Modern Wolf Studios: An Accidental Act of Community Building

It was fall of 2016 when I relocated back to my sleepy northern California hometown. I was none too excited to be moving back into the house I grew up in, with my parents, my older brother, his girlfriend, and their young child. I had spent the better part of my adult life escaping this very situation. Having left Portland, Oregon, never to return, ten years prior.

The situation was dire, my mother had spent all of March in the Oroville hospital ICU expirencing lung failure. It appeared as if the only option was now a bilateral lung transplant, which called for two full-time caretakers for two months following the surgery. The first and most obvious choice being my father, and the second being me. The single, childless female. It was clear that of all the lives to be disrupted, mine could withstand the shock of change and recover the fastest. The most resilient of their six children, I would do what needed to be done and figure it out along the way. An excellent metaphor for my existence. A life lived on the knife edge of fearlessness and recklessness; hell-bent on proving something. Not knowing when the call would come, it was a game of hurry up and wait.

This endeavor was not a pleasant one. Oroville is a depressing place. Oppressively hot in the summer, with profound economic stratification, disproportionately high drug and alcohol abuse, chronic mismanagement and deeply dysfunctional community relations. It is also incredibly conservative and highly uneducated. The literal embodiment of everything I hated.

The first six months were incredibly painful. I worked at the café which employed me as a teen. I slept in my childhood bedroom. I was horribly isolated and filled with self-loathing. My one saving grace was a little yoga studio which had been opened by a high school acquaintance. I never had a regular practice, but it was the only physical place where I felt free from the resentments piling upon me due to the difficult choice I had made. One fateful day, I arrived at the studio moments after the yoga class had started and found the door locked. Desperately needing to practice, I sought out a space where I could lead myself. My home was out of the question, as there was nothing quiet or serene about it. So, I found my way to the edge of Lake Oroville, where I ran through a clumsy sequence and completed my practice with silent meditation upon a boulder. As I basked in the morning sun, small blue Damselflies floated around me, and I was overcome with the desire to paint in watercolor. This was the beginning of my journey as a watercolor artist and an unlikely community developer.

Within nine months of this moment, I had become a certified yoga teacher, sold out my first art show, and found myself in need of a larger space to practice both. One of the byproducts of living in a depressed city is the abundance of cheap real estate. So, I found myself the cheapest, most unlovable space in a beautiful, yet dilapidated building in the heart of historic downtown Oroville. My neighbors were the previously mentioned yoga studio, a soap shop, therapeutic massage, a psychic, and a wine bar. It was a beautiful moment in time for the Oroville Mini Mall.

I had no idea what I was doing or what the space was going to be, but what I found is that folks were interested. They could feel a cultural shift happening in this building, and they wanted to get on board. In the year previous, I had forged relationships with customers and neighbors. The community I had so profoundly despised and resented upon my arrival had become my friends. I had found that the more listening I did, and less I talked, the more I grew in understanding and compassion. The more I learned about myself. So, when I picked up the the keys for what would become Modern Wolf Studio, I had no shortage of hands wanting and willing to help.

People from all walks would find their way to the back of Prospector's Ally Mini Mall. Painters, sculptors, musicians. Young and old, Modern Wolf became a destination in downtown Oroville, if only for just a season. It was a sanctuary for the creative locals and beyond. Soon, community leaders began showing up, city councilmen and clerks. All were wanting to know a bit more about what was happening under the stairs in the Mini Mall. What they found was simply a space of inclusivity and creative license. A display of unbeknownst creative talent budding underneath their very nose. A collective of unstoppable forces trudging parallel paths. They were attracted to the power of community rooted in individual assets and display of unbridled vulnerability. Yes, there were those who didn’t “get it.” But it was shocking how few there really were. More common was the light in the eyes of the child peering through the window, or the young mother reconnecting with her long dormant creative self. It was a beacon of hope that declared that Orovillians are more than meth statistics, drunken lake hijinks and teen pregnancies. That there is a creative force within each of its citizens which had been long silenced by a culture of fear and hostility. When people walked into the studio, they were allowed to delegitimize that fear. They accepted the invitation to imagine a new perspective on life.

Unlike most spaces, there wasn’t an expectation to engage in consumerism, although art was for sale. In the time that Modern Wolf Studios was open, I sold less art than ever, but that was never the point. It was about the creation of a space which one could step away from the demands of consumer culture. Where one could appreciate, create, or just talk about what it means to be creative. I had no idea how badly the community needed this space until I inadvertently created it.

Oroville Artists on Display

#art #artstudio #communitybuilding #historicoroville #orovilleca #localart #creativity #vulnerability #downtownoroville