By Allie Kirkman
After years of working as at-home entrepreneurs, one local couple has expanded business and will open shop this week in downtown Muncie as Indiana’s only independent map store.
Ball State alumnus Andy Shears and Amy, his wife, own Muncie Map Co., a custom maps and cartography company. The grand opening of the shop, located at 111 E. Adams St., is from 5-8 p.m. Thursday.
The event will include live acoustic music from the “Beard of Rock,” in addition to food and handmade crafts for sale from other local artisans.
“It’s going to be a fun, big party,” Andy said. “This is the chance for the community to come in and check out all that we’ve done and have to offer.”
As part of First Thursday Arts Walk, the grand opening will include the launch of "The United States of Data," which introduces national coverage of the company’s Just Data map series. The show features 2,640 maps, displaying raw geographic data of the 50 states and five territories.
The maps, sold in five different sizes from $5-$95, feature greens, heights, mosaic, people, places, roads, terrains and waters.
Andy’s love for geography and cartography started at a young age. He remembers being surrounded by maps and watching his mother explore the field as a geographer.
“I've just always been around maps. Maps have always been available in front of me,” Andy said. “I even have two degrees in mapping – it’s just my thing.”
The Shearses official journey with Muncie Map Co. didn’t start until 2017 when the two had a booth at a Muncie Makers Market event, selling original maps and photography. At that point, the company was set up as an online and market-only business, operating out of the couple’s home garage.
“When I started, the idea was just basic contract projects, consulting, stuff like making maps for hire,” Andy said. “Then we went to a Makers Market and I put out some maps and people actually started buying them.”
The demand for the unique “Muncie-centric” products, including maps, shirts, stickers and magnets, quickly grew and the two decided it was time to move the business out of their old space and into a new street-side retail store.
Today, Muncie Map Co. houses more than just the Muncie Map Company – it is also home to Amy’s independent businesses Fur in Focus Pet Portraits and Amy Kay Photography Newborn Portraiture.
Fur in Focus, the first of the three businesses to get started in 2009, is a modern pet photography studio. Amy expanded the business five years later by adding Amy Kay Photography Newborn Portraiture, a professional student specializing in newborn photography.
“I was always taking pictures growing up. I remember having huge photo albums and everything,” Amy said. “In 2007, [Andy] bought me a new DSLR camera and that is when I really started experimenting and fell in love with photography.”
By moving into the downtown location, Andy said the two have “definitely taken on some more overhead,” but it has already proven to be worth it. They held a sneak-peek event in early September and the attendance and sales were high, despite pouring rain.
“Being an entrepreneur never really occurred to me. It's never something that I was, you know, chomping at the bit to do,” Andy said. “Just, in some ways, entrepreneurism is a means to an end. I get to make maps with my wife and that's kind of my goal.”
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