It’s First Friday in downtown Phoenix. Thousands of people mill around Roosevelt Street, wandering in and out of galleries, browsing street vendor booths and tossing spare change into musicians’ instrument cases.
A couple blocks south on the southwest corner of McKinley and Fourth streets, people wander through a small corner complex of galleries and businesses. They move from a letterpress shop to a skate store to a floral wholesaler, each space painted a different bright color with murals on the outside walls and art hanging on the inside.
The area known as South of Roosevelt, or SoRo, stands out like a rainbow amid a sea of apartment complexes and empty lots. It’s set apart from the main First Friday festivities, but that hasn’t stopped its business owners and patrons from cultivating a thriving community of their own. Some of the current businesses have been there for nearly three years, while others just moved in a few months ago. Although it has hosted a number of small businesses over the years, the current SoRo tenants are: Brush Party, 720 Gallery, Goings Galleria, Hazel & Violet Letterpress, Seven13sk8, French Cock Boutique and Oddities, Gallery:SUHU and Standard and Specialty Floral Wholesale.
But by the end of this year, all of them will be gone. The shops will be torn down and there will be no more art on the walls. The SoRo lot was sold to a Scottsdale developer to build a new apartment complex.
The owners of the eight stores on SoRo learned at March’s First Friday that they would have to leave their buildings by the beginning of next year, said Anthony Sobrino, owner of art class shop Brush Party.
“Once you’ve been at a place for a little while, it’s hard to leave a spot that you thought you would be at for a while,” Sobrino said.
Scottsdale’s Tilton Development Company and Seattle’s Goodman Real Estate created a joint venture to build the apartments, according to a statement from Tilton Development Company. GRE Fourth and McKinley LLC, owned by Goodman Real Estate chairman John Goodman, purchased the lot from previous owners and Scottsdale residents Jerome and Anita Gutkin for $1.835 million, according to the statement.
The 1959 SoRo buildings will be razed for a multifamily complex with 108 apartments and 10 live/work spaces to make an “upscale, gated community” targeted at professionals in the medical field, especially people who work or study at the Translational Genomics Institute, known as TGEN; the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Phoenix; and the currently under construction University of Arizona Cancer Center, according to the statement.
Construction for the four-story structure, which will be above a two-floor parking garage, will begin in the first quarter of 2015 and will likely finish in a year, according to the statement. The total development is estimated to cost $18 million.
Tilton’s Development Associate Shannon Copeland said in an email, “On behalf of GRE Fourth and McKinley LLC, the owner of the proposed project, ‘We are extremely enthusiastic about developing this urban upscale project in downtown Phoenix.'”
Sobrino described the new development as bittersweet.
“Any time you have to move, it’s terrible news at first, but it’s kind of refreshing to get a new start,” Sobrino said.
Sobrino said he found a new location for Brush Party on the east side of Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street and moved out of the SoRo building in May, earlier than the rest of the businesses.
He said the new location is bigger, which lets him offer programs he was unable to have at the SoRo location due to space limitations.
Sobrino said he understands the creation of the new apartment complex because he thinks changes are coming to downtown.
“For me, looking at it in the long run, the more people coming downtown is going to be better for the businesses downtown,” Sobrino said.
Kristine Brambilla, owner of skate shop Seven13sk8, posted a sign on her window expressing frustration with the new development.
“You are standing at an historical spot for the art community,” the letter read. “Before this was SoRo, it was home to Anti_space and a hot spot for many artists to start their careers, and many art-related small businesses.”
In the letter, Brambilla said artists created the community. She said she opened the skate shop in a bad economy and was able to grow with the support of the community.
“It’s obviously a loss for the arts community,” said Greg Esser, Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation board vice president. “We are obviously optimistic and hopeful that some of those businesses will be able to remain.”
Because of a zoning decision made in the 1980s, Esser said there was nowhere else for this type of development to go downtown. Downtown Phoenix is located in the Infill Development District and Esser said the developers for this project would not have been able to build on an empty lot.
Esser said he is hopeful the new residents will patronize or contribute to the arts community.
“People who choose to live downtown are choosing to live in an urban setting,” Esser said.
The people gathered around SoRo at May’s First Friday art walk expressed mixed feelings about the development.
Don Robbins, a 54-year-old Chandler resident, said he came to almost every First Friday and many of the Third Fridays last year.
“You have to have that (development) in order to jump-start the marketplace,” Robbins said. “On the other hand, I’m sad about it. (We) are out here talking about art and we are going to lose that. If you don’t have this, you don’t have a venue for real artists to emerge.”
Tempe resident Jaxinta Schaffer, 41, said she comes to First Friday regularly.
“It feels like there’s a lot of apartment complexes coming up already,” she said. “One more…”
Downtown Phoenix has approximately 1,200 units under construction or in predevelopment with the upcoming complexes The Cooper, Art Haus and Union, according to the city of Phoenix Community and Economic Development Department.
In 2004, the City Council included in the Downtown Strategic Plan a goal to add 10,000 units in the next decade. From 2005-2013, 2,600 new residential units have come to downtown, according to the Community and Economic Development Department.
“I feel like if we have too many apartment complexes, we’ll lose the neighborhood feel of First Fridays,” Schaffer said.
Most of the SoRo businesses will stay open until the end of the year in some capacity. Some are just functioning as gallery spaces while others are in the process of searching for a new location or moving into their new homes. These are their stories.
Hazel & Violet
Video by Courtney Pedroza
Nancy Hill and Beverly Wolfe first met in the food services industry. They never intended to own a letterpress business.
“We were going to just buy a table-top press, but instead we went on Craigslist and found someone selling an entire print shop,” Hill said.
In Wolfe’s garage in Ahwatukee, the two inadvertently created Hazel & Violet, a letterpress printing studio located in SoRo. When Wolfe moved from Ahwatukee to Virginia in 2012, the business was moved into its present location. Formerly an art gallery similar to the 720 Gallery, also owned by Hill, Hazel & Violet allowed Hill to continue working with designers, event planners and artists to print commercial business cards, wedding invitations, stationery, greeting cards and coasters.
“She’s the epitome of why having a local small business is so great,” said Sara Matlin, marketing and events coordinator for Frances, a vintage-modern boutique located on Central Avenue and Camelback Road that sells products from Hazel & Violet.
“She knows her craft,” Matlin said. “She shares that little bit of knowledge with you. You can go through the process one-on-one with her.”
Hill, who studied philosophy at the University of Arizona, moved back to Arizona from California in 1994 after being relocated by her employer. She met Wolfe working 60 hours a week for Compass Group, an international food service and support service company. When they realized they were both interested in typography and paper, Hill and Wolfe began working with the printing presses they bought off of Craigslist on nights and weekends in Wolfe’s garage.
Hill said that managing the letterpress business is incomparable to her past career. Relieved of stress, financial burdens and two husbands, she said that the artistic community, including her shop, challenges the “white bread” commercial culture and brand of downtown Phoenix.
Hazel & Violet Letterpress from Downtown Devil on Vimeo.
“Everything’s new and everything’s clean and that’s good,” Hill said. “It’s not that I’m complaining, (but) Phoenix makes you very lazy because it’s so easy to live here. Anything in Phoenix that’s not a national brand adds to the culture.”
Hazel & Violet, named after Wolfe’s great aunts, offers private workshops to show the history and process of letterpress work. Hill said that the workshops are meant to create a memorable experience rather than a surplus of information about letter type. Participants typically leave with 12 cards or stationery with envelopes and five posters or 20 coasters.
“Nancy is very entertaining,” said Julie Hampton, a teacher at Arizona School for the Arts who participated in a workshop last fall. “The classes are really small so you get lots of hands-on attention.”
Hill is an advocate of art, Hampton said. And as a contributor to the downtown community, Hill began to work with some of Hampton’s students. “Off the Beaten Path,” by Arizona School for the Arts seniors Madison Ward, Rob Wallace and Matthew Baratz, is a collection of designs from nine local artists, including Ward’s parents and several other artists from Eye Lounge, that were printed at Hazel & Violet.
“We are trying to get students out into the community and working on projects connected to different businesses and nonprofits,” Hampton said.
Growing up with two parents who are also artists, Ward saw this as the opportunity to showcase her love for both the downtown community and art. Joined by Wallace and Baratz, Ward was introduced by Hampton to Hill.
“It’s really fun getting to work with (Hill),” Ward said. “She has a pretty dry sense of humor. She’s also very clear and understanding. So, it’s actually really easy to learn from her and have fun while doing it.”
More than six months later, the collection was displayed at 720 Gallery during the May First Friday.
However, there are currently no openings at Hazel & Violet for printing as Hill begins to pack her papers into plastic bags and inks into cardboard boxes. Due to the impending demolition of SoRo, Hill began moving Hazel & Violet to a new, larger studio on Grand Avenue at the beginning of April. And although Hazel & Violet officially moved from SoRo on April 14, Hill plans on utilizing the space as an art gallery once again until the building is torn down.
“(SoRo) had a lot of unique shops that really couldn’t get a spot on Roosevelt Row directly,” Hazel & Violet intern Ashley Longo said. “I think tearing down that building just to build more apartments takes away from the potential of bringing in different kinds of people (downtown).”
Longo, a graphic design major at ASU, has been interning at Hazel & Violet since November 2013. After watching a video about the letterpress in a graphic design class, Longo decided to enroll in a workshop. Learning that Hill was alone in the shop, Longo offered to help.
“I find it to be really sociable,” Longo said. “She is basically my personality, so, it’s nice to work with someone that is casual but professional at the same time.”
Hazel & Violet will be relocated to Grand Avenue within the Bragg’s Pie Factory building — a move that Hill has mixed feelings about.
“I’m a little ambivalent about the whole thing,” Hill said. “I know everyone gets up in arms that it’s going to be more apartments and all that. There needs to be room for independent business owners, absolutely. But, there also has to be housing downtown or we’re never going to hit that density we need to hit to support those businesses.”
Liam Murtagh, the owner of Bragg’s Factory Diner, said that the addition of Hazel & Violet adds to the eclectic feel of the area.
“I think it’s awesome,” Murtagh said. “It’s one more thing that keeps Grand Avenue buzzing. Every time you turn around there’s something else popping up on Grand.”
720 Gallery
Nestled comfortably in a little, aqua-colored space within SoRo is the young 720 Gallery — a simple and elegant space dedicated to presenting contemporary local art.
“Having another art gallery around can never hurt and I love supporting the community in this way,” owner Nancy Hill said.
720 Gallery is curated by Hill and Mike Oleskow, the former vice president and president, respectively, of Artlink. The two got involved in the community through Artlink, which led to a friendship between them bonded by a genuine passion for the arts.
In the two months it has been open, the gallery has already displayed the work of two different local artists and is currently working with students from Arizona School for the Arts, which is located downtown. Together, Hill and Oleskow hope to use their collaboration to add to the thriving art scene in downtown Phoenix while maintaining an emphasis on helping local artists.
The two are looking for contemporary pieces and artists that have not necessarily had the chance to have their work displayed before. They also want the space to be approachable and affordable.
“It’s supposed to be less of an exhibition and more of a gallery,” Oleskow said. “It’s a win-win for art showing there and Nancy as a gallery owner.”
Hill, an aficionado of local art, yearned for the chance to open up her own gallery again in order to continue to support the arts in downtown Phoenix. When the small space in SoRo became available in February, she took advantage of the opportunity to open a gallery.
She also owns Hazel & Violet, a letterpress shop two doors down from 720 Gallery in SoRo. When Hill only had one printing press, she used that space as a gallery. But as her business expanded and she added more presses, she ran out of room for the art.
Although not an artist herself, Hill said she owns a lot of different pieces and greatly admires the local art scene, which she describes as “very contemporary and real.”
“I’ve always been a collector and the thought was that maybe this would keep me from buying (more art),” Hill said. “That hasn’t proven to be really true, but let’s hope.”
As soon as Hill found out the space was available and could be turned into a gallery, Oleskow jumped at the opportunity to help. Hill wanted to open the gallery on a tight schedule, which Oleskow was originally wary of, but they did open it in time. Oleskow previously owned a gallery and had connections in the art community, which proved helpful in recruiting artists, including the first artist whose work they displayed, Susan Osborne.
“I was really happy when they called me, I was proud of being the first,” Osborne said. “I think they did a great deal with the space. They are really helpful and supportive and want to help locally. There aren’t a lot of people like that anymore.”
Osborne’s paintings encompassed the contemporary theme that the gallery strives for, with vibrant colors and abstract shapes hung neatly on the walls. The pieces ranged from $100 to $800, which Oleskow said are the affordable kind of prices that he was looking for in the space.
Matthew Baratz, a senior at Arizona School for the Arts, curated the May exhibit with a few fellow students. The exhibit, titled “Off the Beaten Path,” displayed iconic images of Phoenix through the eyes of local artists. The artists taking part included Angela Cazel Jahn, Ann Morton, Constance McBride, Ella Delmonico, Frances McMahon Ward, Lee Davis, Lexie Bowers, Nathan Ward and Olivia Timmons.
“I believe that Nancy has done an amazing job transforming the space,” Baratz said. “Gallery 720 will most definitely serve as a melting pot of many different styles of modern and classic art throughout the coming years.”
But serving as a melting pot may have to happen elsewhere in the near future. In anticipation of SoRo being sold in October, Hill said she plans to relocate her business to Grand Avenue.
Oleskow said that the selling of the property seems like another attack at a space that has been really important to the downtown arts scene and is frustrated with what he believes is the further gentrification of Phoenix.
Until then, Gallery 720 hopes to thrive with its upcoming events and displays.
“It’s a fun little area that now will have to find another home,” Oleskow said. “A cool space like that that’s affordable is getting harder and harder to find in downtown.”
If Hill does move to Grand Avenue and wants to continue with another gallery, Oleskow said he would be happy to continue helping out.
“It may be a bit of a challenge, but I’ve activated other spaces on Grand,” he said. “I’m up for anything like that.”
Brush Party
Video by Courtney Pedroza
Paintbrush in hand, Anthony Sobrino stands in the corner of his single-room business, Brush Party, filling an empty canvas with streaks of teal. Four lines of students seated at easels around yellow, paint-splattered tables watch him, copying his movements on their own canvases, chatting and giggling.
He turns to the tablet behind him, hits a button and the pop-rock band Maroon 5 rings out from speakers at the back of the room. Sobrino, who is 33, wanders the room, giving advice, watching the progress his students make, guiding them.
“Keep going,” he tells one girl who’s worried she’s done something wrong. “We’re, like, at the beginning. … I’ll let you know when it’s time to freak out.”
Sobrino cracks jokes constantly. He’s trying to make the students feel comfortable so they’re relaxed and have fun. But ceaseless humor is more than simple business practice, it’s deeply engrained in Sobrino — you can tell from the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles and laughs.
At the end of the class, the room is full of noise. The students rove from painting to painting. They crack jokes back and forth with Sobrino. They line up in front of the back wall under the name of the business, hold up their paintings and grin while Sobrino takes a photo with his phone.
During this class, the students painted flowers in a vase. Donna Hill painted red and pink tulips on a pink background.
Brush Party from Downtown Devil on Vimeo.
“I didn’t intend on keeping my painting,” she said. “I was going to pawn it off on someone. But now I’m probably going to take it home.”
She thought Sobrino was friendly and funny — “(He was) actually helpful without actually trying to be helpful.”
This room will be empty soon. Come May 1, Sobrino will pack up and move his business out of the complex of small businesses known as SoRo, which is on the chopping block in the face of a new development.
Sobrino started Brush Party in its brilliant yellow building in November 2012 to teach painting classes. Now, two other instructors teach there as well and the classes are regular and frequent, generally taking place on Fridays and Saturdays.
Everything came together quickly. Sobrino decided he wanted a space to teach classes. He brought it up to his friend Daniela Baca, who owns S&S; Floral on Fourth and McKinley streets. She had a space she no longer wanted in the same complex and she offered it to Sobrino. Three days later, he had moved in and started his business.
“He is one of the most driven, positive (people I know), just with an entrepreneurial spirit. … He’s just been nonstop,” Baca said. “I think he’s going to become really, really big. I hope he remembers me.”
Sobrino is a rare mix of marketing acumen and artistic passion. He took business classes at the University of Phoenix and went into the marketing industry as a business developer for a marketing firm. When he left, he started his own marketing company — a website to generate leads, or develop an interested customer base for businesses — which he quickly sold.
“When I was working in a corporate environment, and I said, ‘You know what? Tomorrow, I want to go deep-sea fishing,’ — you can’t just do that,” he said. “(But now) I could go do that. Realistically. Have my instructor teach a class, and I’m in San Diego, out fishing.”
Sobrino knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. Painting allowed him to find the fun and spontaneity he’d been searching for, and his business knowledge gave him the ability to do something not many artists know how to do: market his skills well. Before Brush Party, Sobrino live-painted events and weddings.
Sobrino’s attitude during classes is instrumental to his marketing. For him, everything is about the customers. It’s about making the environment inviting and engaging so customers will enjoy what they do and want to return.
“It doesn’t matter how good of an artist I am if I can’t get them to be motivated and have fun doing it,” he said. “I don’t have one boss or a couple of bosses. I have a lot of bosses, but the difference is my bosses are the customers.”
Sobrino was born in the Philippines, where he lived with his grandmother until he was 9 years old.
His mother and stepfather lived in Arizona because his stepfather was in the Air Force, but Sobrino stayed in the Philippines as a child because of the difficult legal process he would have to go through to live in the United States.
The first parts of Sobrino’s life in the Philippines were in a rural area where people lived in poverty and food was scarce. There was no electricity. The area was 30 to 40 years behind the rest of the world in its development, Sobrino said.
There, Sobrino lived next door to a replica painter, who created his own paints by adding oils to stone, bark and eggshells. Watching his neighbor paint was one of his biggest inspirations to start making art later in life, Sobrino said.
The early years of his life help Sobrino keep himself in perspective, reminding himself when little things seem bad that he came from nothing and has no reason to complain.
“It makes you appreciate every little thing,” he said. “It’s easier to persevere through things if what you had before is way worse than what you have now. Anything that gets really thrown at me now isn’t ever going to be as difficult as it was growing up.”
On May 1, Sobrino moved into a new space on Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street. He’s leaving the name and hoping, too, for the same yellow branding, though he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull it off in such a prominent spot. He doesn’t feel sentimental leaving his petite building, he said, which to him was more of a “trial run.”
“It was like I got in a boat expecting to go on a long journey, and I basically built my ship along the way,” Sobrino said. “Now I’m basically going on a different journey with a much bigger, nicer, all-built boat that I don’t have to worry about sinking.”
If anything, Sobrino said, he’ll miss the other tenants of SoRo.
“I’ve gotten pretty close with some of the people that are here,” Sobrino said. “We share a common area, and the place that I’m going to be, I’m not going to be doing that.”
Sobrino and Baca even had each other’s keys in case they needed something, Baca said.
There are those who are glad Brush Party’s SoRo location is going. Dave Wiggs and Yvette Ponte live in Skyline Lofts, directly south of Brush Party. The bright-yellow building stands out against the mix of palm trees and downtown apartments in the view north from their window.
To Ponte and Wiggs, the building is an eyesore, one they’ve spent many nights fantasizing about getting rid of. Even though an apartment building or taller development could also ruin their view, Wiggs doesn’t mind.
“Brush Party’s like the bane of my existence,” Wiggs said. “My perspective is I’ll just move if there’s anything that affects my side. Right now, I would welcome anything that knocks down Brush Party. Legally.”
Sobrino dismissed Wiggs’ concerns, adding that it would be a while before developers got around to tearing down the highlighter-yellow building.
“I might leave him a little note when I leave,” Sobrino said. “Hi Dave. Or bye Dave.”
While Sobrino is disappointed he has to move, he feels that more development will help downtown. He looks forward to the more prominent location, which is directly off the light rail. He plans to start teaching kids’ classes in the new space, too — he didn’t want to teach them in SoRo because students had to go through the back alley to get to the bathroom.
Most important to him is putting down roots in the arts district downtown.
“In the end, (SoRo) wasn’t a forever fit for me,” Sobrino said. “The next space that I’m going to be at is going to be longer lease terms … down the road, people will know that Brush Party is here, has always been here, in the art district.”
French Cock Boutique and Oddities
The French Cock Boutique and Oddities stands empty after being open for only a little over two months.
Inside the store are a dusty room and a barren shelf. A mess of cables and a set of remote controls sit on the floor of the shop that once did business between Gallery:SUHU and skate shop Seven13sk8. And though on occasion a light flickers on and a door opens in the back, the room remains unchanged and the entrance soundly locked.
In the wake of the news that the lot had been purchased, French Cock owner Jon Sorenson packed up and did not return. The store became the first business in SoRo to close as a result of the sale.
The Downtown Devil reached out to Sorenson for comment on several occasions but he did not respond in time for publication.
Letterpress shop Hazel & Violet’s owner Nancy Hill said she barely interacted with Sorenson, even when French Cock was in operation. The store didn’t keep very regular hours, as far as she knew.
“I didn’t even know his name was Jon,” she said.
Kristine Brambilla of Seven13sk8 echoed Hill’s sentiment about Sorenson.
“He wasn’t there very long and I don’t know much about him and he wasn’t ever there when I was here,” she said. “Occasionally, he’d drive his van up, he’d get out and unload his things.”
“Just a businessperson,” she said. “I think he mostly did the fair they do down there during the weekends. He did a lot of that and then he did this in addition to that. When he came in, he was supposed to keep regular business hours and he didn’t, so that was one of the disappointments of that.”
According to Hill, Sorenson left in the middle of February after opening on the first Friday of December 2013. The store’s Twitter account stopped tweeting on Feb. 11, more than three months ago, meaning that French Cock has been closed longer than it was open.
But even if he left French Cock behind, Sorenson never departed the Valley. In fact, he’s a regular at the Phoenix Public Market on the weekends, where he sells flower arrangements from his company Jon Sorenson Designs. Although he hasn’t been there recently, Sorenson has been a committed market attendee for years.
Sorenson has been creating floral art for decades, and Jon Sorenson Designs provides event decoration services for weddings and corporate parties. According to the company’s website, Sorenson has styled events at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Wrigley Mansion, as well as more personal occasions.
The company operates from Sorenson’s Mesa home under the name Las Flores, a trade name registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Neither French Cock nor Jon Sorenson Designs have corporate- or trade-name listings with the commission, as far as the agency’s online database is concerned.
But as the dust settles in the store and the building faces demolition, the empty shop stands as a reminder of the fleeting nature of many small businesses. Perhaps the fate of this odd boutique is a sign that for many local ventures, the cock crows too soon.
Goings Galleria
Michelle Goings doesn’t believe a person can truly not have a creative bone in their body. She doesn’t believe people can only use the left side of their brain. And she certainly doesn’t believe people can function without some sort of creativity in their life.
Goings knows firsthand that even people with a “corporate” mentality draw from their creativity in their everyday lives, whether they realize it or not.
“People cannot live and function without drawing from your creative side,” Goings said.
Goings is the co-owner of Goings Galleria, a small art gallery in SoRo that she owns with her daughter, Monica Goings.
A claims manager for The Hartford, Goings has long had a passion for art, even working as a model in the 1970s and minoring in clothing and textiles while at ASU. She has called the Valley home since 1976 and considers herself an advocate for the revitalization of downtown Phoenix. She previously served on the board of Artlink and is involved in the downtown arts community.
Goings Galleria came to its current SoRo location about two years ago after being located inside Garfield Galleria near McDowell Road and Third Avenue. Goings said she chose to relocate to SoRo because it offered more foot traffic and exposure.
The gallery has established itself in the SoRo area as open to both up-and-coming and established artists. Goings said she tries to make the gallery available to local minority artists, with February, March and part of April being focused on black history.
As a commissioner for the city of Phoenix’s Office of Arts and Culture, Goings said the gallery is committed to promoting and preserving art in Phoenix, something she calls “the city’s biggest secret.”
“There’s so much art and culture in the Valley and people don’t know about it,” Goings said.
While the gallery currently only displays visual art, Goings said she is looking into having space available for the performing arts when she relocates at the end of the year.
Michelle Goings may be the primary visionary behind Goings Galleria, but she said running the gallery would not be possible without her co-owner and daughter, Monica Goings. She works as a scientific researcher, with experience specifically in autism research. Monica Goings has been heavily involved with the gallery since its inception in 2008.
Monica Goings described Goings Galleria as a place of diversity, where the art reflects the diverse backgrounds and stories of the artists.
“If you take a look around, every piece is different, but they all tell a story,” Monica Goings said. “And a story can relate to a specific person even though you may not understand it. I think it grasps every different walk of life.”
The gallery was first opened at Garfield Galleria because Michelle Goings saw there was not adequate representation of African-American artists’ work in the galleries in Phoenix. Goings, who herself is an African-American artist, wanted a space to display her own work, as well.
“A lot of the artwork that I saw, I just felt that it was missing another dimension of the kind of work that I like,” Goings said. “And also I just did not see a lot of African-American artists’ work being exhibited, and I know there’s a lot in the city, so I just wanted to also have space for that as well.”
While other galleries do display work by minority artists, Goings said Goings Galleria and the Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center’s Galeria 147 are the only ones she knows of with a focus on promoting minority artists.
The gallery’s commitment to diversity and availability to artists is reflected in the frequent rotations of art displayed in the gallery. Michelle Goings puts out calls for artists approximately three times a year, primarily through Artlink, Roosevelt Row and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Kristopher Rhymes, a contemporary artist who has had his work displayed at the gallery, also voiced his support for the gallery’s focus on diversity and inclusiveness of artists.
“I think for those who are artists and they’re trying to get their names out there here in Arizona, that’s a great place to start or even continue,” Rhymes said. “Because she’s open to ideas and she welcomes talent to showcase themselves.”
Rhymes has had multiple pieces of art using chocolate syrup as the medium displayed at Goings.
Other artists have also taken note of Goings’ efforts to promote the work of minority artists in the downtown arts scene. Earle Cooke, an artist who has had his work displayed at the gallery since January, said the gallery is not something Goings does for the money.
“She just does it to help minority artists to get ahead,” Cooke said. “She has a job, she’s not trying to make a living out of it and I don’t know how far she’s going with it, but she does it for the art.”
Michelle Goings described SoRo as similar to Roosevelt Row, but also said the gallery displays a variety of artwork at many different price points. She said SoRo tends to attract a more mature consumer interested in art.
When Goings was looking to move deeper downtown from Garfield Galleria, she found Roosevelt Street to be too busy and crowded on first and third Fridays, the only days Goings Galleria is open. Instead, Goings chose to open the gallery in SoRo, where it would still be a part of Roosevelt Row but not directly in the midst of the First and Third Friday traffic.
“I wanted to be able to tap in to the popularity of Roosevelt, but I did not want to be on Roosevelt,” Goings said.
Goings said she plans on keeping the gallery in downtown Phoenix when the SoRo buildings are demolished at the end of the year. She doesn’t have a new space chosen yet, but she is looking and has a few months to make her decision.
She also said that while Phoenix has a growing arts scene, it cannot continue to thrive without the necessary funding and she would like to see the greater Phoenix community be involved in the development of downtown.
“Arts and culture reflect the population. It’s the soul of the people, a reflection of the times,” Goings said. “The only way we know about other civilizations is through their arts and culture that was left behind. People have to know that we’ve been here.”
The primary reason why the arts and culture in Phoenix is not receiving the attention it deserves is because the Office of Arts and Culture lacks the funding necessary to spread the word about arts in the city, Goings said.
“People think it’s one of those things that are frivolous,” Goings said.
Still, Goings Galleria is striving to draw attention to downtown Phoenix’s arts scene and promote diversity in art, Goings said.
S&S; Floral
The verdant valleys of Ecuador are blanketed in flowers — yellow-eyed asters, indigo and white delphiniums, and rainbows of velvety roses. The flowers are nurtured by Ecuador’s perpetual summertime weather, a balmy 75 degrees year-round.
Daniela Baca was also nurtured on these tropical hillsides. While she was born in California, her family returned to Ecuador after her father graduated from Woodbury University when she was 3 months old. She spent her childhood surrounded by life. Her family owned a rose farm and dozens of animals, including seven dogs, a cow and a handful of ducks and chickens.
Even though flowers surrounded her first 17 years in Ecuador, Baca learned to love them after creating Standard and Specialty Floral Wholesale, known as S&S; Floral, on SoRo two years ago. The store sells flowers by the hundreds to people for rites of passage ó weddings, graduation parties, even funerals. Now 33 years old, Baca is as bright and energetic as the goods she sells.
S&S; Floral is the largest business on SoRo in terms of physical space, sprawling out over nearly half of the complex. The exterior brick walls are painted gray and red, with green tendrils twisting around the windows and doors. Wrapping around the side of the building is a mural, painted by Angel Diaz, of Baca’s smiling face set against a sea of colorful flowers.
It isn’t her first foray into business. Baca owned a marketing and promotion company specifically for the Hispanic community for eight years and then a furniture store for three.
“It’s a rush, it’s like a high that you can’t get enough of,” Baca said of starting up a business.
Baca had just sold her furniture business when she noticed the available space on SoRo during a morning run. She saw the “For Lease” sign in the window and walked right in.
S&S; Floral was smaller when it started. It was the fourth business on the block, joining the now closed Punkouture as well as Hazel & Violet and Seven13sk8. Baca originally planned for the business to be artsier. She held classes and sold only roses. But as the business became successful enough to adopt a wholesale model and sell to weddings, funerals and nurseries, Baca followed.
While Baca at first felt guilty that S&S; would no longer fit into the artsier culture of the street, the other owners at SoRo offered only encouragement as the business grew.
“Everybody’s so cool here!” Baca said, delighted.
With the support of her neighbors, Baca let the reins loose. S&S; expanded to three times its original size within a year.
Baca found her love for flowers through the people she sold them to. The passion people have for flowers made her realize how so many others take them for granted. Whether it’s artists looking to craft the perfect arrangement or a wide-eyed child at a farmer’s market, Baca is amazed.
“What I like the most about flowers is to see how people are so passionate about it — I love to look at them,” she said. “That’s really what I love most about everything, to see people love something so much.”
While Baca thinks everyone at SoRo is “so cool,” she has a special relationship with Anthony Sobrino of Brush Party. Sobrino used to make art for weddings, and he met Baca at a wedding industry meet and greet in the summer of 2013. The two hit it off right away.
“I call her the ‘I know somebody’ girl, because if you need anything, she knows somebody,” Sobrino said.
The space Brush Party occupies on SoRo was owned by Baca. Before S&S; Floral went wholesale, she would sell flowers from the shop. Afterward, she sold Ecuadorian pottery and goods. But she was growing increasingly busier with her flower business. When Sobrino expressed interest in opening Brush Party, Baca immediately volunteered her space. Sobrino tried out a few painting parties, and it was a hit.
Baca’s generosity extended after Sobrino acquired the space. The first few weeks Sobrino was constantly borrowing things, even an “Open” sign for Brush Party. His business and S&S; Floral use the same storage space and the two have keys to each other’s businesses. Sobrino and Baca have complete trust in each other.
“It’s sort of her best trait and her downfall: She’s super generous,” Sobrino said.
Baca is adamant that her team is her biggest accomplishment. She is endlessly proud of the joy they take in their work together. The fun they have in the office and the trust they have in each other was always a goal of hers.
“I always wanted to create a business where people wanted to be at,” she said.
You enter S&S; Floral through two heavy steel doors at the back of the building. Inside, the business is a series of boxy rooms brightened by natural light coming through floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s one room with a row of short cubicles for the sales team, another filled with long steel tables and yards of ribbon for preparing outgoing flowers, and an office for Baca.
Besides a cardboard box filled with tiny potted succulents and a few buckets of bright yellow sunflowers in the prep room, most of the flowers reside in S&S;’s cooler. The room is kept at a humid 30 degrees and filled with a dozen rows of flowers. Some are dedicated to specific breeds such as roses or tulips, while others are specifically for events such as weddings or funerals. Walking into the cooler, the smell is intense, but not in the same overwhelming, stuffy way as a perfume aisle at a department store. It’s natural and refreshing.
Flowers are a tough business. The business has to work around their short life and strict needs. The stress is the only part of the job Baca doesn’t enjoy.
Even though flowers depend on warm weather to blossom, they need cold to survive out of the soil and in stores like S&S; Floral. If the room creeps above 30 degrees, some of the blooms can be recovered. But if the temperature dips below and the flowers freeze, everything is lost.
Flowers demand early hours. S&S;’s stock is delivered at 3:00 a.m. and the first sales members of Baca’s tight-knit team arrive by 5:30. The business buys from farms in Miami as well as California and Ecuador, and they have to work hours to match with the East Coast time difference.
Kim Bahorich has to wake up at her home in Surprise at 3 a.m. — when the flowers arrive — to get ready for work at S&S; Floral. She pulls her blond hair up in a ponytail, perches her glasses on her head and gets to downtown by the time the Miami farms come calling.
She’s been at the SoRo business since June 2013, but has been working with flowers for 10 years. Bahorich didn’t think she would end up in this career: She was a Chicago bartender for years and remains a self-described tomboy. Like Baca, she has since fallen in love with flowers.
The 50-year-old Bahorich loves working with flowers. She loves interacting with customers. She teaches Baca about flowers, and Baca teaches her about business. Working with the team at S&S; Floral is one of her greatest accomplishments.
“This is where I want to retire from,” she said.
Baca first came to the United States when she was 17 for a short stint at college. After a brief attempt at ASU, she returned to Ecuador. Even though she had started learning English before leaving Ecuador, the language barrier was still too difficult. She completed her education in her home country through the University of San Francisco. Baca studied accounting, but school was never her passion.
“I just wanted college to be over,” she admitted. Baca just wanted to start her own business.
Flowers are a big deal in Ecuador. At least in the case of Baca’s family, a natural knack for entrepreneurship may be another Ecuadorian specialty. Baca is just one of the business lovers in her family: Her grandfather, father and younger brother all run their own companies in Ecuador.
“You’re born with that. I think you’re born an entrepreneur,” she said. “I grew up around it, that’s my passion. I love it so much, and I don’t imagine myself without that.”
Her brother runs a series of insurance firms similar to H&R; Block. Her grandfather has owned everything from a liquor factory to a silk company to a car dealership. Even though he’s 86 years old and carries an oxygen tank wherever he goes, he still goes to work every day.
“He always says, ‘I wish I have more life, so I could do more business!'” Baca said.
Baca’s mother, Margarita, also helps with S&S;’s international accounts, but for most of her life she was a teacher. Baca describes her as a “four-by-four person” — someone who is always talented at whatever she attempts. Whenever she visits Baca in Phoenix, her mom always ends up with more friends than Baca has.
Baca’s 60-year-old father owns multiple car dealerships in Ecuador and pieces of S&S; Floral, serving as their CEO. He’s her finance and accounting whiz. Baca takes all of his money advice in complete confidence, saying he has never been wrong. His advice has guided her better than any education would have, she said.
“It probably would’ve cost me a million dollars to learn somewhere else,” Baca said.
When Baca first learned that SoRo was purchased and would close, she was distressed. Even though she had heard from the corner’s landowner that negotiations were moving forward, she never believed the deal would close. She never believed that S&S; Floral would close.
“We kind of built this,” she said, looking toward the coolers, the doors, everything she and her team had done to make the building their own. “We were so a part of this.”
After letting the news sink in, Baca asked herself, “Okay, what are we going to do next?” S&S; Floral is taking advantage of the free rent until November offered to the businesses while she hunts for a different location. She hopes to stay in downtown Phoenix.
Baca said she’s excited to move to a bigger space — it fits the growing S&S; Floral. The entire team has been swept up in a positive energy in the past few weeks. They’re all looking to get to the next level.
“It’s been exciting, too, because we’re moving to a new place. Everything’s going to be new!” Baca smiled briefly, her voice falling.
“It’s going to be great,” she said, hands sitting quietly in her lap. Her voice cracked.
Baca is always the last person to leave the shop at the end of the day, even outlasting her cleaning lady. With the lights dimmed and the sun setting, the brightest source of light comes from her computer screen, the fluorescent glow bouncing off her face. She ends her day the same way every afternoon: calling her dad. Baca and her dad speak in Spanish about business and life. She jumps from quiet, serious tones to bouts of laughter.
The time difference from Phoenix to Ecuador is only two hours, even though they are more than 3,000 miles apart. Baca tries to visit twice a year. The side of her desk is covered in photos printed off her frequently updated Instagram feed. Most of them depict her family: her 1-year-old nephew looking up at the camera, Baca crouching down to talk to her grandfather, two of Baca’s dogs snuggling with her, a beaming family portrait from her last visit.
“If I have ever accomplished anything, it is because of him,” she said.
“He always tells me, ‘Do stuff with your heart, and you can achieve anything you want.'”
Gallery: SUHU
Gallery:SUHU, owned by Valley resident Su Humphrey, was an art gallery featuring folk art of pet animals. The gallery displayed the work of artists such as John Campbell and Tony Di Angelis, as well as Humphrey’s own art.
The Downtown Devil attempted to reach Humphrey for comment multiple times for this piece, but she did not respond in time for publication. According to her neighbors on SoRo, Humphrey has been absent from the gallery space for several months.
Humphrey makes her artwork using the drawing application MS Paint and a graphics tablet.
The paintings are based on photo portraits of animals, and the paintings have a photorealistic style filtered through sharply contrasted colors. While Humphrey’s art is simple, there is something affecting to be found for animal lovers in her pop art-style approach.
Humphrey has also done art in the style of Southwestern American and Mexican folk art. In addition to art, Humphrey works as an animal energy healer, according to her website.
Gallery:SUHU, open on First Fridays, attracted visitors with its bright colors and warm atmosphere. The venue was pet-friendly.
Seven 13sk8
Wearing a pair of black roller-derby skates, Kristine Brambilla rolls along outside of her store to explain the different images painted on its front wall.
This is one of the most detailed and colorful walls in all of the stores in downtown Phoenix. Brambilla, 38, painted it all.
She has also painted two other storefronts in the SoRo corridor: the Hazel & Violet letterpress shop and the Sewing Lounge building adjacent to her own store, roller-skating shop Seven13sk8.
Each building adds a different spice to SoRo. The bold, angular lines of Hazel & Violet, for instance, resemble a pulsing heart monitor. And although the Sewing Lounge mural was painted over when the French Cock Boutique and Oddities moved in, Brambilla points out that a sewing needle still peeks out near the store bottom.
“I wanted to get people’s attention so they would stop here,” Brambilla said.
But the mural for Seven13sk8 stands out from the rest. Colorful wheels form a column on the left side of the door, while a skater wearing dark armor and holding a shield stands stoically on the right. Puffy, white clouds swirl above the entrance. There is no one concise image or mood presented here: It is a collage of figures and ideas.
“I don’t know if I’m gonna leave it or paint something over it before we leave,” she said.
Seven13sk8 opened in October 2011 to provide all of a skater’s essentials — skates, helmets, pads, tools, used rollerblades, wheels and more line the walls of the small store. Like many of the stores on SoRo, the shop originated from a unique concept and caters to a specialized market.
Seven13sk8 identifies as “the only girl-powered skate shop” in the Valley. But like the stores next to it, the physical location of Seven13sk8 will be no more by the end of the year as it is being torn down to make room for a new development of apartments.
The deal is a blow to the type of small business that might thrive in other sections of downtown Phoenix. The businesses in this petite corner offer niche items and personal customer interaction that represents the spirit of independent small businesses.
But Seven13sk8 does more than sell skates. In about two-and-a-half years, the business defined itself as a location where two women came together to promote culture and a powerful message.
Although Kristine Brambilla and her business partner Freedom Crump opened Seven13sk8 in 2011, the artistic creativity represented by the painted storefront has been around for much longer.
Brambilla, a California native, went to ASU and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. Her first solo art show was downtown at the defunct Kollective art gallery space near McKinley and Second streets where FilmBar is now located.
She started playing roller derby in 2011 with the Harmonic Violence RollerGirls and competed under the alias Raven Smash. Brambilla credits Mary Rhyne, the leader of Harmonic Violence, as her inspiration for opening up Seven13sk8.
“She was a very strong, positive woman who inspired most of the girls who played with her to be better people in their lives,” she said. “I was just taken by that. I didn’t necessarily see that (in other teams), to be honest.”
Getting Crump, her friend and soon-to-be co-owner, involved was just a matter of asking.
Brambilla bought the initial inventory for the shop by selling her art. Her art, which hangs on the walls and debuts on First Fridays, is a display of canvas works that over the years has developed into a paint-drip style. Other unique items that spice up the shop include an old, mechanical cash register that dings when a lever is pulled.
Photographs underneath the store’s counter show her wearing makeshift skating armor. Other shots depict her posing with skating partners next to motorcycles, some of whom are holding handguns. These images of physical and material prowess embody the toughness present in roller derby.
That toughness comes with a price. In her skating career, Brambilla has suffered multiple injuries, including a broken rib last August and a knee injury that never fully healed.
The shop operates under the motto “Skate well, skate free.” Brambilla said that because of her injuries, the store aims to provide what others need to make sure they skate safe and respect their bodies.
“Because of my injury, it’s my wish that people skate well, skate free and not be tied to the bull—- that exists in roller derby,” she said. “You have the right to make up your mind, you’re not being paid … don’t feel over-obligated to hurt yourself to stay in the sport.”
Derby skater Esther de la Fuente, 40, met Brambilla at the store. At the time, de la Fuente was looking to get into a sport where she could both have fun and lose weight. She found both through the Arizona Renegade Rollergirls team.
“I was going in shopping for some skating gear, and ended up talking to her about this team I was skating in,” de la Fuente said. “And then she ended up skating with my team.”
De la Fuente, like others, called Brambilla a quiet but positive person, motivated to help her team and those in her community. This can be seen in the SoRo lot when Brambilla pulls weeds, lays down mulch and paints the storefront murals. And when an old tree stump appeared caked in mud on McKinley Street in front of SoRo, Brambilla, Crump and a few others cleaned it up and painted it in Brambilla’s signature paint-drip style with a rainbow of colors.
The purchase of the property is not something that can be fixed with a quick relocation, de la Fuente said.
“Without shops like hers and people like her to keep (roller derby) going, it’s just kind of something that will get lost,” she said. “It’s just such a shame that we’re not going to be able to have (Brambilla) right there downtown in the shop.”
Brambilla has been one of the most vocal business owners regarding the purchase of the lot. In a Phoenix New Times article in April about the purchase she said she “(suspects) Phoenix doesn’t give a damn about ours and your small business, the artist community or any culture.”
She believes many of the changes in the local business and art community have to do with the expansion of ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus and the subsequent growth in housing.
“I’m actually a graduate of ASU, so I love my school, but at the same time, this is my community, too,” she said.
Brambilla is accustomed to battling through loss. The roller-derby teams she participated in have lost permanent practice venues, and she endured the death of both her father and dog in 2012. However, she is not sure of the fate that awaits Seven13sk8.
“The economy tanked (in 2008), I gave up my art, I went back to work. I put all my resources into this,” Brambilla said, driven to tears.
Crump and Brambilla met through a mutual friend about 10 years ago. When Brambilla first approached Crump about opening a roller-skating shop together, her response was swift.
“Whatever’s cool, I’m down for it,” Crump recalls telling Brambilla.
This relaxed response is typical for Crump, who describes herself as easy-going and laid-back — different from Brambilla’s personality.
“It’s like the yin and the yang; we totally balance each other out,” Crump said. “And when we do have customers in the store, she does the math and I’m pretty much the mouth.”
Crump remembers many of the unique people that have come through the store and retells their stories with vigor and vibrancy.
She mentions customers coming from all over the state — as far as Yuma and Apache Junction. She remembers when the inside of the store was painted black with glitter, and how it might have driven some passers-by away. She remembers how they stocked Tab soda in their small refrigerator solely because one customer liked to drink it. She depicts construction workers stopping by the store during the construction of the neighboring Roosevelt Point apartments last year to buy skates for their children.
“I’m quite proud of ourselves for even in this rough economy to start up a business, to start from ground level, without having to take out a loan to get merchandise into the store,” she said. “That really says a lot.”
She is not surprised as to the difference of opinion between Brambilla and her regarding the lot purchase by Tilton Development Co.
“I’m not as upset as Kristine is because I knew that when we got in here, that sooner or later the time would come for the building to take on a new form,” Crump said.
While Crump does not roller skate, she accompanies Brambilla and the Renegade Rollergirls to battles, sometimes even announcing for some of their matches.
A practicing Buddhist, Crump wraps a prayer bead necklace around her right arm, a small dharma wheel hanging by her wrist. She said she wants to rise in a Buddhist position when she retires.
Like Brambilla, Crump has her own views on the arts and small businesses downtown. The area needs a large arts center for local artists to work and present their exhibits, she said. This would give downtown artists a sense of permanency, something she is not used to in the small SoRo corridor.
“We’ve seen so many artists come and go from this building,” she said, leaving her momentarily speechless. “But unfortunately, I guess everybody has to move on, and so do we.”
Seven13sk8 will be open by request only during the summer months, with exceptions made for First and Third Fridays. The business is expected to move out by the end of September. Neither Brambilla nor Crump knows what will happen to their business after that. Mentions of relocating, closing, running a temporary online store or opening a new store with different products have been thrown around.
The skates, however, have been removed from the store as of May. A note printed and taped to the front of the store reads: “To honor my and other art experiences in the neighborhood, we have taken our skates out of the shop and will be showing art for the remainder of the summer.” And in late May, Seven13Sk8 opened up an eBay store to sell their products outside of the store.
“All I wanted to do is be an artist, really,” Brambilla said. “One of the ways to do that was to have a product that we could sell while having art in the arts district. Now it’s harder to do that. I don’t think there’s any other space around here that we can move to that is as affordable.”
Looking back at the storefront, perhaps the skating warrior painted next to the door is Brambilla — the image of a woman who has remained resilient in the face of adversity.
