Indianapolis – The fairy porch party, healing with decor workshop, and antique tea party are just a few of the events hosted at an antiques and antiques store on the Far East Side of Indianapolis.
Over the past year, Celestial Arts & Antiques has hosted a variety of events in its store at the corner of 10th Street and Gibson Street.
“Based on what I’ve seen so far, and I live (and) being a resident of the Far East Side, I don’t see a lot of things going on here. We have to go like downtown, or Irvington, Fountain Square,” said Eliza Sarver, co-owner of Celestial Arts & Antiques, for WRTV, it’s until you just like it, you can watch art events and like music and things like that.
Although Celestial has shifted to a larger event space—to fill an obvious need for Far East Side designs—Sarver and her mother, Rebecca Gaines, who also owns Celestial, opened the store in 2021 with a completely different architecture.
“My grandparents were college students in Russellville, Kentucky, just outside of Bowling Green,” Gaines said.
Over the years, Gaines’ grandparents had amassed a variety of “weird, wonderful and vintage” items, she said, including several items from The Coca-Cola Company, where her grandfather worked until retirement.
Mom said, “We need to open a store so we can sell some of this stuff.” “And that’s what we did,” Gaines said.
The Celestial is full of Gaines grandfather’s Coca-Cola collector’s items, vintage dishes, and gadgets.
WRTV Photo: Shakira Harris
WRTV Photo: Shakira Harris
WRTV Photo: Shakira Harris
Sarver, a self-taught jewelry maker and longtime barista, started selling her jewelry at Celestial. Not long after, artwork from local artists began filling the walls of the shop.
Both Sarver and Gaines are passionate about art and antiques, and this passion has naturally grown into Celestial more than an artist event space for creators and creators.
“One of the good things about COVID is more creativity, more independent creativity,” Gaines said.
Sarver and Gaines host the workshop on Wednesdays where anyone from the community who is an expert in something is welcome to guide the class. The Celestial mother-daughter duo opens up to a variety of other business popups, such as fashion shows, open mics, and yoga classes.
It’s very cool,” said Gaines, a local substitute teacher. “Everyone wants to be creative and use their creative skills. That’s cool.”
Now, Sarver and Gaines are asking their community for help. After a year in business, revenue is low, they say, and they’ve paid the building’s rent and other bills out of their pocket.
“We’re learning along the way,” Gaines said. “But we’re not familiar with the business.”
Mother and daughter business owners posted a GoFundMe, asking for help in raising $10,000. They told WRTV that it would go toward paying the bills, upkeep of the building they’re renting, upkeep, and the potential expansion of a coffee shop. Gaines and Sarver say they believe the café is not only in demand in their area, but they hope it will bring more foot traffic outside of the events.
“We were thinking that the coffee shop would bring in more business, and then the building could start paying itself, instead of paying me, now I should spend the check to pay the rent here,” Gaines said.
WRTV Photo: Shakira Harris
The owners say their request for help relates to their desire to keep Celestial open to the community of the Far East Side and Indy artists who are just getting started.
“We’ve kept prices low for occasions, like $5,” Gaines said. “We don’t charge big because it’s the art world, and you know, and we’re just trying not to be too expensive or anything like that because we want people to really be interested in art and love art that they can afford art.”
Gaines says she and Sarver plan to keep Celestial for as long as possible, even if the $10,000 isn’t raised by the end of October when the store’s lease expires.
“When you don’t have the money to support her, you run off your passion,” Gaines said.
You can learn more about Celestial, located at 8601 E. 10th St. , on his Instagram page; There, you will find a link to GoFundMe and all of its events.
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WRTV Digital Reporter Shakkira Harris can be reached at shakkira.harris@wrtv.com. You can follow her on Twitter @shakkirasays.
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