Gilbert Shop Owner Creates Lasting Friendships with Customers

When you first walk into the Creative Hands Studio, one can not help but be cautious of the shelves stacked ceiling high with rows of unpainted ceramics. However, customers would be mistaken to think that Creative Hands is a “don’t touch” type of place.

Opened in 2005 by Da Nell Willis and her husband, Creative Hands has become a Mecca of creativity for children who have been put out by educational cutbacks of art programs in schools. To Willis art is meant to be messy and not perfect in any way, “When you’re an artist, you just have to let it go,” said Willis.

The passion Willis has for art cannot outshine her love for her customers, and that love has turned Creative Hands into just more than an art studio. Willis gets to know her customers on such a personal level that coming to the studio is just as emotionally healing as it is a creative outlet. On any given day, Willis can be overheard discussing life problems with her regular customers in a sort of “art therapy” that would be hard to come by with any other studio, “My customers tell me, ‘Da Nell, I don’t need to go see a therapist. I just come paint with you!” said Willis laughing.

It could be easily argued that it is the caring nature of Willis that keeps her customers coming back time after time.

Nancy Adams first came to see Willis by fluke when she was trying to find a fun activity to do with her granddaughters. Three years later Adams still comes to see Willis and receive her artistic therapy, “I can be a wreck from my job, and I come here and it all goes away,” Said Adams, “She has a habit of making you feel good…that’s what keeps you coming back.”

The business side of Creative Hands comes second to the creative artistic experience to Willis. She loves to see parents come in with their children and spend an afternoon over art and conversation, “It’s not about how your piece turns out, it’s about the time that you get to spend with your kids… if that’s what I give people, then I feel pretty good about it,” said Willis.

Spending an afternoon at Creative Hands, it is next to impossible to not be affected by Willis and her caring bubbly personality. You cannot help but leave feeling refreshed and energized.  

A customer known only as “Mrs. Y”, who fled Russia 30 years ago, summed up how Willis instantly attracts you with her personality best when she described how she and her husband became loyal customers at Creative Hands, “We found [them] on the internet, drove here, she smiled and everything was decided.”

For more information on Creative Hands and De Nell Willis visit the Creative Hands website at, http://www.creativehandsstudio.com/.

Guest article contributed by Heidi McLarty
Journalism Student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

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