Telling Women's Lives

Community Entrepreneur/Activist Profile

Profile on Chelsea Tart

by Lauren Raveret

What if the secret to baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie was not baking it at all? Chelsea Tart, owner, founder, and baker of Tart Sweets bakery in Winston-Salem made dreams come true this March when she opened her bakery’s newest feature: an edible raw cookie dough bar.

Now on Friday afternoons and for six hours on Saturday, Tart Sweets features its Dolci Dough cookie dough bar—a selection of cookie dough flavors made with pasteurized egg and heat-treated flour to ensure safe consumption. Until now, the West End’s popular bakery and café was best known for its French macarons.

“It was the best decision we’ve made here,” Tart said. “If you don’t like raw cookie dough there’s something wrong with you.”

With her homemade edible dough, Tart, 26, is again showing a keen sense for the latest trends. She got the idea for her first hit—French macarons—from the T.V. show Gossip Girl. “I was watching Gossip Girl one night, and Blair had macarons—Chuck had given them to her,” Tart said. “I was like I’m going to learn how to make those.”

After selling baked goods out of her house for three years while attending UNC Greensboro, Tart initially opened her first commercial space on Hawthorne Road before moving to her current location on West 5^th Street. For her, it’s a dream spot for her bakery: an old historic home to make her own.

In addition to moving downtown, Tart also brought her mother, Lynn Tart, into the business as a 50% owner. Tart’s mother is the reason she discovered her passion for baking.

“I started baking profusely when I was in high school when my mom was diagnosed with cancer,” Tart sad. “It was very therapeutic.”

Tart’s decision to expand with her mother was not difficult. “She was just always there.” Tart said. “She’s able to pick up the pieces when something shatters.”

And shatter it did, when Tart came home after her first year of studying pharmaceutical engineering at Virginia Tech “screaming and kicking and crying” because she hated it so much.

Tart ended up registering late for business classes at Forsyth Tech because those were the only classes available—and to her surprise, loved them. She later transferred to UNCG and earned a degree in entrepreneurship.

Tart opened her first Tart Sweets location about eight months after graduating. “The hardest part was convincing somebody that I was worth the risk at 22,” Tart said.

But Tart has no problem with taking risks. In fact, moving Tart Sweets to its current location was the biggest risk she has ever taken. “I can’t tell you how many people told me not to do it,” Tart said. “People tell me I’m crazy because I don’t get scared.”

Now, even with her considerable success, she is still often dismissed. A lot of the judgment, she says, has to do with her small physical size. “It’s not uncommon for me to work at the counter and people to stand here and have whole conversations with me about the owner,” Tart said. “And I’m thinking I am the owner!”

“People don’t expect to find someone 25, 26, 27 running this company—and running it successfully,” Tart said. “The look on people’s faces when I introduce myself most of the time is priceless.”

Tart often finds herself doing business with people who do not expect her to know what she’s talking about. “It’s just a matter of standing up for yourself and knowing what you’re talking about,” Tart said. “Because if someone asks you a question and you can give them an educated response back quickly, their whole perception may change in that 30 seconds.”

One of Tart’s strategies to success is framing failures as learning experiences. “I was raised under the theory that the only time you fail is if you don’t do it at all.”

Not only does Tart live by this mindset, but she teaches it to her employees as well. “I’ve had a few spills,” Tart Sweets barista Hunter Beck said about some mishaps in the kitchen. “She just tells me that it’s a learning experience—trial and error. She always boosts my confidence.”

Tart’s positive outlook has been a force in her personal life as well as her business life. When Tart Sweets opened its new location, Tart started to butt heads with one of her new baristas. “I snapped,” Tart said. “I mean total mental breakdown. Ended up being diagnosed bipolar II.”

Tart was formally diagnosed in early 2016, but it took time for her doctors to find the right medication.

“If I didn’t have a mom I wouldn’t even be in business anymore because I spent from June to October crying in the corner,” Tart said. By early this year, she is finally feeling like herself again.

Tart’s condition is no secret, especially to her employees. In fact, one of the earliest conversations Tart had with her employee, Alexine Carr, was about her bipolar disorder.

“She called me into the kitchen one day to let me know that because of her bipolar disorder there are certain days when she might not be acting like herself,” Carr said. “She made the comment, which is kind of funny, ‘If I ever snap at you please just look at me and tell me to stop.’ So it’s pretty cool to know she’s open about it.”

Despite her experience, Tart does not regret anything. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve learned so much about myself.”

Along with the new diagnosis has come a new cause for Tart. “The stigmas have to go,” Tart said. “Anybody can be anything they want to. Nobody should be put in a box. Look at me. I mean I’m running a business—and successfully—and I’m bipolar. It can be done.”

And she wants to do more. “One day, I would like to figure out how to advocate for mental health” Tart said.

It looks like she already has.

Unfinished Business Reader Response

One issue in the book, Unfinished Business that came up in the eighth chapter, “Change the Way You Talk” that is subtle but significant is how the small, structural cues of our language can have large implications on how women and men are viewed. For example, before reading this book, I thought Miss and Ms. were the same but spelled differently. I never even thought about how the way women are addressed—”Mrs.” vs. “Miss”—solely depends on whether or not she is married, whereas men are just called “Mr.” either way. Now, from reading the book, I know that “Ms.” and “Miss” have an important distinction because “Ms.” addresses a woman as herself, not in relation to her marital status. As Slaughter points out, this difference may seem trivial, but it has an impact, on how we interact with people of different genders.

Slaughter also talks about her law professors who deliberately changed gender messages by using the pronoun “she” when mentioning a judge, doctor, or engineer. This year, I have also noticed my professors switching off between “he” and “she” when talking about examples. My philosophy professor last semester switched off between “she” and “he” both in examples of general people or in examples of philosophers. It felt weird to hear a philosopher described as “she” because all of the philosophers we studied (except for one) were male. Similarly, my art history class last semester, which covered Western Art from the Stone Age to the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the U.S., mentioned a total 2-3 female artists (I know there were more than that! We didn’t even cover the big ones like Georgia O’Keefe or Frida Kahlo). Switching off between “he” and “she” when talking about hypothetical examples of professionals is a step in the right direction, but I think professors do need to work on covering more actual real-life women from their field in class so that women have more than hypothetical female artists and philosophers to look up to.

Farmer Jane Reader Response

When reading Farmer Jane, I was intrigued by Severine Von Tscharner Fleming’s life’s work. I was initially compelled because of her reputation of always riding around a foldable bike, but later became fascinated by her passion to create the rhetoric of sustainable agriculture and use it to drive governmental legislation to support farming, Her documentary, The Greenhorns about young farmers connects well with what we are doing in this class because she is giving farmers, people who are usually marginalized and dismissed, a voice. Severine is using film to raise awareness about farming and provide insight into the passions of young people in hopes to encourage more young viewers to support and participate in farming. I thought this was an effective strategy to keep sustainable farming alive because many young people do not get exposed to farming and might not know what it’s all about or why it’s important. Getting today’s youth involved in farming is crucial for the future of our society, and Severine is shedding light to and amplifying the young farmer’s movement that is happening.

I also found Severine’s insight on the work of women in agriculture interesting. She emphasizes the importance of women’s work on farming because of their collaboration skills and non-competitive and non-chauvinistic tendencies. According to Severine, “women take on responsibility and non-glamorous things in ways that boys do not.” Severine uses her experience with her college campus farm as a testament to this and says that she would do the nitty-gritty yet necessary details while the males would take on infrastructure building. Men are typically seen as the ones who are willing to “get their hands dirty,” but in Severine’s experience with farming, it’s actually the women. I am not exactly sure why this would be, but it gives insight into the sustainable farming industry’s reliance on resilient, hard-working women, who may be extremely impactful, but only from behind the scenes.

Lauren and Andrew

1. Most readers considered the article “In Praise and Brevity” as biased.
2. Tickets this year were slightly more expensive than last.
3. Productivity is essential for all of her semesters, especially her first.
4. Most indoor areas on campus are crowded on rainy days.
5. The opening scene of the film is crucial to our understanding of Gollum’s two opposing personalities.
6. Marcel’s Cafe is mediocre amongst the wide variety of French Restaurants in Seattle.
7. Due to the anxiety brought on by exams, students tend to cram more words into sentences in hopes of impressing professors.

Reader Response 3/20

In the article, “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?,” Eileen Pollack describes the ways in which women are discouraged from pursuing careers in math and science, despite their intellectual abilities. It is amazing how society’s perceptions of you based on your gender can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, as shown by the results from the University of Michigan study. When reading the section of the article about Handelsman’s research on mentoring, I could not help but think of my mother and her interaction with her advisor in college. During the end of her college career, my mother was considering going on to law school. When my mother discussed her potential plans to become a lawyer with her advisor, instead of talking about my mother’s academic abilities, her advisor started asking her about her relationship with her boyfriend at the time (my father). After concluding that my mom was probably going to get married, my mother’s advisor said to her, “Do me a favor and don’t go to law school.” I cannot imagine that this was the only interaction that discouraged my mom from pursuing graduate school, and I always wonder whether or not she regrets never becoming a lawyer. As her daughter, I know first hand that no one has a chance of winning in an argument with her, and her passion for government never went away—she is now extremely involved in our town’s local government. Even still, whenever I’m having trouble with my academic path, my mom always recommends seeing my advisor, which goes to show how much faith is put into people who are supposed to be mentors. Listening to your advisors, teachers, and mentors seems like the logical thing to do, and students like my mother value those opinions, so gender-biases in mentoring can be very impactful. This is probably why the McKinsey Centered Leadership Project found that so many successful female leaders had sponsors. Having a positive mentor can be just as helpful as having a negative mentor can be hurtful. Handelsman is right to describe her research on mentoring “devastating,” because there are so many talented women who have the all the capabilities, but never get that extra push, or even sometimes, like my mother, get an extra knock-down instead.

Lauren Raveret: Local Entrepreneur Profile

I will be interviewing Chelsea Tart, who co-founded Tart Sweets bakery in 2013.

New York Times Profile: Hanne Gaby Odiele

Hanne Gaby Odiele is a Belgian model known for her work with various high-profile fashion-industry clients and an intersex activist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/fashion/hanne-gaby-odiele-model-intersex-activist.html?action=click&contentCollection=books&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article&version=spotlight&rref=collection%2Fspotlight%2Feditors-picks

WFU student profile

Person I am going to interview: Barrett Redmond

Barrett Redmond co-founded Dinner with 7 Strangers at Wake Forest, which is an initiative to make Wake Forest’s campus more inclusive by inviting 7 members of the Wake Forest community who are “strangers” to one another to have a dinner together.