What you've heard is true: One person's trash is another person's treasure.
That's the premise behind Art Salvage Spokane, a nonprofit that gives unused and discarded arts and crafts materials another chance.
After founder Katie Patterson Larson moved here from Portland, she realized the Inland Northwest needed an outlet for discarded art materials, also known as creative reuse.
She started Art Salvage out of her home in 2014, collecting donations and running the business online and from a booth at the South Perry Farmers Market. But quickly, bins full of donated art supplies began piling up in her craft room. She moved the business to various storefronts as a pop-up shop until Art Salvage's first brick-and-mortar opened in 2018 on North Ash Street.
From the beginning, the space wasn't ideal. Every corner of the shop's main floor and basement became packed with donations almost immediately.
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"We started realizing a couple of things," Larson says. "Like accessibility. The front door wasn't ADA accessible, there were steps up and down in several places. There were a lot of little tiny quirks about the old building that we loved, but a lot that just didn't make it very welcoming to customers or to volunteers."
"Our volunteer area also doubled as our classroom," adds Amy Mickelson, Art Salvage's donation specialist. "So we were somewhat limited in terms of when we could hold classes and workshops."
In 2020, the pair began searching for a larger storefront that could accommodate the volume of donations Art Salvage was receiving at the time and its growing number of volunteers.
They had a list of requirements for a new space: It had to be centrally located, on a bus route, have ample parking, a dedicated classroom space, and an area for customers to drive up and drop off donations.
Finally, in spring 2023, Larson and Mickelson found a location that ticked all the boxes on North Foothills Drive in Spokane's Logan neighborhood. After signing a lease in October and closing for several months of hard work readying the site, Art Salvage launched its new storefront in March, a decade after the nonprofit began.
If you can dream it, Art Salvage has it.
Into fiber arts? The new space has an entire corner dedicated to yarn, ready for a crocheting or knitting project.
For those who love to scrapbook or make collages, Art Salvage has myriad maps, posters, magazines and other materials to choose from at deeply discounted prices. Or, grab some large fabric swatch bundles for just $1. Unplayable vinyl records are also $1 each, and bulk containers of various bits and bobs like seashells go for $4.
There's even a section for vintage goods like stamps and bottles.
Nearly every corner of Art Salvage is stocked with art supplies, tools, frames, containers and office supplies. And the selection is only growing thanks to the community and the dedicated team of volunteers who manage donations.
Half of Art Salvage's new space is used solely for sorting and pricing all those donations coming through the doors. One of the biggest benefits of its new building is a roll-up garage, perfect for customers bringing trunkloads of donations.
"Just because we're in a bigger space doesn't mean we can take everything immediately," Larson says, however. "We have to be able to do that safely and consider the humans that are involved in the process."
Art Salvage has four staff members and about 30 regularly scheduled volunteers who sort through donations weekly.
Volunteer specialist Chad Shoyotovich has been with the nonprofit for two and a half years. He says the upgraded space is not only a plus for the Art Salvage staff, but makes the shopping experience inspiring.
"Everything is streamlined for volunteers," he says. "There's no more going down into the basement to replenish supplies. It's all just around the corner now. And we have everything displayed so beautifully that it's hard not to be inspired to create here. I can see that can-do spirit in our clientele."
Though they're still settling into their new digs, staff are also excited to begin expanding Art Salvage's programs. The nonprofit regularly holds reuse workshops during which volunteers teach kids how to make crafts with all the miscellaneous supplies it curates.
These events were held off-site for several months while transitioning to the new building, but donation specialist Mickelson is looking forward to hosting events in-house again, and possibly even an artist-in-residence program in the future.
"This new space also gives us more opportunities to collaborate with other local organizations that have similar missions," Larson says.
At the heart of it all, however, is Art Salvage's core mission of reducing waste in the community.
"What we take in is just the tip of the iceberg," Larson says about the creative reuse economy in Spokane. "There's so much stuff out there and if we're turning people away, that is so much stuff that could be used that's just going into the garbage. That means our community is dealing with that waste and the effects of that waste."
She says that over the years, Art Salvage has grown into what the community needs it to be.
"Our three main things are keeping things out of the landfill, donating them and making them accessible for reuse," she says. "People just keep asking for more and more, so I think we're doing good by our community." ♦
