The stories we tell are the rooms we build
Opening Note
The stories we tell are the rooms we build
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell.”
— Seth Godin
I have been sitting with that quote all month. For a long time, I thought of marketing as something separate from the art. The megaphone you pick up after the real work is done. But the longer I walk this entrepreneurial road, the more I understand that the story is the work. Every piece I paint, every newsletter I write, every conversation I have with a collector is one more chapter in a story we are building together. You are not an audience to me. You are the community this story is for. And this month, I want to pull back the curtain on what it looks like to learn that lesson in real time.
Studio Note
A new (and FREE) Canvas Size Guide
I am excited to share that I have created a free Canvas Size Guide, now available for anyone considering a commission. It came from a pattern I kept noticing: when someone approaches me about commissioning a piece, one of my first questions is always, “What size are you looking for?” And most of the time they aren’t sure.
Ironically I love that moment, because it opens the door to learn more about the person. Where will the piece live? What wall, what room, what light? How do you want the space to feel when you walk into it? The guide is designed to help you think like a curator of your own home. Invisioning the piece not just as art you own, but as part of a space you are intentionally building. If you have ever dreamed about commissioning art but didn’t know where to start, this guide is my gift to you. Start with the wall. The vision will follow.
On the Easel
The progress of “LIFE”
This month I am deep into a new mini series of paintings inspired by the Pride flag. One piece for each color and the meaning it carries: RED for life, ORANGE for healing, YELLOW for sunlight, GREEN for nature, BLUE for harmony, and PURPLE for spirit.
This series matters to me because Pride isn’t something I celebrate once a year. It is my lived experience as a Black gay man, and I want to always leave space for that authentic truth in my day-to-day life, not just in June, but in every season I exist in.
The red piece, representing and named “Life”, is already underway, inspired by the Red Dress Run in New Orleans. This beautiful event that is used to raise money for different causes in the New Orleans community. Green, representing Nature, has been started too, and I am loving the layout so far. The image features a figure turned away from the viewer, with a stylized word designed into the back of their head, a nod to barbershop art, one of the attributes of Black culture that has shaped fashion and self-expression in ways that are so uniquely us, it’s undeniable.
Growing up, going to the barbershop with my dad and my mom was a tradition, and I was always fascinated by the art the barbers would create. Stars, leopard prints, playful wordplay; these designs were masterfully buzzed into people’s hairstyles as a full expression of how they were feeling. That memory stays with me as a constant reminder that our community has always made canvases out of everything, including ourselves.
A Piece of Insight
What this series is teaching me about wholeness
Working on these pieces side by side, something clicked for me: I have spent years being told, in subtle ways, to compartmentalize and please others around me: to be Black in one room, gay in another, an artist in one space, and a businessman somewhere else entirely. Through this series I am fusing my worlds into one that looks more like the wholeness of me as an individual. These pieces are just the start, but I would love for you to follow along as I create the rest throughout the month.
Every color in this series is a piece of a whole flag, and I am learning that the same is true of me and of this business. EBC Loft is strongest when I bring all of myself into my why for this company: the culture, the joy, the tenderness, the hustle. My work exist without asking permission first. That is the insight I keep returning to at the easel: authenticity isn’t a brand strategy. It’s the raw material.
Black, Gay & Building
Edmond B Murden - Founder, EBC Loft
Marketing is the vehicle, community is the destination
Let’s talk about the lesson this phase of my entrepreneurial journey keeps teaching me: understanding marketing. Here is the truth I have had to accept. You can’t make anything happen with your business unless you are willing to tell the world what you do and how they can get to it.
For a long time, that felt uncomfortable to me, like nagging people to look at my creations. But I have come to see it differently. Marketing is literally the avenue, the vehicle, to creating your community. If the work is the gift, marketing is simply the invitation. Nobody can come to a party they never heard about.
As a Black gay man building something of my own after corporate, visibility carries extra weight. Telling my authentic story publicly is both my marketing strategy and my act of courage. They are the same intention that keeps me focused on my north star. Every time I share the work honestly, the right people find it, and the room grows.
And in that spirit, I have an announcement: I will be selling pieces on TikTok soon. Five pieces from my Why Not Human series are up for sale, and as a thank-you to this community, you can use the discount code COLLECT20 to collect one of them. This is me practicing what I just preached. Telling the world what I do, and showing you exactly how to get it.
SNEAK PEEK
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SNEAK PEEK 〰️
Collector’s Sneak Peek
Thumbnails from Colors of Understanding series, and what comes next?
Because you are in the room, you get to see this first: I am sharing the working thumbnails for the Pride flag series so you can watch how each color piece is taking shape, from first sketch to final layout.
And I can finally tell you what’s coming next month. In August I'm starting a series I affectionately call Alphabet Mafia: a watercolor illustration series built on the letters of the alphabet, with each letter paired with words and sayings that come uniquely from the Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ community. Our language is its own art form, inventive, coded, celebratory, and I want to honor it letter by letter.
Here is the working list so far: (Click Below) But this is where you come in. I want your suggestions too. What words or sayings from the culture do you think deserve a letter?DM me on socials I'd love to hear your suggestions. This series should be built by the community it celebrates.
Closing Reflection
Your why is the seed; community is the garden
If there is one thing I would tell any new entrepreneur, it is this: understanding your why is the most important thing you can learn. Your why is what gets you back to the easel when the sales are slow and the doubt is loud. It is the compass that no algorithm can replace. But the second most important thing runs right behind it. Learning how to build a community around that purpose.
A why without community is a candle in an empty room. Beautiful, but unwitnessed. Community is what turns purpose into momentum. It is the collectors who trust you with their walls, the friends who share your work, the readers who reply to a newsletter and remind you the story is landing. Your why gives the work meaning; your community gives it a home. And here is the part I am still learning: community isn’t built by shouting louder. It is built by telling the truth consistently, and letting the people who need that truth find their way to it.
So this month, I’ll leave you with this question: What is your why, and who have you invited to witness it?
I’d love to hear from you.
Keep creating. Keep innovating. Keep believing.
Thank you for being in the room.
— Edmond B. Murden
Founder, EBC Loft
