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A BRIGHT GREEN YEAR

The utterly original, loads of fun, downtown store Chartreuse is celebrating the completion of its first bright green year!  Sheri Olesen, proprietor, has much to commemorate and to feel good about… she has accomplished a lot and been successful.  Although there have been challenges along the way , and she hasn’t gotten rich selling vintage clothes, accessories and home spun hats, soaps and jewelry, but she’s paid the bills and kept her store well stocked. All good signs for a new business in a tough economy.  When I asked Sheri what she likes best about her business she said “Finding a really special retro-vintage piece is so cool, and then having someone who really loves it and is excited about it take the piece home-that is really great.”

Sheri truly is about giving back. It is really moving to hear her speak on any number of topics because it is always about what she can do to make our town a better place. She is all about  promoting  the downtown, helping  artists make a living, beautification-or-consider  one of her new altruistic efforts… working on behalf of the Street Outreach & Advocacy Program to offer art classes to homeless kids- how super wonderful is that? Sheri, visibly, is perhaps as colorful as her store, with deep red hair, piercing blue eyes and vibrant, skillfully rendered tattoos.  In fact, she is due to get a pair of love birds tattooed on her feet. She says when she puts her feet together they will kiss.

The icing on the lovely green and purple Chartreuse cake has got to be the gorgeous peacock that is coming to life on the Wickersham street side of the store. Brianna Reagan Davis and Mark Leon, two local artists have come together to create something majestic, something possibly magic. Brianna has her BFA in painting from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and she says her favorite artistic medium is pen and ink but describes her new experience painting a huge mural as “instant love”. Brianna did the original design and jointly she and Mark have transferred the design to the big empty exterior wall facing Wickersham Street. Mark, who attended the Portland School of Art, considers himself a “graffiti artist”, and his and Brianna’s artistic styles blend together quite well.  Mark explains that once you have done something with spray paint on a large scale there is no going back. Brianna and Mark say that the public has been very enthusiastic about their work, and that they have really enjoyed the exceedingly positive outdoor interaction.

We at the Downtown Association certainly hope that other businesses follow Chartreuse’s lead and paint more downtown murals. Sheri says she wanted the mural to be the peacock that inspires her and is visible throughout her sparkling store and that she wanted the feathers to represent a variety of different artistic styles. Well it certainly looks like her wishes came true. Thank you Chartreuse for your brilliant mural and we wish you a very Happy Anniversary and decades of bright green years to come.

Come check out Christian Lyze paintings at First Friday, wish Sheri a Happy Anniversary and see the gorgeous new peacock.

When:

First Friday, September 3rd, 2010 – 5:00pm – 9:00pm

Where:

Chartreuse

729 1st Avenue

Related:

1. BALANCE AND BEAUTY
2. PAYING IT FORWARD AT CHARTREUSE
3. A ROW OF BRIGHT BLUE LIGHTS
4. SPONSORS MAKE DOWNTOWN FESTIVE YEAR ‘ROUND
5. TAKE FLIGHT AT FIRST FRIDAY