- [Anne] Some days it just feels like, hopeless, you know, where you feel absolutely stuck.

And then some days, you know, you realize people have been supportive, the sun's out, you can kind of take it slowly.

(slow guitar music) Hi, I'm Anne Harrill and I am the owner of Oceanne jewelry.

Oceanne is a handmade jewelry brand.

We also expanded to apparel a couple years ago.

Everything is made in our studio.

We also have a little store front in Gordon Square.

Well, we closed, the store (laughs).

Most of our shows were canceled.

Our shows is kinda like a big part of our business.

Thank goodness in February we decided to invest in our website, so we redesigned it.

And so we've been able to use social media, we post daily, and we share a bit of story.

And people have been very supportive like our online sales have been very steady.

And definitely been keeping us going.

And we're gonna try to work on maybe having kits available.

We're gonna try to see if people are interested, you know like, buy one and give one to a friend who is far.

And you can kind of make it together on Zoom, you know (laughs).

We still connect with people virtually, and that helps tons, you know.

We actually were one of the few that... we got a loan.

It's a loan that we can use to pay, to do payrolls and pay for utilities, so we are trying to figure out the best way to do it.

And we feel so lucky that we did not expect it.

And that's huge for us.

There's going to be so much criteria to reopen, so that's definitely very scary.

How do we do this well?

Will people, you know, shop the way they used to?

We don't know that.

People have been really supportive of small businesses.

So I really hope that when things get back to, I don't wanna say normal cause I don't know if we'll ever (laughs) be back to normal.

But you know, when things reopen slowly, like I wanna say people will definitely be, you know, supportive and aware of us small businesses, and hopefully keep shopping small.

It can seem like jewelry is like a luxury, you know.

But our thinking is like, you know, arts and creativity is what keeps people going.

That's how we express ourselves.

And so we still wanted to like, offer that to people.

You know, we all need that.

We need each other, we need creativity and arts.

And that's how we all express ourselves.

We're really lucky to, you know, the support and where we are at.

Everyday, we will keep on going, you know?

(soft guitar music)