The Cheshire

Cofounder & Creative Director · 2018-2020 · Cultural Venue (Washington, DC)

A Washington, DC cultural venue I named, branded, and creatively directed end-to-end — operating at full capacity for two years across brand activations, gallery programming, retail tenancy, and an in-house production studio.

The Cheshire was a Washington, DC cultural venue I cofounded and creatively directed across 2018-2020. I authored the name, the wordmark, the environmental design, and the programming thesis, and operated the venue end-to-end across 12,000 sq ft of rugged warehouse space in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC . The venue ran four parallel programs under one roof: a rotating slate of brand activations including Kaiser Permanente and DC Startup Week , gallery exhibitions feat. emerging DC and regional artists, a long-term retail tenancy with Tribute Collective, a presence from Charix Shoes, and an in-house digital production studio.

My role was authorship, not contracting. I named and branded the venue, designed the visual identity and signage system, directed the buildout of the interior environment, and set the curatorial thesis that decided what programming the venue would and wouldn't host. On the operating side, I structured the cofounder partnership and ran client-side activations and day-to-day operations. The Cheshire only worked because the team I built was authoring identity, environment, and programming at the same time — and that's the job I held for the venue's two-year run.

The venue operated at capacity for two years, hosting 30+ gallery exhibitions, 40+ live performances and dozens of brand activations across the run. Press coverage in The Washington Post and Washington City Paper positioned The Cheshire as one of DC's most active cultural venues of the period. Charix tenancy was one of the brand's first US retail presence and has since flourished with a location in Union Market. Partnership with the warehouse owners ended when the 2020 pandemic closed nearly all in-person events.