10/07/2026
I’m so sad about this, but I definitely understand that things have completely changed and it’s just not possible anymore. I’ve been an artist with Tangled Up In Hue for close to 15 years, I’ve helped manage the Artist Market of Eau Claire for almost a decade, and for the past year I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to manage the store.
This definitely hurts my heart, and I’m so sad for Erin, and our whole entire team.
On to the next chapter, as we have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like everything is crumbling around us. 💔
An important shop update from our owner:
This is a hard one to write. ❤️
After 18 years, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to close the Tangled Up in Hue retail storefront at the end of this year.
I definitely did not come to this decision lightly, and there isn't one single thing that got us here. It's really been an accumulation of a lot of changes in my life, our business, downtown, and honestly just the world of small business over the last few years.
Since October 2023, I have been working full time for Downtown Eau Claire, Inc., and since February 2024, I've been serving as its Executive Director. During that time, DECI has gone through a pretty major transformation of its own and has become a fully independent nonprofit organization. It's work that I really love and care deeply about, but it has also meant that my responsibilities there have grown quite a bit.
Around the same time, Jamie started stepping back from Tangled and fully stepped away in the summer of 2025 to pursue her career as a full time artist.
And, of course, downtown itself has changed a lot too. We've worked our way through major construction projects, the transition to paid parking, growing challenges surrounding our unhoused community, and an increasingly difficult economic climate for small businesses and our customers. I don't think any one of those things is THE reason we're here, but all of them together have definitely taken a toll on our sales and our ability to staff and operate the shop the way we used to.
And if you know Tangled, you know we have NEVER been afraid to pivot.
Seriously, in 18 years we have probably pivoted so many times we've spun ourselves in about 100 circles. We've changed things, tried new things, scrapped things that didn't work, tried something else, struggled, celebrated, and somehow just kept figuring it out.
That's kind of what we've always done.
But through all of those pivots, the thing I am most proud of isn't really the store itself. It's the community that somehow grew around this crazy little idea we had 18 years ago.
We've had the opportunity to work with hundreds of ridiculously talented artists and makers. We've employed some pretty amazing people. We've watched customers come in year after year, sometimes bringing their kids who eventually grew up and became customers themselves. We've hosted markets and events, supported other small businesses, made a lot of weird things, had a lot of weird ideas, and gotten to be part of downtown Eau Claire for almost two decades.
That's pretty incredible when I stop and think about it.
And personally, life just looks a lot different than it did when we started Tangled 18 years ago. My parents are getting older, my kids are somehow growing up way too fast, and my responsibilities with DECI and in the community have grown tremendously.
At some point, I had to admit to myself that I can't keep trying to do all of it.
I need to create some space. I want more time with my family. I want to be able to enjoy my kids while they're still kids. I want to spend time with my parents. And I want to be able to show up for my work and my community without constantly feeling like I'm being pulled in ten different directions.
So, while the retail storefront is closing, Tangled isn't completely going away.
We plan to continue the Artist Market of Eau Claire, keep the Tangled screen printing side of the business going, and continue selling Tangled products wholesale. There are still parts of Tangled that I really love and am not quite ready to give up.
I'm also not closing the door completely on what could happen with the shop itself. If someone out there has a creative idea, wants to breathe some new energy into it, or sees a path forward that I haven't thought of, I'm absolutely willing to have that conversation. After 18 years of Tangled, I know better than to think I can predict what the next pivot might be.
But I also know that, for me, this is the right decision right now.
We still have a few months together, and I'll share a lot more about what those months will look like as we figure everything out.
For today, I mostly just want to say thank you.
To every artist who has trusted us with your work, every person who has worked behind our counter, every customer who has bought something handmade, every person who told their friends about us, came to one of our markets, stopped in just to say hi, or supported us in any of the million little ways people have over the last 18 years, thank you.
Truly.
I don't know that I have the right words yet for what it feels like to close this chapter. Tangled has been such a huge part of my adult life, my family, my friendships, and who I am.
I'm sad, really sad. I'm a little bit relieved and I'm trying to be excited about what's next. And I'm probably going to be a little bit of a mess about it for a while.
But mostly, I'm just really, really grateful.
We built something pretty special together. ❤️
