Stockist Spotlight: Land Gallery // Portland, Oregon
We feature all of our different rad stockists weekly because we believe in supporting small business!
What's the name of your shop? Where are you located? Tell us about y'all
Land Gallery is in this historic Mississippi Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. We opened in 2009 as the physical store and gallery for our online big sister, buyolympia.com
What made you decide to open? How long have you been around?
As buyolympia, we’d been working with independent artists since 1999 — sharing their work worldwide and helping folks live and work by their art. In 2008, we decided to move from Olympia to Portland so we could a) eat at more restaurants and b) find a place to grow in a vibrant, diverse neighborhood.
What's your favorite thing about being a small biz owner?
Everyday is different. There’s always something new. Both are customers and the artists we work with are also such great people—being able to connect with both groups, and those groups to each other is very satisfying.
What's your favorite thing to buy for your store? How has the shop allowed you to discover new artists/product?
We love being able to buy things for the store that we haven’t seen before — introducing new stuff to the world. Being around for so long and having people know of us, we’ve been lucky to have people pitch us ideas for products and art shows. And we’ve met so many great people that way.
Why did you want to open your store? What was your mission/intention?
We really wanted to connect the artists we worth with online to customers in the real world — we’ve always sold Nikki McClure’s calendars and cards, and they are amazing, but seeing them in person can be so much more powerful. A different feeling comes off the paper that she’s cut with an x-acto knife by hand—the way it curls, and the tiny imperfections—than it ever could on a notecard. Letting people experience that through our monthly art shows is core to our mission.
