Kerryn Jane

It was about making things people love—and learning how to bring them into the world.

I’ve been building and selling things for as long as I can remember.

In fourth grade, I got in trouble for reselling firecrackers I’d bought with lunch money from another kid walking to school. I even tried to upsell—lunch money, a jackknife… the entrepreneur was clearly emerging. I got busted by lunchtime and nearly missed the circus with my Nana.

By sixth grade, I was selling personalized drawings of popular characters—complete with dramatic who-loves-who plotlines.

Seventh and eighth grade brought silkscreened cards and T-shirts.

In high school, it was candy from early wholesale warehouses, discreetly sold in the girls’ bathroom between classes.

By young adulthood, I decided to go legit—selling my photography, paintings, and twig and farmhouse furniture.

All of that eventually led to opening and running a brick-and-mortar kitchen and housewares store, followed by a Handy Woman business that kept me swinging hammers and solving problems for a living.

As both a creative and an entrepreneur—and with life requiring a move every few years—I also ventured into voice acting, a business that allowed me to stay creative and take my work wherever we landed.

Now I find myself settling into what we expect to be our final move: North Carolina.

What comes next will connect all of these threads—making, selling, teaching, building, and community.

I’m excited to see where they lead.

I was born and raised in Narragansett, Rhode Island—just a walk from the beach, in a neighborhood where doors felt open and summers stretched long. It was the kind of place that teaches you early what community looks like.

I stayed local for college, aside from one glorious semester abroad in Liverpool (awwwwesommmme!), and though I started working at age twelve, I landed my first “adult job” in the same town that shaped me.

Then came the itch to fly.

What I thought would be a short road trip turned into a month-long drive across the country, ending on Route 66 and Santa Monica Boulevard—where I spotted a For Rent sign in a window and promptly changed my life. For a year, I lived upstairs from a very unexpected storefront and worked for an Emmy-winning couple.  Strange, wonderful, formative.

Eventually, life pulled me east again, and I landed in Asheville, North Carolina, where I spent eighteen years building both career and community.

After selling my kitchen and housewares store, my partner’s corporate role sent us moving—often and far.

Over the past decade I’ve called Asheville, Richmond, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and now Charlotte home—back in North Carolina, where the pace feels right.

In every town, every small business, and every new community I stepped into, I found myself becoming that friendly connector—not because I planned it, but because I love seeing people light up when they belong. 

More than once, neighbors who had lived side-by-side for years finally met through our front door, our porch, or our kitchen table.

Different places shaped me in different ways.

But the thread was always the same: people, gathering.