NOCTILUCA December 2016

FEATURES Appleton, Wisconsin December 2016 Vol. XXII

Issue III

Page 5

Molter’s creativity merges art with business

By Trinity Olson

Olivia Molter, a member of DECA, was given a prompt to create a campaign to inspire and educate and talk about en- trepreneurship. Molter and her partner Garrett Ostrom created the Art of Business Campaign. “Our goal is to inspire and ed-

ucate youth about entre- preneurship t h r o u g h c r e a t i v e businesses, which we have a lot of in Apple- ton, espe- cially in the

Olivia Molter is a Junior at North.

downtown area.” As part of the project, Molt- er and Ostrom have done a speaker series. Molter says, “We’ve had a business own- er, from Heid Music actu- ally, Tom Heid the owner of Heid Music, come into one of our marketing classes and talk about what he does. We are also doing a video series, which is really exciting. I just got the okay from The Draw, The Traveling Palace, and The Fire. All creative businesses downtown that all do differ- ent things.” These businesses want to collaborate and do a video series with the duo. The videos will be posted and can be found on their recently launched website theartofbusi- nesscampaign.com. At the Career Expo in the beginning of November they had a booth set up in the com- mons. They gave out pam- phlets about what they are and resources they have that could help future entrepreneurs. Ol- ivia also created a T-shirt for By Annessa Ihde My middle school experi- ence was probably significant- ly different than most. There was no anxiety over finding my classes as there were only four classrooms to choose from. There was no rushing to my locker and sprinting back just to get to class on time because my locker was about twenty steps away at all times. There was no wor- ry over meeting new people because out of the fifty-four students in my grade, more Column: Freshman Perspective

Olivia Molter originally designed this piece for Mile of Music, but adapted it for her Art of Business campaign. The illustration is of Downtown Appleton near Copper Rock. Illustration by Olivia Molter

the campaign that she designed herself. “I drew the design my- self, it’s all hand drawn except for the website at the bottom, that’s typed. If you look at the graphic, you’ll recognize it’s “I’ve always been the creative type, and I wanted to somehow incorporate art with all the creative business in downtown Appleton.” downtown Appleton and some of the businesses that are in it. It’s something that I’m really proud of, and it took a while. It’s really exciting, to open that box and see your design on shirts being really nice, re- ally bold, and really bright.” “I wanted to do the Houdini Plaza Area because I thought that it was a pretty iconic piece of downtown, but I wanted it

to be focused on College Av- enue. The direction I ended up facing was the one with Copper Rock, where I work, and Crazy Sweet, Cleo’s and I think you can vaguely see Bold Salon in the foreground. The idea of the design was actually from something that I had de- signed for Mile of Music. Just off the top of my head, when it was the middle of the night in the summer. I was just feel- ing really inspired, so I drew this one point perspective, and it said Mile of Music down the street, in the middle. Then I just kind of adapted that idea to fit our campaign.” At the moment she is work- ing on trying to get the shirts to be sold in different shops downtown. “You can currently find them at the school store, they are only $15 a piece. I think once we really start mar- keting them, that it’s going to as eighth graders, we were kings. The idea of leaving and going to an entirely new en- vironment scared us, made us uncomfortable, but the truth is we have to be uncomfort- able in order to grow. Summer was over before I even realized it had started, and September 1st came way too fast. I had walked my classes a couple of times, but finding my classes in empty hallways proved an insuffi- cient simulation. In no way was I ready for the massive stampede of people clamoring for space known as “passing time.” In all honesty, I have not visited my locker since the first day of school, and when asked by my mother

be great.” The profits from the T-shirts go back into the cam- paign, inspiring and educating youth about entrepreneurship. Molter and Ostrom’s project has gained interest from those all around the city. The Execu- tive Director of ADI, Appleton Downtown Incorporator, plans to meet with Molter to see what plans they can come up with because she took interest in their project. Molter jumped right into the project when Ostrom asked for her help. “I really quickly real- ized that I was in over my head. It was such a huge project, it took up so much time, and so much energy. I wanted to make it something that I could really connect to and get into, I suppose. I’ve always been the creative type, and I wanted to somehow incorporate art with all the creative business in downtown Appleton. I want- I struggled to find my class- es in the maze of hallways, and longed to return to my four- classroom middle school. In fact, for the first three weeks of school, I took a left from Spanish only to watch my math classmates walking the opposite way. Let’s just say, I became skilled at the 180 degree pirouette. As far as meeting new people, I was a little overwhelmed at the amount of kids I had never even seen before and missed the closeness our eighth grade class had. However, the num- ber of people I recognized increased daily as my cross where it was located, I found that I could not provide the answer.

ed to incorporate something I was passionate about, to make the project come to life,” says Molter “It’s really crazy, especially building the website, it’s so time consuming, and even the brochures that we handed out, extremely time consuming. Lots of late nights, trying to find balance between work and the Noctiluca, and this project, and volunteering. I have a lot of stuff on my plate.” Some- how Molter makes it work saying “Lots of late nights and lots of caffeine.” For those that want to em- bark on a project of their own, Molter recommends to start early. “Start as early as you can, don’t waste time. Six months may seem like a lot of time, but trust me when you’re doing six months of work in two months, it is not a lot of time.” country teammates continu- ally reached out to me. Before coming to North, I had never had the opportunity to repre- sent my own school in sports, but being a part of the North team has made all the differ- ence. My transition from middle school to high school may have started differently than yours, but I would guess there are more similarities than dif- ferences in our stories. As freshmen, we have already conquered the physical laby- rinth of North High School and I know we will continue to navigate the intricacies of high school life. As for me, I just hope to find my locker.

Transitioning from a one hallway middle school to a labyrinth of a high school

than two-thirds had known each other for eight years. Like I said, my middle school

e x p e r i - ence was probab l y s i g n i f i - cantly dif- ferent than yours. As much as my class- mates and I liked

Annessa Ihde is a Freshman at North

to say we couldn’t wait for high school, the truth was that none of us wanted to leave the safe haven we had created within our close friendships... and close quarters. At Classi- cal, we had friends and teach- ers we knew and loved, and