Cinnamon Chaser, mother, artist, and healer, she is also the woman and dreamer behind the creation of Presents of Mind. Three years ago she began handing the control of the store over to her daughter Seasons Koll, and now mother and daughter have formed a partnership. After 20 years of hard work Cinnamon has begun to branch out into new mediums, like Reconnective healing®, and creating flower remedies. After taking a  course with Linda Womack, Cinnamon found a new love with encaustic wax mixed media art.

Cinnamon was gracious enough to show us around her studio in the basement of her home, and shared with us some of the pieces she has been working on for Crafty Wonderland. Later, we headed upstairs, sat down on the couch, and chatted.

1. You opened Presents of Mind twenty years ago. Can you tell us what inspired you to open a small retail store? Also, can you tell us a bit about the atmosphere on Hawthorne during that time?

What inspired me was I was a frustrated card shopper. I’d had run a store before and I had a booth at the Portland Saturday Market, where I used to make herb pillows, bath mixtures, stuff like that, and it was successful, but I was more like a little factory. I liked the idea of having my own business. I guess it was always my dream to have my own store. I remember I was in NW and that was where all the shops were at the time, and I had to go to three or four different stores in order to find any decent cards, and I thought, I could do this better. I really started it as a card shop, the bulk of the store was cards, then people started asking for more.

As for Hawthorne, there wasn’t a lot of stores back then. People were really happy that I opened. From day one, we have had loyal customers that still come in, their kids come in. At the time the only store that had a good amount of cards was Essential oils, other than that you had Fred Myers or Safeway. We have people come in once a month from Lake Oswego or Beaverton just to buy cards. I’ve even had people from L.A say that they don’t have anything like our store down there.

2. Why do you think that is? I mean you would think that people could have a good selection in cards.

Well one huge thing is that I always always hand pick the cards. A lot of companies want to send you their bulk cards and best sellers, but I said no, you don’t know my customer base. This all started because I am a card buyer. I bought cards for years and years. I collected them. I still have a box of cards. I love cards that’s what I did.

3. When you had thought of opening Presents of Mind did you envision that it would still be around after 20 years?

I guess I had always assumed that it would always be here, but I never envisioned that’s what it would be like. Once I opened it I never wanted anything else.

The way it started out, I went to this practice management building seminar with my husband, Bruce, and I sat in on this class about setting goals. This was in the summer of ‘89, and I remember I wrote on a piece of paper, “I want to open a store on Hawthorne between 34th and 37th and I want to open it on October 1st, 1989″. That is the day that I opened.

4. Had you already started building up the store?

Oh no, I didn’t even know how to go about ordering. I just got my box of cards out and I started calling the companies. I had a friend that got me a pass to go to a trade show and I started meeting vendors and reps and that was when things really started going. Like the reps would tell me, and this was during the summer, “okay now you need to start ordering cards for Christmas.” I’d say, Christmas, it’s only July.

5. It must have been challenging running a business which took up all of your time, plus raising a teenage daughter. How were you able to balance your time?

Seasons was a teenager and very independent. When I was opening the store she was off doing things on her own. I was always at the store, I had to be, and in the first two weeks before the store opened we got (custody) of Bruce’s daughter. She was seven, and we would all work at the store getting it ready. Bruce built the displays and his daughter would unwrap the cards. It was easier to balance (being a mother) because she (Seasons) was so independent, but in that first year there was a lot of family trauma, I had lost both my parents in that first year. I remember when Seasons was little, I did crafty sales, I always had to work while raising her, I mean I was a single mom until she was eleven.

6. The store has a genuine feel of family and also a real concern for community and the planet. The benefits for employees are a rare find in a small business and show that the owners truly care in the health and wellness of people. There are political stickers on the door like no tolerance for bigotry, and roughly 30% of the products are created and designed locally. When you opened Presents of Mind was it in your mission statement to include such things or do you recall having a mission statement? Also has the store always been a big supporter of independent and local designers?

The independent and local artist aspect is all thanks to Seasons. Whenever local artists came by I was always open to carrying their stuff, but she really searches them out.

I never wrote a mission statement I just want people to be happy. I want people to have a good place to work. I want people to feel good about where they are shopping. You know you can’t assume if someone is having a bad day that they are a bad person, I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that’s why I want my employees to be happy so that they are friendly to the customers. I remember when 9/11 happened, and we were open, and we were playing up music, people came in and said “we are so glad you are open”. I want people to feel happy. You know I want to offer people what I want when I go into a place, what I like. I like to be acknowledged, and greeted and treated with kindness and respect.

7. Seasons has been working on and off in the store since she was a teenager, and now you two are business partners, which has allowed you to step back and let her take the reigns, so to speak.

She was fifteen when I opened the store and she started working there a bit when she was sixteen, but it was by the time that she was seventeen or eighteen that she really started working, and she was a manger. She helped me order, she probably could have run the store at that point, not everything of course, there’s a lot people don’t know that goes on in a store like the book work. Back then I did it all myself and there was no computer I had a ledger. It was like she was born to do it. It came really naturally to both of us.

8. Did you imagine this mother daughter team from the beginning or did it grow organically?

It just grew. Then she left and I didn’t know if she’d come back. I’d wished she’d come back, but I didn’t know.

9. Now that Seasons has mostly taken over it has freed you up to pursue some of your own art. Have you always felt you were an artist or did it come later in your life? Can you tell us a bit about your encaustic wax pieces and what you enjoy about the process as opposed to other mediums.

I never felt I was an artist. I still have a hard time believing I am an artist. I started making  it and then a friend of mine wanted to buy a piece and I was like, what. Then I got a chance to do a show and I had all these pieces, and it was Seasons’ idea to show them, and she helped me put it together and name the pieces. But it was when I got a call that someone had bought my work, a stranger bought one of my pieces, I couldn’t believe it, I was like,oh okay… I guess I am an artist, but I still have a hard time believing it. Its just my nature I guess. Even at the store, it would be Christmas time and the store would be packed and I just couldn’t believe that all these people were at my store, buying their gifts, in my store, I can’t believe it.

As for working with Encaustic wax, I have to say it is a love hate thing because I never know what it is going to end up like. It is like this unveiling. I can have an idea but it often changes. The wax does what it does. You have  layers of color and you add one to the other and you heat it and the wax starts moving and bleeding. I’ve tried to duplicate pieces but you can’t. I wish I did something I could make prints of to sell. You spend all this time making something and then you have to let it go and it’s emotional. Every piece is a lot of work. But you can’t keep them all. It’s really fun. My first class was so fun. I really had the most fun in that class. I went out and got everything I needed. Selling it kind of changes it a bit.

How so?

You kind of feel a little pressure to perform, or trying to duplicate or streamline, you know.

10. Seasons’ is taking her Seasons K. Designs to crafty and you will be joining her in the booth showing and selling your encaustic pieces. Are you excited about being in Crafty and yet again being side by side with your daughter?

I’ve only done this one other time, I did the SE art Walk, so this time I feel more ready. It is unnerving and very gratifying, mostly gratifying. And I get to hang out with artists. Last time I was right next to Brent Wear, he is one of my favorites. (She has many of his piece in her house and she points them out to me). I’m excited. I knew it was coming up, but I didn’t apply, I don’t know, I didn’t know if I would get in. I didn’t know if I had enough pieces. Then Seasons got a booth and offered to share it with me. I wouldn’t be in it if it wasn’t for her. I’m excited, but a little nervous. I think I would be more nervous if it was just me.

11. If you could do it again what would you do differently, what would you keep the same?

I don’t know if I would do anything differently. I think things happen for a reason. I am not a very organized person, I ran this business by the seat of my pants. I had no training just life experience and I was always good at math.

12. Now that you have a grown and independent woman as a daughter and you can look back on your life as a mom, what can you say the strangest thing about being a mother is and then what is your favorite thing?

The strangest is feeling separate. Having this person grow up to be so different (from me). I am proud of who she is, all her accomplishments, and her independence, her strong mind and will, but you spend so much of your life loving this being and feeling she is such a part of you.I remember when she left for Germany, I couldn’t even take her to the airport. I had never been out of the country at that time, she might as well have been going to Mars. I was happy for her, but it was hard to let her go.

My favorite… there are so many favorites. Whenever she was happy. It was such a struggle to be a single parent- one of my favorite things was the first Christmas that I could give her everything that she wanted- I mean we weren’t rich, but you know how it is to feel so wealthy on so little. I just loved to give her things, things I didn’t have as a kid. I remember her just dancing around. I just loved when she was happy.

13. What were you like as a young girl? Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?

I always wanted to have a store. (She laughs) I made a lot of things when I was little. I was crafty because we were really poor and I made a lot of things. I remember I had this small doll and I would make hats for her out of bottle caps. They were cork back then and I would attache fabric, my mother was a seamstress, so I’d get the fabrics and make little hats. I was always making spaces for myself. But, I remember I used to love to play store.

14.Now that you have raised a child, started a business, and started a new business as an artist- what do you want to be when you grow up?

(She laughs) Oh, I still don’t know. (She laughs again) What I want to be is happy and more evolved as a human being. It is interesting, you look at “mistakes” in the past and present and inappropriate reactions and sometimes you get this clarity and say oh that’s happening so I can evolve this part and learn something about myself. It helps you learn something about other people to understand them and not be judgemental. It’s funny I just turned 60 and I think, huh, I’m still dealing with that? You never get it done. You have these contrasts in your life, you have to have things to make you want more and better or you wont grow. But you’ll never get it done, never not till you’re dead. You learn from contrast and conflict. That is the only way to evolve.

Cinnamon holding up her first piece.

Stop by Crafty Wonderland and check out Seasons Koll’s booth and you can find Cinnamon’s latest creations.
Thank you so much Cinnamon.