Carson Monetti, originally from Kansas City, and Xena Colby from Boston and central Maine, met as freshmen at Georgetown University. When they were juniors they transferred to Swarthmore and finished their degrees there.
Now in their early thirties, they said they always dreamed about opening a business together. Since Xena had an art background, art supplies seemed the most fun and romantic thing to sell.
Their decision to settle in St. Louis was due to the fact that Carson got to know St. Louis when he and his family would travel here on road trips from Kansas City when he was a child. He really got to know St. Louis in 2010-11 when he taught English at St. Louis University High School, as part of the Jesuit Alumni Service Corps Program. (Carson graduated from the Jesuit’s Rockhurst High School in K.C.)
“We opened our first store, South City Art Supply, on Cherokee Street with no retail or business training,” Carson said. “We knew there was a great art community in St. Louis and there was nothing like what we envisioned in an art store here. We spent the first few years making every mistake you could make.”
In August 2018, they moved to 4532 Olive Street in the Central West End, and changed the name of their business to St. Louis Art Supply.