Thank you so much for following Welcome to the Cat Cafe, and I'm so happy to have you along for the ride. At this point there are over 50 of you following the project, and we're just three weeks away from launch!
If we haven't met before, I'm Lindsey, the artist, maker, and and cat enthusiast behind this project.
This is my 18-year-old orange menace Bowser, cleaning his lil beans and using my face to steady himself.
Fun fact: my art business is called Angry Gato Designs, and while the name pre-dates him, he fits the vibe perfectly. (Or, purrfectly if you're punny. I call him our meow-scot.)
Where did this project come from?
Some of you may know me from my recent Kickstarter campaign, the Ask the Cats Oracle Deck. (As of this moment I'm waiting for the oracle decks themselves to appear on my doorstep.)
That was my first crowdfunding campaign, and it went so well. It was also a ton of fun.
But I don't know if I would have done it without the encouragement of my good friend Max from Made By Max Designs.
As the Ask the Cats campaign was wrapping up, I needed a distraction. Max and I started joking around about enamel pins, and before I knew it, the Cat Cafe concept was coming to life!
Coffee shops hold a very dear place in my heart. Thinking back to the pandemic era, they were the single biggest thing about "the before times" that I missed.
Sometimes they're quiet. Sometimes there's chatter and the squeal of the espresso machine. Sometimes I go there alone, to do things by myself such as draw or read. Sometimes I go there to spend time with friends.
I've developed a special relationship with one particular coffee shop. I've sold art there, I've made friends there, and it's become a non-negotiable weekly visit.
It's no surprise that I took my sketchbook to my favorite coffee shop and started to draw. I remember wandering and looking for as many ideas as I could find.
