What??
Shop years are like dog years. Ten years is a long time but ten shop years is forever!
As I tried to cobble together a small collection of photos to summarize our time here, I had to come up with a cohesive theme to this adventure. As I scrolled through these photos and their memories I began to notice how much of a role community events have played.
When we first looked at the space in 2013, we could feel that Stafford was on the cusp of something significant. I knew that the downtown was going to improve, and more importantly, that the artists would be moving in.
We, the shops, really had to hump it back then. For a long time we only had three shops and a coffee shop. We met regularly and tried to find ways to keep Arts on Main evolving and figure out how to attract more businesses.
I’m not a business developer so I quickly decided to try to lead by example by cleaning up my one physical property and imbue some artistic touches, and by doing so hope that other new businesses would follow suit. But I was just one addition: The current shops had already done this. Kathy’s space at Middle Ground Cafe was an art haven, well designed and artist-friendly. Lisa of Three Graces Vintage’s innate creativity was always making the street beautiful. Luis added some upscale artistic flair in his small shop and with Main Street event planning.
We stumbled along and slowly more businesses added their uniqueness to the collective. The Stafford Cidery was a major boom in general, but they also chose to do a beautiful renovation and use their walls for monthly art shows. Orchardworks added just the eclectic (and successful) flair I loved with their business and building renovation.
More and more businesses moved in, defunct spaces were turned into unique shops, and the town itself cleaned up and turned some dead space into beautiful public areas.
And slowly but surely, Downtown Stafford started to get the reputation of being an arts town. While I’d like to sit back like Dr. Evil and claim responsibility for this, I know that I was just a facilitator of something that started before me and continued to have a life of its own; I just got lucky by stepping into it and helping it as one business of many.
Last but not least, I discovered quickly that Stafford was already filled with artists behind the scenes. Getting to meet many of them and collaborating on creative projects with them has, as I look back, been my driving source of joy here.
