Lincoln’s Gallery is fresh and laid back
Filed Under Craft, Featured North Bank magazine stories, Vancouver | 5 Comments
By Jessica Swanson
Photo by Todd Gunderson
Last September, an art gallery Vancouver was looking for opened on West Ninth Street. Lincoln’s Gallery, born by local alternative folk band Lincoln’s Beard, is fresh and laid back. You won’t find framing or art supplies here – you may not even find the doors open, but when they are, feel free to sit on the couch, nurse a bottle of water and soak up the Renaissance aesthetic of its owners, Tyler Morgan, Kris Chrisopulos and Dwayne Spence.
Kris is an art teacher at Prairie High School, while Tyler teaches history in Camas. Dwayne is long a music promoter in the Vancouver area and an artist who has shown in other venues. In the band, Tyler plays trumpet, keys, glockenspiel, mandolin and sings; Kris plays guitar and sings; and Dwayne plays bass, banjo and sings back-up. The band has one full-length record, Our American Cousin, and will soon be releasing another.
“There aren’t too many relationships you have where you can do something like this,” said Tyler.
Tyler and Kris have no experience running a gallery and say they had no loftier intentions than creating a space where they could play, practice and hang friends’ art, as well as their own. But they are already booking months out and have shown local artists such as Reid Trevarthen, Selfless Creations, Anni Becker, Mitch Tarbutton and James Jacob. While Tyler said most of the off-the-street inquiries are about the coin shop next door, the first opening was shoulder-to-shoulder people. The band plays at each opening and uses the space primarily to practice.
Kris said the concept for the gallery came together organically, and stays together because people keep supporting them. He said it was something “I’d like to see in the place where I live.”
Artists and friends sometimes volunteer to keep open hours for the gallery – otherwise it’s open on First Fridays, other Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointment.
The gallery fronts a space leased by fellow artist Brian Ripp, owner of Divergent Clothing.
“Brian has been a great influence,” said Kris, who collaborates with him on artwork. Kris said running a gallery and working with other artists inspires him to stay in the studio.
“From the art standpoint, I have produced more art than I ever have,” said Kris. And he added, “if somebody backs out, it’s up to you to fill the wall.”
Lincoln’s Gallery
106/108 W. Ninth St., Vancouver
lincolnsgallerymail@gmail.com
Businesses support the 3/50 Project
Filed Under Clark County, Featured North Bank magazine stories | 1 Comment
By Jessica Swanson
Photos by Todd Gunderson
The 3/50 Project, launched a year ago by a Minneapolis retail consultant and former shopkeeper, has inspired thousands of businesses across the country to educate their customers on the importance of shopping locally. The reason it worked? It gives customers specific instructions and retailers simple tools.
Donna Jensen popped 3/50 Project flyers into her customers’ bags whenever they bought something at her Washougal yarn shop, It’s a Crewel World Yarn and Stitchery Shop. She printed up the flyer offered at www.the350project.net. It explains the simple concept: choose three independently owned brick-and-mortar businesses and spend $50 at them each month.
Donna, who sold her business after 24 years to Washougal resident and longtime customer Jennifer Powell in April, felt it was her job to educate her customers about how crucial it is to shop locally.
“I don’t think they have a clue,” she said. “I think they will go where they can best spend their money, and they spend $10 in gas to save a buck.”
The flyers spell out the benefits of shopping locally in black and white: “If just half the employed U.S. population spent $50 each month in independently owned businesses,” it reads, “their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue. For every $100 spent in independently owned stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home.”
Donna said her customers would come in and show her yarn they bought on the Internet, or look at her yarn and then go find a better deal online.
“They tell me they didn’t have to pay tax and all this,” she said, “but the shipping is more than the tax would be and (shopping locally would) keep the tax dollars at home.”
Jennifer is going to support local spending in new ways when she takes over the business. She will feature yarn from Clark County alpaca and sheep, and she plans to connect those learning to knit with local designers who can help them bring their visions to life for a small fee.
Becky Milner has owned a “bricks-and-mortar” business in Vancouver for 35 years, Vintage Books. She learned about The 3/50 Project from one of the booksellers associations she belongs to. She keeps the 3/50 poster in her window and makes a point of thanking customers for shopping in the store, tailoring merchandise to regulars’ taste and frequenting other independent businesses.
But Becky’s business depends on the sales that the store does online, theoretically taking money out of the communities that those online customers live in. Very early in the store’s life, when its focus was automotive manuals and classic car ephemera, Becky offered a mail order catalog. The store started selling online in 1994 and today is considering social media. Without the online traffic, her business may not exist at all.
“The extra 20 to 25 percent (in sales) are really important to us,” she said. “We carry books that our local customers wouldn’t want. It lets us carry a broader selection of books. Technology is always changing, as are the avenues for selling books.”
Wendy Kosloski’s Longview business, Teague’s Interiors, is also a supporter of The 3/50 Project. (Businesses can be listed on the project’s website as “supporters.”) The fact that materials are available make it easy, and she said “it’s nice to see a larger group of people” pushing consumers to shop in their own towns and neighborhoods.
Wendy said the fact that 2009 ended with seven new businesses in downtown Longview is “a sign of the upturn,” but that the downturn may have actually helped some independent businesses stay afloat.
“There are things about the recession, like tightening your belt and watching gas, that helped us,” she said.
Wendy also believes that online shopping has hurt physical shops, but her store is somewhat protected because it is “custom decorating with a galley and boutique,” and her services must be done in person.
Wendy is going far beyond flyers and posters to support local businesses, especially those with a creative angle. The upper floor of her building, the historic Title Building, is now the Working Art Center. Seven connected commercial spaces with access to shared common areas are for lease at $300 a month. They are being marketed to studio artists and small businesses. In the Commerce Building next door, seven studio apartments are for rent, creating a charming and historic live-work environment unique in Longview.
As Wendy sees it, “independent businesses offer knowledge and service close to home and out of the ordinary.” And she, like her indie counterparts in Southwest Washington, continue to educate their customers and support each other.
“When I go into a shop,” said Becky Milner, “I say ‘Thank you for being here. Thank you for being independent.’”
02.18.10 North Bank Spring 2010 is out Friday! Pick it up everywhere great coffee (and other fine products) are sold, and check the site for a few teaser stories in the coming week. As always, subscriptions are FREE.
Gardening for life
Filed Under Featured North Bank magazine stories, Home + Garden | Leave a Comment
Urban Farm School teaches people how to love their gardens
Submitted photo
STORY BY JESSICA SWANSON
Kendra Pearce and Toree Hiebert met in 2000. As soon as Kendra saw freshly canned foods stacked floor to ceiling in Toree’s house, she knew they were kindred spirits.
Both women moved to large acreages with their families, Toree to La Center and Kendra to Amboy and were farming and gardening for pleasure and food; pretty soon they had partnered up on a little Community Supported Agriculture operation, where they sold small shares of food they were growing. Eventually the two moved back toward the city, Toree to Vancouver and Kendra to downtown Ridgefield, where they continued to raise vegetables and ornamentals.
“We couldn’t give it up,” said Toree. “We had to do what we could in the
space we had.”
Toree worked as an elementary school teacher, while Kendra did environmental education for the Naturally Beautiful Backyards Program at Clark County.
“One day, I approached her and said ‘I had an epiphany,’” said Toree. “I was trying to find a way to bring everything together. I’m a teacher. I’m a mom who likes to grow good food for my kinds. I’m a farm girl at heart.”
Submitted photo
That epiphany is now known as Urban Farm School.
Complementing each other’s styles and interests, the two women have formed a company that capitalizes, if unintentionally, on a back-to-the-land trend among Americans that appears particularly strong in Southwest Washington. UFS offers more than 40 different hands-on workshops throughout the year, including classes on canning, extending the garden harvest, freezing and drying, different kinds of composting, basic garden design, seed saving and converting grass to food production. The classes are nearly all full in the summer and popular year round.
In addition, the women teach a series of family-oriented classes, lead local field trips and organize springtime and harvest sales and
seed exchanges.
Toree offers in-home garden consultations, mainly in the spring. She also offers ongoing tutorials, which begin with a one-hour consultation for $50 and continue weekly at $25 for a half-hour. Toree’s service bridges the gap between self-teaching and hiring a landscape designer, which can be much more costly. That said, the two are thinking about pursuing a landscape design certification for Toree to continue to add value to the company.
Kendra handles the organization’s outreach, including its website and blog, marketing and administration. For her, it is full-time work from her 100-year-old home and small urban lot in Ridgefield. In her spare time, Kendra cultivates an ever-expanding food garden and has started dabbling in ornamentals, with Toree’s encouragement.
Urban Farm School’s “GardenforLife” parties are a particularly innovative offering. GardenforLife parties are privately commissioned garden parties hosted at a home or other place of the client’s choosing. Kendra and Toree offer activities and teaching on a theme. Friends, family or colleagues are invited to learn a new skill over the space of two hours. Some party themes include Fabulous Fruits, Container Gardening, Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Preservation Basics and From Lawn to Food: Starting your Vegetable Garden. Hosts are also welcome to come up with their own ideas. Each party costs $200 for a two-hour session that includes instruction, educational materials, door prizes and a host gift, and is limited to 15 guests.
“It’s like a Pampered Chef party without all the crap,” joked Kendra. Instead, she said, it’s about learning a skill with family and friends, “and keeping it for a lifetime.”
Kendra and Toree are passionate about creating a connection between food production and consumption. Too often, they hear kids saying food “comes from the store.” But they don’t bring their politics into the classroom. Kendra said their typical student is a mom who wants to get the most out of a little garden to feed her family, someone who says, “I want to do this, but I don’t know where to start.”
“We see that often this stuff builds community,” said Toree, who watches her students sharing ideas and stories after class. Some of these casual relationships turn into friendships.
Kendra has seen it at work in her own life.
“No one (in my neighborhood) talked to me until I put in the garden,” said Kendra. “Now, I know all my neighbors.”
Urban Farm School recently began offering brown bag lunches and intends to reach out to corporations and other organizations interested in bringing these kinds of skills to their employees. Each of the women is working on building a community garden in a different part of the county, and a dream of theirs is for Urban Farm School to have its own location, with a demonstration garden, classrooms and community space.
Students often wonder where the “school” is, said Toree, “as if they picture a little old one-room schoolhouse.”
She smiles as she says it, as if she can picture it too.
CHEF PROFILE
Filed Under Devour, Featured North Bank magazine stories | 1 Comment
Aaron Baumhackl,
Solstice Wood Fire Café
story + photo By Charity Thompson
Leave it to Aaron Baumhackl to make a sausage-cherry pizza a best-seller.
As chef and co-owner of Solstice Wood Fire Café in Bingen, Aaron specializes in wood-fired pizzas with unique local toppings, such as the cafe favorite with cherries, chorizo sausage, goat cheese and rosemary.
Aaron got his start in restaurants at age 15 in California, first at a Spanish tapas restaurant and later riding the first wave of the California-style pizza trend.
“It drew me in because I like to eat and I like to create,” he said of the industry. “I like to see results fast.”
Along with that background, Solstice’s creative pizzas come from a playful approach among kitchen staff.
Solstice Wood Fire Cafe
415 W. Steuben St. (Highway 14), Bingen
www.solsticewoodfirecafe.com
509-493-4006
“In the kitchen, everybody has a voice,” he said. “We’ll come up with a dish, plate it and see what other color combinations can go in there to make it (reflect) the season.”
Aaron’s menus change with the seasons. This fall’s menu includes a pizza with local butternut squash, leeks, bacon and blue cheese. He’ll also dish up Siragusa pear salad and pizza, huckleberry crisp and huckleberry pizza with prosciutto, mascarpone and arugula.
He keeps an eye on the local farm scene with his wife and co-owner, Suzanne Wright Baumhackl.
“Literally, we’re surrounded by farms,” Aaron said. “We see a tractor go by with eggplant and say, ‘Eggplant’s in season – what should we do?’”
Solstice has two plots at Bingen’s community garden – one for its kitchen and one for the local food bank.
Its menu also includes foods less common in rural areas, such as sautéed kale and quinoa chowder.
“We’re trying to keep it simple,” he said, “and let the food speak for itself in flavor and nutrients.”
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