Rosalia's Pine Creek Village grand opening set next week

Yosh and Nan Konishi stand in the Pine Creek Village store, which they put in a renovated portion of their Rosalia shop.

Gazette Reporte

Quilts, crocheted shoes and sketched portraits of Inuits line the colorful walls inside this building, set amidst the corrugated steel-sided buildings in Rosalia’s former railroad district.

The building is Pinewood Cottage, a custom carpentry business operated by Yosh and Nan Konishi.

With loads of help from local volunteers, the Konishis have transformed the front section of their woodworking warehouse into Pine Creek Village, a showcase for talented local artists. Artists like Tony Esquivel, an Indian painter from Tekoa, and Braeden Rich, a seven-year old illustrator from Rosalia.

“There’s so much talent in this town, like any other small town, that never goes beyond the artist,” said Yosh Konishi. “This is a place they can flaunt their stuff.”

The stuff of more than 15 local artists and crafters will be flaunted at Pine Creek Village’s grand opening next week, April 1 to 3. Nan Konishi said other artists are gathering works to show.

“There’s a story behind each one of the pieces we have here,” she said.

Like Dave Shilkey’s leather works. Prevented from full-time work by severe diabetes, Shilkey spends his time forming leather into intricately-crafted wallets, pouches, jewelry and belts.

“We have so many retirees and people that can’t work who fill their time making these beautiful pieces,” Nan told the Gazette in the shop, filled with woodcraft, leatherworks, crocheted shoes and hand-made quilts.

The Konishis hope having available space in Rosalia will allow local artisans to show their work without having to pack it up and travel to craft shows in other parts of the Northwest.

“The costs of traveling and entering art in craft fairs can be tough,” said Nan. “Plus not everyone can pack up their stuff and travel with it.”

Festivities next weekend will include artisans and crafters making their work on site.

Nan said she envisions artist demonstrations every weekend and said they have had local musicians express interest in performing for weekend crowds.

“Look at the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown,” said Nan. “They’ve done a wonderful job of changing things up to draw people every weekend.”

Yosh said they also plan to hold workshops on woodworking, painting and growing vegetables.

Plans for Pine Creek Village sprung up last spring. In addition to the shop and retail store, the Konishis plan to expand the artist’s village into the number of post-industrial warehouses on their lot.

“Just getting this part done gets us started on the whole project,” said Nan.

The Konishis’ woodshop was formerly a dry fertilizer warehouse for Tri-River Chemical Co. Two other buildings were built by Union Oil Co. for bulk fuel storage off a rail spur that runs along the property.

The smallest building on the property was also built by Union Oil, but was later converted into a storage facility for produce that was shipped out of Rosalia via railroad.

One facet of the overall plan is to have local chefs cook up fare with locally-grown food in a kitchen planned for a small building across from the shop.

Through friends, the Konishis have acquired an 8 x 8-foot walk-in refrigerator that was destined for the scrap heap as part of a Spokane construction project.

Fellow Rosalian Paul Nesbitt has also tracked down an industrial kitchen countertop.

“They just throw all this stuff out otherwise,” said Yosh. “It’s still perfectly good, and there’s always someone that can use it, but it’s just disposable.”

Disposable products are something the Konishis cannot stand. The whole goal of Pine Creek Village is to provide customers with hand-made products that will last generations.

Nan noted many of the antiques on sale in the village store are individual pieces of history handed down through generations of Rosalians.

“When something is made by talented hands, you can tell,” said Nan. “It holds up better and just means that much more.”