“We Make Artists Here”

PALMER — In what used to be an auto body shop now resides a home for art, artists, and coffee lovers. The Art Cafe in Palmer held its opening on April 14 to a large crowd of those interested in what just such an establishment might look like.

Barb Stigen says she has always been an artist. Her love of art began when she would make mosaics as a child out of pine cones and whatever she could find in nature. She got back into making as much art as she could in 2006 and began teaching art in 2015.

“I just help them lose that inhibition and go for it,” said Stigen. “We make artists here.”

Since then, she has been teaching mosaic classes in her home studio, but could not fit more than 12 people. Barb and her husband Greg renovated the old Metal Creek building to split the room in two with one wall separating the cafe from the classroom. The Art Cafe serves coffee, homemade fudge, and ice cream.

Stigen was motivated by the opportunity to offer more art classes to those who may not feel like they are the creative types. Pre-made pottery pieces can be bought and painted for just $7. Classes range from a one-off, where artists will walk in and create a piece they can walk out with, to longer classes. Eventually, Stigen hopes to offer semester-long courses for youth and adults alike, drawing from the large community of artists in the Valley without a gathering place to their their craft.

Art is everywhere inside the building. Decorative umbrellas hang from the vaulted ceiling and jars of beads aligned by color sit on the wall while pictures, guitars, and just about anything else that could be considered art have been fastened to the walls. On opening day, Stigen observed an older male paint a large car.

“My wife just made me come here, but this is really relaxing! I hadn’t done it before,” recalled Stigen.

The Art Cafe has a wax vat for candle-making, a surrounded kiln and glass kiln for pottery, glass fusing, glass grinding, paint-your-pottery, mosaic pendant-making, and any sort of collection of things that one might call art.

“People really like it. It’s kind of eclectic, like there’s no rules? There’s no rules in here. Just put it all together. These walls are tesserae,” said Stigen. “Tesserae are the little things you put in mosaic. I’m finding that they really like it. Diversity in art that’s what they want to contribute,” Stigen said of the art teachers she’s already brought on board.

Stigen says that those who may not feel artistically inclined can find an outlet in the Art Cafe among those who want to attend the specific classes. Stigen enjoys teaching and hopes that a decade from now, pieces created in her Art Cafe will be on walls in homes all throughout the Valley. Stigen plans to offer childrens classes where parents can drop off their kids to make art and have an ice cream cone. A couples class with a caricature artist is also in the works, but Stigen jokes they might have to have a lawyer on site just in case.