really, to put Shreveport-Bossier into a very bright light. There just aren't a whole lot of people who do that as well as Katy."
But Kallenberg admits it took a while for him to be a true believer in Larsen. "I (did not) quite buy into it in the beginning. I was like, 'Is this for real?' You realize after working four or five years – and through a pandemic – with somebody, that somebody is as genuine and kind as Katy. It's something that I not only feel lucky to be associated with but that our city and the artists within the city, I know, must feel lucky in her presence."
Clothing isn't what typically comes to mind when you think of art. But that's one example of why Larsen suggests a change in how we typically think.
"(Clothes) are wearable art. It is things that show your character. That shows who you are visibly, and immediately, to anyone who is paying attention. We have talented people who can make beautiful things, and we forget that sometimes. We live in a very commercialistic society, where everything is very throw-away fashion. I don't really believe in that type of lifestyle. To prove the worth of designers, and prove the worth of handmade, fits right under the umbrella of the arts, and protecting the arts in the community, and managing sales for them."
Larsen's love for the arts can be traced back to her mother – the mother who "could do it all."
"Everything in her life was artistic," Larsen said. "The way she would craft a birthday cake. The way she would apply makeup. Every day had art applied in it, no matter if it was intentional or not. The people she kept in her life were artists, so we were always around a community of artists. They were creative. They were musicians and writers and painters and graphic designers. Being around those people made me want to have that community."
Which leads us back to Larsen's dream – the country space where everyone can learn and share their love of art. She says she's "working on it as we speak." But in the meantime …
"I also want to have the Traveling Agora, where we do a caravan two-week loop in different directions from where we are now. We stop every day, pop up and do a sensory of north Louisiana. I have friends all over the world who would accept a caravan of people to pop up in their business and show the food and the music and the sounds and the makes of northern Louisiana, so they can taste our food and the difference between us and them. Southern and northern Louisiana are very different, and so is southern Arkansas or Texas.
To be able to pop up and show a little bit of the Shreveport-Bossier area would be magical."
Katy Larsen. Always dreaming.
To learn more about The Agora Borealis, you may visit www.theagoraborealis.com.
In addition to offering original, one-of-a-kind pieces, she also delivers a “vibe” that customers love.
Katy Larsen and Jessica Bonnevier peruse locally sourced fashions.
Larsen would love to have a space in the country to learn and share art.
