CLEVELAND, OH – While Cleveland, Ohio may be the butt of jokes and on the bottom of this or that list, when you look closely, you can see that there are good things going on. While no city is perfect, Cleveland is perhaps poised to become a powerhouse in the next decade or two.
Surrounded by “the Emerald Necklace” there is a lot of beauty in the city. This is one of the reasons that drew Crystal Chryst back to Cleveland and ended up with her running her own business.
Chryst started to think about working for herself during college while working for Procter & Gamble. She was offered a job, but it was more administrative than she wanted. She wanted to use her creativity. After her husband was deployed to Afghanistan, she ended up moving back to Cleveland.
After interviewing at several local companies, she realized that none of them interested her. She started working for her father’s pool service and rental businesses. During this time, she helped set up a pool supply store. All of the hard work allowed her to start her own business – Crystal Clear Design – without having to worry right away about making a living from it.
However, since she began, she has been branching off in many different areas.
“I would never have it any other way,” she said. “I have so much creative freedom, no restrictions, and I run things the way I want to run them.”
Originally born in Maple heights, Chryst grew up in Valley View. She attended the University of Cincinnati in 2000, spending about six years in that part of Ohio. After a brief stint at Fort Bragg in North Caroline, she returned to Cleveland in 2007.
“It looks like I’m here to stay,” she said.
When asked what she loved about Cleveland, she answered the Metroparks.
“I’m an active person and I love biking on the towpath,” she said. “I practically live down by the Canal during the warm months. I’m hoping during this next summer to start exploring some of the other reservations and maybe find a few more favorite places.
On the flip side, I love the snow, too. In Cincinnati there was very little (and 4″ – 6” is enough to shut down the city) and it’s so nice to come home to storms and lots of “the white stuff.” I love shoveling, I love driving in it, and I love bundling up inside when it’s really coming down. Bring it on!”
From sports to fairs to museums to other attractions and events, she said there is always something to do in Cleveland – even if it ends up being bowling indoors because of the weather.
In addition to running her own business, her husband and her have ten rescue kittes.
“They’ve actually found us in their own unique ways. We have a collection of misfits – we have two cats with one eye a piece, a three legged cat, a really tiny cat, a really big cat (at 16 pounds we think he has some Maine Coon in him), a cat with three teeth, and a few cats with special needs in terms of their health.”
More on the Kitties
My husband and I were actually going to get a dog back when we were dating and in our first apartment in Cincinnati. There were a bunch of stray cats around, and one abandoned her little two week old baby in the backyard of our apartment complex, and we took her in on a Saturday morning with the intention of taking her to the shelter on Monday. Well, she grew on us and we ended up keeping her (that’s Tinkerbell). After a while we wanted a friend for her since we were always at class or at work, so we went to the APL and adopted another kitten (Minnie). Then we found a stray who had been attacked by a dog and needed a home (Jazmine), so we had 3 – at that time, our limit. Then at Petsmart one weekend when I was home in Cleveland, Love-A-Stray Pet Shelter was there with a 3-legged kitten who they had wanted to adopt out with her brother, but she was left behind because of her abnormality…so of course she came home with us (Trixie).
In North Carolina I was volunteering at a shelter and a cat literally jumped on my back and wouldn’t let go, rubbing his head into mine and purring. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, so he became our 5th (Figaro). When I moved home to Cleveland, I went to the Cleveland APL with my sister to pick out her cat and came home with a fluffy calico who is sadly no longer with us (Nala). She had chronic renal failure and passed about three years after she was diagnosed. I drove to Columbus to pick up our next cat from a friend who had a leftover kitten from a litter they found that needed a home asap (Gizmo). A few months after that, I was at the Cleveland APL with my other sister picking out her new kitten and I came home with a one-eyed kitty that had been abused (Willy). Our next cat after that is also one-eyed (Peanut), and she came to us from a bad breeding situation (which was reported and investigated by the APL – they’re great). She’s a purebred Siamese cat. And our last indoor kitty was brought to me by our mailman – at 5 weeks she was out on the streets and following him around on his route, howling her little head off (that’s Callie).
Also when I moved home to Cleveland, an outdoor feral cat started hanging around our house and I started feeding him and named him Tigger – and now he’s a rumbling lap cat that lives in our outdoor porch. He’s FIV+ so he can’t come in, but he really enjoys being outside so that’s no problem. We also have Charlie and Garbage, two random strays that eat at our house every day, and Simba, a neighbor cat that lives in Tigger’s outdoor house more than his own.
As for design, she said she has always been creative. She grew up painting, drawing and making things. She was in high school when the original Toy Story came out and it was that movie that made her want to be a 3D animator.
After starting at the school at University of Cincinnati’s College of DAAP (Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning) for a Fine Arts degree, she soon switched to the Design side of the college, majoring in Digital Design. While she enjoyed 3D modeling, she felt a little limited by the specific niche.
Today, she does a lot of work with brand identity – logos, business cards, advertisements, websites – for both small businesses and individuals. In 2009, she branched off and started Clearly You Event Design, which does invitations and other pieces for weddings and other parties.
“Both sides of my business keep me equally busy,” she said, “And it’s nice to be able to mix that creativity with doing all the bookwork for my companies and our family pool service, store, and rental company. I’m super organized but also really creative, so I love that I get to do different work based on how I’m feeling that day.”
Asked what her message was for the city of Cleveland and Northern Ohio, she had this to say:
“When it comes to the people of Cleveland, I think the things I love most are the different kinds of people you find around here – there’s so much diversity – as well as their attitudes. Our citizens really make up the heart of Cleveland, rallying to support our local sports teams (no matter how bad of a season we’re having), people and animals in need, and they’re always working hard to make our city what it is.
Two things that come to mind about our local radio stations and TV personalities doing awesome things are Q104’s annual fundraiser to support the Cleveland APL and Dick Goddard’s pet adoptions (because I obviously have a pet mind, lol). There’s always something going on and some way you can get involved and help out, and I love that our local celebrities use their fame to help others.
To everyone I would like to say keep it up and continue to support each other. There’s certain things – like the Lebron James situation – that should have torn us down, but there’s so much good here. Continue to have a sense of humor, and continue to support your fellow citizens, our local celebrities and small businesses – they are what make our city unique and will continue to make Cleveland a wonderful place to live.”
