New Orleaves
800 Brooklyn Avenue // Algiers
Raven Funches loves her city and her neighborhood, as reflected in both the name and location of her business.
New Orleaves is an eclectic operation, selling pottery, plants, art and terrariums; providing on-site plant and garden installations; and offering pottery classes at its new location at 800 Brooklyn Avenue in Algiers Point.
“I love the name,” exclaimed Funches. “I am very much proud of this city, and I love plants. It felt natural, it made sense for me and for my vision of my business.”
As for the location, Funches said Algiers was a must.
“I grew up here, went to school here. It brought everything full circle.”
Funches has been making pottery for seven years, but didn’t open the teaching part of the business until around three years ago — right when COVID-19 hit. While the pandemic put an abrupt halt to in-person classes, she made it through by selling her various products and by doing plant installations and maintenance.
Now that social gatherings can proceed, the pottery classes have resumed. New Orleaves has six pottery wheels and all the necessary supplies for its students. Funches offers date nights, team-building exercises and family projects, among other opportunities. She emphasized that pottery-making is accessible to anyone.
“All you really have to do is relax and enjoy it,” she said. “People aren’t accustomed to the moving wheel, but they catch on pretty easily.”
For the plants and terrariums side of the business, Funches noted, “I like a complete micro-ecosystem,” which includes designing many of the terrariums to accommodate small reptiles. “A bio-active system is much more interesting.”
Her focus is largely on native plant species, especially in the installations she provides. These usually fall into the green infrastructure category, meaning the landscape can capture and retain more rainwater, resulting in both beautification and flood abatement.
As is the case for many small businesses, marketing is a major challenge for New Orleaves.
“I appreciate grassroots and word-of-mouth marketing,” Funches said, “but when it’s time to scale up, it does not suffice.”
To support her business’s growth, she has developed a new website and is expanding her social media presence. She invites local artists to show and sell their works in her shop, which helps draw more people through the doors.
Finally, she is working to engage other neighborhood businesses in collaborative marketing and events and engaging nearby residents in a general community-building approach. One neighbor played music at her grand opening, and she had a pre-opening event for the neighborhood before she welcomed the general public.
Funches is definitely a people person, which, combined with her love of her neighborhood, has her very excited about the future of her business.
“It’s an interdisciplinary studio, with the pottery, the plants and terrariums, and the green infrastructure,” she elaborated. “We even do candle-making sometimes. But everything ties in together, and there is nothing even remotely similar to what I’m doing in this area. I want to get whole families involved, and I want to get the whole neighborhood involved!”
