Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9411080059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Long
True, New Mountain Mercantile has grown like mountain poke salad these past three years, with locations in Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke and Explore Park added to their original store in Floyd. And yes, they're seriously considering a fourth store in Blacksburg or Christiansburg and a fifth in Hawaii to market Appalachian-inspired crafts tens of thousands of miles from the Blue Ridge mountains.
But co-owner Christine Byrd says, ``We have a whole different attitude to success here. We'd never use a word like `empire.' It comes down to a motto that's printed on the bottom of the reconciliation sheets I use every day: `Prosperity is an attitude.'''
If that's true, these three businesswomen can match W4's with Donald Trump any day, even though they didn't make a dime in their first year of business and they still pay themselves a paltry $5 an hour.
``Just look at this place,'' said Byrd, gesturing around her Floyd store on a recent late-summer night. ``You can see we're still truly amazed by the talent there is around here.''
The walls are festooned with American Indian drums and ``spirit keepers'' made of pottery and feathers, baskets made of grape vines and bracket fungi, and prints of bluegrass fiddle and banjo pickers. A rich, unidentifiable sweet odor pervades the room.
Hand-made kaleidoscopes rest atop antique glass display cabinets, there's hand-crafted grape vine furniture on the floor, plus delicate jewelry made from tiny fungi, primitive-looking folk dolls and ``wearable art'' like handbags and dresses.
``We get as much satisfaction from nourishing new talent as we do from anything else - it's incredibly satisfying. And it's a good thing, because being self-employed is not easy,'' said Byrd.
By any standard, New Mountain Mercantile qualifies as an artistic and business success story. It has become the focal point of the crafts scene in Floyd, providing an outlet for artisans who previously sold many of their wares far from home. It introduced Appalachian-inspired art to a larger city audience in Roanoke beginning in November, 1992, and it's reaching an even more cosmopolitan, out-of-state clientele at its Explore Park location, which opened on July 4.
The original Locust Street location in Floyd - a few doors down from Cockram's General Store, home of the town's well-known Friday Night Jamboree - opened its doors on Labor Day, 1991. Wycoff and Cook had previously sold tie-dyed clothes from an old mill in the county and, with Byrd, moved into a building that had previously been a country store and, still later, an artist's studio.
Cook and Wycoff still sell their tye-died fashions in all locations, and Byrd markets her line of massage oils, body powders and herbal ``dream pillows.'' But New Mountain Mercantile's main focus is other artists.
``I didn't want to do any more craft shows. And we noticed that artists here just didn't have a really good place to market their wares. We wanted to be close to home, self-employed, and to help other people do the same,'' said Byrd, who had previously managed natural food stores in Baltimore and Blacksburg.
``We had something unusual for many ventures this size: a marketing plan,'' said Byrd. ``We knew that at first we couldn't depend on local business to support us. So we set up at the Chateau Morrissette winery on the Parkway, we took our stuff to shows all over the place, anywhere we could get good word-of-mouth advertising.''
Once word got out that the trio planned to sell local art in Floyd, folk artists almost literally came out of the woodwork. ``Floyd's a very rich artistic area. It's hard to believe how much really good talent there is here,'' said Wycoff.
``This little county has a reputation up and down the East Coast, from New York to Florida. We have a real reputation happening here,'' said Byrd.
Just how big that reputation is was underlined when Floyd was listed in nationally known arts writer John Villani's new book, ``The 100 Best Small Art Towns in America.'' Published by John Muir Publications of Santa Fe, N.M., the book rates Floyd as one of the country's best small art towns based on the opinions of artists, the presence of galleries and festivals, and the economic contribution of the arts to the community.
``And Floyd has managed to get this reputation without being like Gatlinburg and having places like Dollywood,'' said Wycoff.
Floyd County has been known for years for a strong artistic and counter-culture presence. Why has this small Blue Ridge farming community attracted so many artists from elsewhere? Potter and musician Bob Avery-Grubel, whose cassettes and CDs have gained national airplay, came to Floyd 15 years ago and has pondered the question.
``A good answer can get pretty esoteric on you. Part of it's the land and the practical means here. It's beautiful land that provides for some privacy still, and people who are artisans are self-supporting can live further from urban areas.
``But many people who are looking to the future and see the kinds of heaviness that are approaching are looking to Floyd as a safe place. That seems to be a talked-about allusion among many people here,'' said Avery-Grubel.
``Empire'' is not the only word that the New Mountain Mercantile women don't care for. Though many of Floyd County's ``come-heres'' have brought with them a counter-culture ambience, Christine Byrd says she shies away from labels like ``hippie.''
``Other than wearing a little bit of tie-dye or eating a little tofu, we just don't qualify. I don't even know what that word means anyway. I'm on the board of the Floyd County Chamber of Commerce, and we've done our share and more to promote this whole town,'' said Byrd.
Nevertheless, you know you're in a different kind of place when the anti-shoplifting signs don't warn about jail time but instead read, ``Shoplifting carries bad karma. Do you really want to carry that with you?''
The Floyd store also carries necklaces by Medicine Wheel craftsmen that are based on the ``earth astrology'' popularized by American Indian shaman Sun Bear, as well as items crafted by the Floyd County mother-and-daughter artisans Lizard and Willow.
New Mountain Mercantile's newest store is located in Explore Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Kalinda Wycoff said Explore director Rupert Cutler visited the Floyd store and liked what he saw. ``They wanted us to come to Explore but they didn't have any place to put us,'' said Wycoff, so the three women erected the small shop themselves. ``Every stick of wood was cut on the park and put up by us,'' said Wycoff.
The possibility of a Hawaiian store is not merely an idle dream for New Mountain Mercantile's owners. A former employee now lives in Hawaii and believes that Blue Ridge mountain crafts could find a market there. ``We would like to have a location in Hawaii, a small artists' co-op, even if our sole pay is just a two-week vacation there every year,'' said Byrd.
Wycoff and Byrd say the short- and medium-range future looks bright. Said Byrd, ``There are people who go out of their way to buy all their Christmas presents here. There's lots of word-of-mouth. All the locals bring people who are visiting here, and the word-of-mouth reputation just keeps spreading far beyond the borders of Floyd.''
by CNB