Reflections on my Interview

Sloan, Mikayla and I interviewed Gilbert Johnson, who founded the Chocolate Bar. I knew he moved to Houston to become an artist and that after a year he opened the Chocolate bar, but I didn't really know much else. I was really interested in why he stopped being an artist, what inspired him to come up with ideas for things to sell, and how being an artist effects how he runs his business. Mr. Johnson was a really cool person. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked at a chocolate shop in high school and fell in love with it. He opened PeterBrooke Chocolatier in Jacksonville, Florida with his friend Phyllis after high school. He didn't like Florida though, so he moved to Austin to become a painter, but ended up liking Houston better so he settled down there. He didn't really want to be a starving artist, and he missed the chocolate business so he opened The Chocolate Bar. He said that being overwhelmed by the business aspect of it, like ordering and dealing with employees and stuff like that, helps open his creative side. I thought that was really cool that he needed non creative things to do creative things. As for coming up with things to sell, he has dreams. He talked about how in his dreams he goes into someone else's store and sees something that he thinks he could make better or change so it's his own. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to figure out how he could make whatever it was he saw in his dream. That's the way he comes up with ideas for art pieces; he dreams about going to an art gallery and seeing a piece of art with his name on it. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to make that art piece. I thought this was a really interesting way to think of ideas. I've never heard of anyone doing that, so that was pretty unique.