Thursday, July 26, 2018

Julie's New Found Loved

Gisell Armstrong, from Dubendurf Switzerland and Sara Weber from Honeoye on the right.
Julie Harris on the left at the counter of her store in Wellsville. Photo provided.

WELLSVILLE: It’s always different, always interesting and always welcoming no matter the location or the name. The newest name is Julie’s New, Found, Loved. The Julie behind it is Julie Harris and a whole community of customers is glad to have found her.
                25 years ago, Harris was teaching at a preschool in Houghton and studying her opportunities for a business in the area. When her youngest child entered school she took her accumulated “dream fund” of $500 and made a down payment on a barn in Caneadea.  
                At the time the barn still had the scent of cows and horses but, with her husband, a contractor, part of it became her first show room with consignment used clothing and household items. As time and budget allowed, other areas of the barn were renovated so that there was a dedicated children’s room, an area with linens, a stretch of space for kitchenware and an aisle for holidays. For 17 years Julie walked on an ever growing area of concrete floors as the Red Barn Mall responded to requests from customers adding a line of new mattresses and living plants to her consignment items.      
                Julie worked mostly alone with some help from one of the children (generally someone who had to pay for something like car insurance) while her husband managed the weekend deliveries of
mattresses.  In the barn, everything was huge:  the space, the inventory, the paperwork for consignees  and the job of keeping it all tidy.
                Julie developed a system for numbering items. The first number tells what the thing is such as number 1 is pants while 2 signifies shirts. The next set of digits identifies which of the 1400 consignees brought the item. Every tag (a sticker for some things and a tie on for others) has the price of the item and a description such as the brand name.
                While at the Red Barn Mall, in 1999, Julie was approached by Houghton students who, for class credit, wrote a computer program to keep track of inventory. The first thing they helped her do was find a used computer and teach her how to turn it on.
                She expected that it would take time to be computer competent, let alone proficient, but the students were gracious and patient and after a sputtering start, she realized that the program could cut 12 hours of paper work down to an hour and a half at the keyboard. That deserved a celebration and the joy she found in that discovery is still evident when she talks about it.
                From the start, the consignment goods were a valued product in Caneadea. Clients could expect 50% of the sale price for their new or used items. Each accepted client could bring 25 items per season, by appointment. For all these years the business has generated sales tax for the county and cash for her clients.
                After 17 years of tromping on that concrete floor, Julie’s legs were tired and she sold the business moving to real-estate and making her first home sale to a former consignment client. Unfortunately, her move was at the time of an economic downturn so after a short while, she chose to leave real estate and make pottery at the Wellsville Creative Arts Center. Then she found this building for sale.
                She looked at it and considered starting another store. Maybe a consignment store. She looked at it a second time. Did she want to buy a building and start another business? After she looked at the building the 9th time, her family gave her a shove and she purchased it to start Julie’s Consignment Cottage and that is where many of us have found her in times of clothing need for the last 10 years.
                This year, the cottage is refurbished, reorganized and rebranded as Julie’s: New, Found, Loved.  New is for the brand new things such as dresses (the most in demand item), a line of wares from GANZ , and locally made soaps and jewelry. She also has some vintage look games, toys and art materials. She said that grandmas love that stuff.
                The Found category involves items she sees when she is out and about. Right now there are multiple wire baskets and paper stars. The Loved part is for clothing, house wares and furniture on consignment.
                She says that consignment items have been loved but are worthy of being loved again. One of the things that caught my eye was a collection of beer steins rather like Schultz and Dooley but women with flowers in their hats. Somebody will love those.
                The rebranded store will be on the road as a pop up shop in an Avion Aluminum Camper.  With assistance from her family, the camper is being modified so that it will keep the vintage vibe and the camper sense but will work as a mobile store. The scheduled debut is on August 4th at the Curtis Museum’s Classic Motorcycle Show in Hammondsport. It is roomy enough to accommodate 4 shoppers inside with space for others under the awning outside.
                Julie says that she has the best customers in the world. They are educated consumers and know the quality that some brands represent. They have money but recognize the value of the gently used item. They have busy lives and appreciate the variety found in her store where she has all sizes and styles of clothing,  shoes and jewelry.
                Julie’s is open on Tuesdays through Saturdays and often has a special sale sign outside. She communicates through Facebook (Julies New Found Loved) and will help people find a certain item in a given size if she can. Julie’s is located at 15 W Pearl Street, Wellsville. 585-593-1959



Sunday, July 8, 2018

The Fassett Greenspace to have an Underhill Fountain


Cassandra Bull with Jean McKeown

WELLSVILLE: The Fasssett Greenspace Project has grown in the last few weeks from a promise to labyrinth of soil and block to a garden of seedlings. Much of the financial support for the project came from a Buffalo based organization, the Garman Family Foundation (GFF), administered by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo.
            Cassandra Bull, president of Art for Rural America (the not for profit founded by Andy Glanzman of Wellsville and sponsor of the Fassett Greenspace), applied to GFF and was awarded a grant of $15,667. Bull’s proposal had a fountain at the center of the labyrinth but when it was necessary to change the dimensions of the rings, the budget no longer could include a fountain. Bull notified GFF of the situation but instead of accepting Bull’s suggestion that a sculpture be the focal point, GFF sent an additional $6000 for the fountain.
Bill Underhill with Cassandra Bull on site 
discussing fountains.
            That, of course, sent some of the AFRA board members in search of a fountain. Glanzman, always thinking about how to involve local businesses and artisans, contacted his friend, sculptor Bill Underhill. Underhill teaches clay sculpture classes at the Wellsville Creative Arts Center and works in bronze using a method where a wax model is burned out to create a mold for bronze, in his private studio. Underhill began visiting the Greenspace and watching people at work  to understand the space and the possibilities of the project. Then, he began to design.
            On July 6, Jean McKeown, Vice President of Community Foundations, traveled to Wellsville to see the Fassett Greenspace Project. McKeown walked the labyrinth, reviewed the project and plans as well as the history of the plot and asked about community involvement. She met with Bull and Glanzman on site to learn more about AFRA and its board members and to get a sense of the town. Then they shifted the meeting to Bill Underhill’s studio.
            When Underhill was first approached about designing a fountain, he said that he worked with bowls but Bull told him that he had been working with potential fountains all his life.  
            When McKeown, Glanzman and Bull arrived in Underhill’s studio he said, “Bowls, I make bowls and I never thought about the fountain. I always thought that the shape, a bowl’s opening, was a complete form. Sometimes there’s a lid on a bowl and the shape is a secret inside but as I began to speculate and sketch I began to feel that the fountain could be a natural form of a bowl.”
            Underhill talked about an early life experience. “When I was a child, 4 or 5 years old, in Monterey, CA, I went for a ride in a glass bottom boat and remember sea creatures and sea urchins and sea anemone and how beautiful everything was.” Underhill said that he wanted to bring those natural forms and that sense of beauty from his experience into the fountain.
In Bill Underhill's studio
            He has a small bronze bowl that he made to reference that boat ride. He and Glanzman put that bowl into the sink and filled it with water. The edge of the bowl is not smooth and round but more like the live edge of tree bark. Water spilled unevenly over the bowl and through holes near the edge. A version of this bowl, Underhill said, expanded to be 36 inches in diameter, is his vision of a fountain for the Fassett Greenspace. The piece would first be made in a special casting wax that would be taken, they hope, to the foundry at Alfred University and cast there.
            This 3 foot, natural edge bowl would be placed inside of a 6 foot wide basin at the center of the labyrinth where it will be plumbed into place by the ever-needed volunteers and some expert help.
            The natural edge of this bowl shape will be in line with the space because the labyrinth is about life: the life of the volunteers in action, the life of green food and the life that can only water can give.  
            McKeown seemed pleased with the progress on the labyrinth itself and seemed interested in the sketches and mock ups for the fountain. She expressed excitement over being involved in such a singular project and in bringing the Garman Family Foundation into Allegany County. 


(Elaine Hardman is a member of the AFRA board and a regular volunteer at the Fassett Greenspace Project.  Find more information at ArtForRuralAmerica.org or on Facebook at Fassett Greenspace Project.)


Community members helped to fill the beds.
Dugan and Dugan donated equipment and labor
to move soil into the beds.


Sean Lehman of Lehamna Landscaping helped
to fill the garden beds.




Work well done.