Anna Gaseitsiwe, owner of the new business The Makery, is responsible for creating joy via her original art that is on display from the front lawn of her family’s Commonwealth Avenue home in St. Anthony Park.

Anna’s current yard installation consists of 10, three-foot tall pinwheel wildflowers made of steel scraps from a previous Galleria installation.

“I do it to bring a little unexpected joy to my street and to my across the street neighbors at the St. Anthony Park Home,” Gaseitsiwe said of the nearby nursing home.

One neighbor has lovingly created a new word inspired by Anna’s work: “yart,” the combination of yard and art. Gaseitsiwe’s yart changes seasonally and is created with the environment in mind as she only uses scrap material in her pieces.

“Anna’s front yard provides such an amazing artistic flare to the community!” neighbor Sarah Langford said.

Gaseitsiwe, who describes herself as a “maker/artist,” recently has begun tending new artistic seeds at her freshly opened Milton Square studio, The Makery, (www.themakery.space) in the former Lady Elegant’s Tea Room.

The Makery is home to Gaseitsiwe’s original works that are on sale along with custom orders and it’s also home to a venue for private events and workshops.

Inside The Makery are laser-cut wooden light fixtures, small “take-and-make” wooden kits to assemble at home, handmade wooden bags, jewelry, murals, a corner just for kids and the “dining room-esque” space for a variety of creative workshops for adults, teenagers and children.

Gaseitsiwe plans to host many of The Makery’s workshops.

“I want the workshops to feel sophisticated and elevated,” she said. “So I’m calling them ‘curated DIY experiences.’”

Gaseitsiwe said she spends hours researching, modifying and testing ideas to make the finished projects sophisticated and accessible. The Makery boasts a large list of specialized power tools to facilitate people’s working on DIY projects.

“I’m trying to hit this niche of people, between crafters—who are generally seen as feminine—and makers—who are usually assumed to be masculine because they are comfortable with tools and wood,” Gaseitsiwe said.

“There’s this space in between them that needs to be filled. And that’s the niche I’m trying to get to. Because that’s me! I’m that person in the middle and I want to introduce these two kinds of people to each other.”

Originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Gaseitsiwe and her family of four moved from Washington, D.C., and her previous criminal justice career in anti-money-laundering, to St. Anthony Park in 2017 to be closer to her brother and his family.

Until opening The Makery at the end of July, Gaseitsiwe worked as a maker/artist in the Twin Cities since 2019 with Studios Moss, a Twin Cities design studio owned by women that provides installations, backdrops and murals.

Always on the search for places to bring ideas to life, Gaseitsiwe said, “I’m always looking around the neighborhood to spot where a good mural could go or to see if other neighbors would be interested in yard art.”

Sarah CR Clark lives in St. Anthony Park and is a regular freelance writer for the Bugle.

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