“The bigger dream was just to be around creatives all of the time,” quips the creative of her organic transition to founder. “I’ve always loved being around extraordinary people doing extraordinary things…. People want a plan, but I say figure out what lights up your soul first.” You’d be hard-pressed to find a conversation centering Beanum and not hear countless tales of the ever-expanding community she’s garnered, particularly for people of color.
“We met so many collectors of color that didn’t feel comfortable buying in a traditional gallery or design showroom,” she recounts of the institutional racism ingrained within these models. “Now, we, women of color, just so happen to be on the hottest block, [showcasing] our perspectives. I fight the system by being successful and sharing my process.”
Beanum’s rolodex is stacked with double-take-worthy celebrities, designers, curators, and collectors for a reason. “I’ve been underestimated a lot,” she says, regarding the box she refuses to put herself and her community in. “We have high expectations for [them],” says Sarah Mantilla Griffin, cofounder of Unrepd, an art gallery living within Pop Up Home. “A lot of our collectors can all of a sudden see themselves belonging in the art world, belonging in the design world, because they’ve found a perspective that they can relate to. They feel comfortable here and that only happens when we have a wide range of diversity of experience that’s being represented.”
Beanum, Griffin, and their team introduce something often lacking from the design world itself—a sense of ease-filled inclusion. Ironic for an industry catered to crafting a person’s most intimate space. “When people come in here, they relax,” Beanum adds. “People at the top of their game walk in and you see them start to act a little differently…. They lay out on a sofa and that’s just not something high-end design really promotes.” Quality, vision, emotion, and storytelling lie at the heart of Pop Up Home. “We just want to push artists and creatives to be great,” Griffin adds. Most importantly, it’s a place that facilitates nourishment and joy. Beanum concludes, “If that’s my only job in this world, I’ll take it.”
