The Genesis of Greb Gallery

Hello!

My name is Natalie Greb, and I am the founder and head artist behind Greb Gallery- an art and merchandise manufacturing business specializing in creating bespoke artwork for specialty organizations, like museums.

Now, that is a bit of a mouthful, so when I introduce myself to people I say:

“I draw stuff for museums,”

C2 Leopard Tank drawn for the Military Museums in Calgary

The natural follow up question that I get 99% of the time is:

“That is so niche! How did you get into that???”

The answer to that question is a long, convoluted story. So convoluted in fact that I am convinced it was orchestrated by God. Buckle up for 15 minutes of reading because it’s a relatively long, but interesting story, of how I started an art business.

In 2021 I started my first year of University at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. I was in the business school, and they had a rather strange structure to their academic program. I won't get into the weeds of it all- but all you need to know is that in my fourth year during the second term I needed a co-op. Just trust me here, I had little flexibility in this. The part that made this situation logistically difficult was that I, at this point in time, was golfing on the women's golf team.

Tournament in Lewiston, Idaho

The golf team had practice three times a week, starting at 2:30pm, requiring me to leave the office early, three times a week. Furthermore, we qualified for tournaments oftentimes on a Friday (I would have to take the day off for the qualifiers, but that was only the tip of the problem iceberg). The results of the qualifier would be released Saturday, and we were given our plane tickets for the tournament Sunday, for which we leave for on Monday morning. Essentially I was telling employers:

“Please hire me! I have to regularly leave the office at 2:30, and there will be weeks where I don’t show up to the office on Monday, and you will be learning that morning that I'll be away for the whole week.”

As you can see, I was not the most attractive hire.

I was on a call with my co-op coordinator and I was stressed out because I didn’t see a solution to this problem. In the midst of our brainstorming she asked me:

“Well do you have a side hustle?”

I was like.. “uhh yeah, I sell handmade stickers in the consignment store on campus. I earn $5.00 a week and I buy myself a coffee with it.”

She proceeded to inform me that there was a program at UVic called the Launch program. It accepted students from any faculty with a start up idea. If you were accepted, you could work on your start up over the course of your term and earn a co-op credit so long as you attended the required weekly lectures, competed in two pitch competitions, and showed evidence of progressing the start up.

My co-op coordinator advised me to take my side hustle and apply for the program. I needed a Hail Mary, so thats what I did.

Some of the stickers I made and sold In the campus consignment store

I gotta be honest with you- I had little hope I would get in. I had no business model, and my stickers were quite literally made by hand. I met with the lead of the program and pitched my idea (heavily emphasizing “I'm in a real bind here, please help me!”). She must have had sympathy because I was accepted!

I often wonder if they had few applicants to the program because, I kid you not, I had no plan.

Just: make stickers and sell em’.

Who knew that it would actually lead somewhere.

Due to the fact that this program only needed us to show evidence of progressing the business, I simply went out into the world pitching to people. I went to gift shops, cafes, print-on-demand platforms like red bubble- anything that I thought might work. Shockingly I was told no a lot, but that was to be expected!

I did listen though; I listened to the people telling me "no." One gift shop owner in particular provided a conversation that I will never forget. It was a hard hear, but when you're starting a business sometimes you gotta be kicked in the teeth to have a message truly land.

She told me that I shouldn't try to compete in the souvenir business. Gift shops and coffee shops don’t want what I am selling. She pointed to a wall in her store filled from top to bottom with stickers- she said, “every single one of those are supplied by the same company. They sell them for pennies of what you would be charging. You can’t compete on price, you can’t compete on the graphics, don’t even try.” Now she also told me encouraging things like: “Once you find your niche, I will be excited to see your success.” Yet standing there listening to “Don’t even try” was hard to take in.

Tough words are secretly sweet though. I knew not to waste my energy in that space- so I moved along.

Around two months in to this program I'd drawn up some float plane stickers I thought would appeal to Harbour air, a charter airline that operated out of downtown Victoria. I just so happened to be getting a tour of the De Havilland manufacturing facilities (that is a different story for another time), and next door was the British Columbia Aviation Museum. I was looking at it and I thought- I wonder if they have a gift shop. I peeked my head in through the front door and sure enough, there was. It mostly housed toys, and some niche aviation memorabilia. I walked up to the front counter and asked for their retail manager.

A very kind lady around my age came to greet me. I handed her my float plane sticker and said something along the lines of, “I make stickers, would you sell these?” Her responce; "no" ( par for the course at this point.)

But then she said something very interesting:

“If you draw the planes in our museum, then we will sell them.”

 I was cheering and fist pumping once back in my car. Not only did I land a client, but I also would get to draw super rare airplanes!

SRE-9 Stinson Reliant that I drew for the B.C. Aviation Museum

We scheduled a meeting later that week- It may have been one of the most intimidating meetings of my life. Me, the Director, Operations Manager, and Retail Coordinator were sitting in an office- all of them facing me. They asked me many questions and I watched as they would start writing down everything I said.

I remember so vividly... the night before I wrote down every answer to the questions I anticipated they would ask me. I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to answer all of their questions without hesitation. I thought about pricing, the timeline, the shipping- but they asked me a question I had not prepared for. They opened with “tell us about your brand.”

I said to myself,

“Ok free style- I got this.”

Whatever I said worked! I landed a project with them. I was SO excited and I drew three aircraft in four days (which, as the seasoned artist that I am now, I can confidently say THAT IS INSANE. I do not know how I managed to do that).

The very first Aircraft that I drew for Greb Gallery- the Hawaii Mars Water Bomber

Once I completed that project, I reached out to the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, then the Salish Sea Center, and so on and so forth.

So here I am today, making artwork of a vast array of subjects. I am still so impressed at how it all fell into place. First year Natalie would be absolutely flabbergasted that she ended up here. As a consequence of this all, I have developed a thirst for new things. Any new challenge or opportunity could lead to a future that I can’t presently imagine.

I am very excited to keep working on what I have discovered, and I am even more excited to discover things I have yet to imagine.

If you would like to follow this journey as it evolves with me, subscribe to this blog, and the Greb Gallery instagram- I will be sharing the stories to come there!

Want to work with Greb Gallery? Email: admin@grebgallery.com and follow our socials!