TODAY’S QUESTION: WHAT does it take to transform a grungy car-repair garage into an art studio?
a. 30 gallons of paint.
b. 10 gallons of Dawn detergent.
c. Three months of work.
d. Vision.
The answer is all of the above, plus a pressure washer, hot water and blisters.
But it was “d” that opened the door to four women who saw a way to take their artistic efforts off the kitchen table and onto a higher plane.
“We had the vision, the trust, that it would fall into place,” said Lisa Leporati.
Leporati is a fiber artist who joined Abi Crecca, Becca Lupton and Guenn Johnsen-Gentry to lease the empty cinder-block building at the top of the hill on Hastings Avenue at Holcomb Street.
Together, they have turned it into the hand work studio, where they ply their art.
“We all have this need, this desire to make things with our hands,” Lupton said. “Even the studio space is the product of our hands.”
Working at home
But the women were working out of their homes, usually on the family’s kitchen table, until last August.
Leporati and Crecca live in the neighborhood and frequently walked or drove by the empty building, which is in a residential area.
“We would get dreamy over this raw industrial space,” Leporati said.
The auto-repair garage was owned for decades by Al Choate — one of his business signs is still on the wall — and more recently was an auto detailing business.
But the building had stood empty for about a year, Leporati said.
Then one day, she rounded up the kids and announced they were going for a walk.
Their destination: the empty garage, where she wrote down the phone number of the owner posted on the door.
LiLi-Mei Raiguel, an investor and entrepreneur who owns the Joy Luck Restaurant in Port Hadlock, was supportive of the idea of using the space for an art studio. The city also approved of the artists’ proposal.
“It was less intrusive for the neighborhood than other proposals,” Leporati said.
Then the real work began. Everything left in the garage — old oil drums, pieces of metal, parts of wood stoves — was coated with dust and grease.
And not only was the floor covered in grease, but the grease also went halfway up the walls.
“We’re pretty sure nobody had cleaned before — ever,” Crecca said.
The new occupants kept one stove to heat the sitting area and the garage’s chain lift because they liked the way it looked and thought it had possibilities.
Then they trolled the Waste Not Want secondhand store for materials and furnishings.
Creative use
Now, work tables line the wall. A cubbyhole cabinet holds yarn and fleece. A cable spool was turned into a felting table. Circular cardboard bins turned on their sides hold fabric scraps, dubbed the creative reuse center.
“Eventually, we’ll have things hanging from the rafters,” Lupton said.
The do-it-yourself makeover was a natural for the artists, who describe themselves as thrifters and gatherers.
Leporati takes used wool clothing and felts it to create toys and play mats.
Lupton, who has a background in textile design, makes felted children’s clothes.
Crecca, who learned to sew creatively from her mother, does alterations, custom sewing and home decor.
All are into “slow clothing,” part of the cultural movement to do things by hand.
“We are now moving back towards that aspect of our tradition,” Johnsen-Gentry said.
Johnsen-Gentry has a background in fiber arts, clothing and costuming and has taught classes on fiber and textile history at a museum in Columbus, Ga.
On arts council
She was a member of the Shasta County Arts Council in Redding, Calif.
A former resident of Port Townsend, she moved back to be a partner in the studio because she liked the social aspect of the cooperative, she said.
Lupton had a home studio but said that moving out of the house and into the studio with other artists was a way of validating her artistic efforts.
“It’s going the extra step,” she said.
The artists now have the studio organized, have recruited two studio mates, including print and letter-press artist Sarah Fields, and are starting to schedule classes.
Leporati plans to teach needle felting and wet felting.
Crecca is offering a class for intermediate sewers, with pajamas as the project.
Johnsen-Gentry plans to teach classes on traditional methods of working with fibers, printing and dyeing, which may include a class on Shibori, the Japanese method of tie-dyeing.
The studio founders are also developing a list of artists interested in renting the space and teaching classes for children and adults.
“We want this to become an art center for Port Townsend where people can come and explore material,” Leporati said.
Leporati said that when the four artists told people about creating the studio, they heard that other people had seen the space and had ideas for it — a writers’ co-operative, a place to fix surfboards, a motorcycle-repair shop.
A lot of people said they inquired about it, Leporati said, but none of the other ideas stuck.
“You had to follow through,” Leporati said. “We started out saying, ‘This is happening.’”
In addition to art teachers, the studio owners are looking for people who make hand-made items to be part of their Winter Bazaar, scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 10, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the studio.
They also offer themed birthday parties for children at the studio, with the package including invitations, cake, refreshments and an art project that the guests create and take home.
For more information, phone 360-531-2897 or visit www.handworkstudiopt.blogspot.com.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.
