San Leandro's The Creative Place: building community through creativity

So at the Creative Place in San Leandro, creative meets tradition through beginner-friendly sewing classes, embroidery, crochet, and culturally inspired textile workshops. Whether someone is picking up a needle for the first time or exploring a new craft, the studio encourages everyone to learn at their own pace, embrace the process, and experience the joy of creating something with their own hands. So joining us now here in studio are the founders of this organization. We have Diana Gossett and Elise Tropper. Thank you, ladies, so much for joining us today. Thank you for having us. All right. So your organization is called The Creative Place here. What is it that you guys do? And we'll start with you. Just give us an idea, a breakdown, Elise, of what your organization is about. So at The Creative Place, we host workshops, mostly sewing, beginner sewing, intro to sewing, where we use different textiles different things from if you have no skill to whatever whatever skill you know this is something my mom's a big sewer still to this day but i didn't think this was still something that many people still did anymore so tell us a bit about why you started uh this organization oh this is a wonderful question i love telling this story is um motherhood is what started my uh journey into sewing uh 10 years ago when i became a mother for the first time. So Elisa and I are both homeschooling mothers of four kids. We each have four kids and motherhood is what inspired the sewing journey. And I've been addicted to sewing ever since. And now we want to bring it to the community of the East Bay community. And if people aren't familiar, this is your standard sewing machine. Yeah. You'll see these sewing machines at our studio. You'll become very familiar with them. And you brought in some of the items. These are some of the items that you make in your organization. Tell us a little about the creative place and what this is. This is like an apron i guess yeah so in the latin community you know about the mexican senorita apron and we do have a workshop where we are teaching how to make your own senorita apron and then we made the viral bandana tote bag here this was so much fun that's right wow yeah it's a bandana tote bag we have just a beautiful little pumpkin basket a mexican textile table runner so our studio is very much influenced by our mexican roots so i wanted to ask you so at least in an air in an error net right now where we're all staring at screens why do you think adults and kids are coming back to something more tactile like sewing it's a skill that you can literally create a business with it's a skill and it's really the community we get together we get laugh we get to we're like having fun we're kind of laughing at ourselves even as we make mistakes but then it's something you know now i go home and i'm like oh i want to i want to learn to do this and we've just seen so many people grow so your your business the creative place is a business where people can come and learn how to do these things yes and and and figure out how to make their own clothes their own you know bags even i mean this is like next level right here i mean this is maybe one thing but this is something something else are you all self-taught or did you go to school for this i know you said you got into it 10 years ago after having children at least you did Diana but is this something that you went to school to learn we are self-taught and we have learned a lot from the wisdom of the just the older generations who have been doing this for many years and then just getting connected to the the creative community where you just learn a lot from each other so the creative place you know places a strong focus on community and offers valuable instruction how does language and cultural representation play into the atmosphere and workshops that you guys both offer you ladies both offer as she said we use a lot of materials directly like from Mexico different cultural materials we also we have many of our teachers do speak Spanish yeah so we have classes solely in Spanish and then we also have them here and you know a little a little Spanglish here and there yeah but I found it interesting that this organization the the creative place you know helps to build confidence in people and and their skills Why was that important to be part of this? Oh, my gosh. It's been so special hearing parents tell us about their children, how they have opened up in their confidence. And we've had women who have told us, I came here for my mental health, and it has improved so much because I'm no longer stressing over the things of every day. People are calmed down. They're happy. They're joyful. And interesting, we mentioned a moment ago that you all teach also crocheting and embroidery. That's right. We do a couple of things that, you know, my mother also does. I used to watch her all the time. Which ones do you find more popular, or do people want to learn all of them? All of them. All of them. Sewing is number one. Sewing is number one? Yeah. And crocheting. I made the mistake of mentioning here that I've tried crocheting before, because my mom would do it and make a tablecloth, and people called me. I was just doing it because my mom, you know, did that quite a bit. We've had a lot of men come in. Do you? Yes. We had eight men. I'm telling you, it's not that crazy. We had a duffel bag workshop where we had eight men. Really? They made their own canvas duffel bag, and it was wonderful. What is kind of the most elaborate thing that you all have made that someone has asked you all to help them make? Oh, good question. Like a parka or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do that? Yes, that's right. So one of our staff members is a master level competitive cosplayer. Master level is the highest you can get in cosplay, and she is one of the instructors at our studio. So she's always happy to help anyone with a more intricate project. That is legit. That's what I'm talking about right there. And I will say, it's really cool because my mom still makes my nieces and nephews, my nieces' wedding, you know, dresses and so forth. So it is a skill that you can actually use to take with you. So we do private classes for those type of things. For those type of things. All right. If we are joined, Diana Gossett and Elise Troper from The Creative Place. Thank you both for joining us and sharing what you do. Hopefully people can get off the screens and try something with their hands. All right, Brian, we'll send it over to you. See, the crocheting thing I mentioned the other day, Brian, wasn't so bad. Not at all. Uh-oh, you're still looking at me with that smile. Come on, man. Well, listen, I mean, A, I love you, but B, who wants to see Andre in a crocheted, like, onesie? No, no, no, no. It was like a table. It was a tablecloth cover. No, I get it. It's like for a side table. I get it, but my question is still valid.