Westford Woman Finds Success Following Catering Dreams

The old saying goes that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gave Gail Flannery lemons, she made a catering business and helped make an institution that has become a crown jewel of Westford’s art scene.

A Westford resident, Flannery was downsized four years from a job she loved with Met Life in Boston, and leaving her at a crossroads.

“I was really struggling to find out what I wanted to be,” she said. “Did I want to return to the corporate world with all the crazy hours and commutes, or did I want to sit down and find something else to do for a living?”

The answer came from her two lifelong loves: cooking and artwork.

Flannery had been painting watercolors for over a decade and had been baking since she was a child; the new phase in her life provided a chance to expand upon those twin loves and bring them back to the community.

In October of 2009, she helped found Art on Main, the collaborative gallery that has helped provide countless local artists a chance to display their work nearby.  And while she still volunteers with local artists, she left Art on Main in May of 2010 to create Sweet Visions Patisserie a month later.

Over the past two years, she’s taken her personal networks and skills with pastries, deserts and  homemade sandwiches to another life crossroads. This time though, the decision is whether she should try to grow Sweet Visions Patisserie even further than where it is now.

Since then she’s established a niche at the Carlisle Farmers’ Market due to connections her husband has there, despite the lack of a storefront or even a website.

Once again, she finds herself at a crossroads, but this time on whether she should try and grow her business even further. Although she’s leaning toward expanding, there are still doubts on whether it’s the right move.

“When people ask me ‘do you have a website?,” I say ‘no,’ because if I get any more orders than I have, I won’t be able to handle it,” she says. “It’s really hard because (the orders) are just so elaborate and custom sometimes. If I do much more than I do, I might not enjoy it as much.”

Time will tell which route Flannery decides to take, whether it be keeping her current clientele, expanding, or crossing her fingers for another food and art related venture, like her dream of one day being on the Food Network.

But for now, she’s just happy that she’s getting a chance to live a life doing what she enjoys, and living in a town that has so many other women pursuing dreams of small catering businesses such as , and , even though she says her wide array of assortments doesn’t allow her the chance to bake cupcakes often.

“I’m thrilled with the wide assortment of places in town, the more the merrier,” she says. “I’m proud of all those women that stood up and put their spatula out, you know?”

Anyone interested in placing an order can call Flannery at  978-692-4560 or e-mail her at sweetvisions@verizon.net.