Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541330
took me around the world a lot, on some of those jobs." Aer travelling the world doing different projects and music tours, and then working for eight years in a nonunion workroom, then running that workroom, she decided, "it's time for me to go on my own." OrtMeier says, "I was really excited at the thought of hiring people and giving people jobs. For some reason it just really appealed to me to have my own space. I have a real mother hen sort of aitude about things. I like to make sure people are taken care of, that's kind of my thing." MavenCra opened in 2016 and OrtMeier says, "I had flirted around with the idea of being union for a while, but it was very expensive. For me, just starting a business, it was just more than I could handle for a while. But then I had some talks with people in the [business] office and Adam [Nestra-West] was the one who sat with me for three hours one day and just described everything it was when he was brand new as the Business Representative and so I was like, 'You know what? I'll give it a try.' And so we became union fairly shortly aer that, just making my decisions from there." Over her years of work on theatre, concert and commercial projects, she built a clientele list of designers and stylists that she has come up in this business with. "I had brought a lot of the contacts and people that I had worked with in the 20 years before that, who were now doing union projects and doing things and when they discovered that I was now a union shop, they were all very excited. People would call me out of the blue and go, 'Oh my God, you're a union shop, yay!'" One of those that followed OrtMeier to MavenCra is Costume Designer Melissa DesRosiers. "Anytime she needs something crazy or a build of any kind, she comes to me because she knows that whatever it is, we will figure it out." One of those projects was a huge project for Disney+'s "GOATs" commercial where they had to make signature Disney character costumes for around 30 real goats. "We went out to the ranch, and we took a smaering and we measured the goats. We took photographs of the goats and union shops for theatre and live- event projects. Initially, OrtMeier had been eligible to join the union while working at the bygone signatory shop and workroom, Elizabeth Courtney Costumes, but tells us that she "didn't really realize then that I was earning hours toward being union at the time, but I didn't quite realize what that was. When it came time, when they were offering me [membership], I was like, 'Oh, I could only be one thing?' I was like, 'Nah, it's not kind of my gig,' because I designed things, I built things, I did a lot of things and so, I continued on my own path doing a lot of different things. That Top: "Disney+ Has All the GOATs" 2022 Super Bowl commercial. Middle: Babylon raincoats created from pink-dyed shower curtains. 34 WINTER 2026