The Barbara Cosgrove Story

This week, Clayton Gray Home intro­duced a handful of new items from Bar­bara Cos­grove Lamps. But the story behind the artist and designer Bar­bara Cos­grove is as com­pelling as her pieces.

At age 47, Bar­bara found her­self in a mid-​​career crisis. A sculptor by trade, when Bar­bara wasn’t working alone in an artist’s studio, she was at home raising a family. With her chil­dren grown though, the thrill was gone of heading into the studio and working alone all day. “I’ve been an artist all my life and I don’t think people realize that being an artist is really lonely. You go into the studio, work by your­self and go home in the evening. I had my family, but being a studio artist I didn’t have a lot of people around me at work. In addi­tion, she felt that at almost 50, she was more mar­ketable than an employer would per­ceive her to be.

A trip to the Atlanta Inter­na­tional Gift and Home Fur­nish­ings Market changed every­thing. Bar­bara saw first-​​hand where the artist and designer con­nects with the buyer and her cre­ative energy started flowing. With her back­ground in ceramics, Bar­bara designed and built a small col­lec­tion of clay lamps, among a few other pieces. Well, none of the clay lamps sold, but the other pieces did! You say, ‘Well, that didn’t work. I have to have another idea.’ Or, ‘That did work. Let’s build on that.’ You back up and you move for­ward. You back up and you move for­ward. You just keep trying.” Working out of her garage (do all suc­cess sto­ries start in a garage?) Bar­bara began with 3 to 5 local accounts. Today, her com­pany has about 5000 accounts.

“I was 47 when I started my busi­ness. Though I hadn’t started a busi­ness before, I had sat at the dinner table with other people who had. had all these great pro­fes­sionals that came with my age, not my expe­ri­ence… the expe­ri­ence of all the people around me – friends, neigh­bors, dinner part­ners. You learn a lot of stuff just by listening.

What’s New!

Check out Clayton Gray Home’s newest items to see some of our great new pieces from Bar­bara Cos­grove Lamps.

Our article was based on an inter­view with Bar­bara Cos­grove that was fea­tured on the women’s entre­pre­neurial web­site, www​.ladieswho​launch​.com.

Bar­bara Cos­grove Photo Credits: Brook Slezak for Country Living Mag­a­zine.