Big Ambitions in a Small Town
Tieton is a small, proud orchard town in Central Washington. As with many struggling farm communities it fell on hard times in the 1980s and 90s, but through a series of unlikely circumstances, it has become a case study in rural reinvention. By connecting urban creative ambitions with underused and unrecognized local resources Tieton now actively participates in the creative economy of Washington State.
Tieton Mosaic is among a constellation of creative, entrepreneurial initiatives called Mighty Tieton. The mosaic design/fabrication studio is housed in a former apple warehouse, and staffed by a talented team of local craftspeople. Tieton Mosaic is attracting ambitious design and fabrication contracts nationally, and is poised for growth.
Tieton Mosaic began with support from ArtsWA and the National Endowment for the Arts, but its success and expansion were spurred by an extraordinary local initiative, the Tieton Vintage Fruit Label Project – also supported by the NEA. The project’s success was not a foregone conclusion, but in retrospect its fundamentals were solid.
Public art projects in smaller rural areas face challenges: relevance to the lives of the longtime locals, funding, siting, and the need for obvious purpose, to name a few. Fortunately, Tieton’s pride in its reputation for producing high quality tree fruit has survived massive changes in fruit’s cultivation, storage, and distribution.
Tieton is also proud of its lovely park in the center of town, surrounded by four blocks of retail storefronts. It is quintessential small town America. The rural community of 2000 residents is safe, quiet, with a culturally diverse population, and is beautifully framed by the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
Colorful fruit box labels from the 1920s to the 1960s branded Tieton’s quality apples. Bold graphics made boastful claims for the bounty produced by local family farms. To this day they symbolize the lives that longtime community members vividly remember, while being just corny and vintage enough to appeal to younger locals and visitors alike.
By translating seven of these labels to large glass mosaic murals and siting them around the park, Tieton Mosaic was able to tap into layers of local pride, family legacies, decades of memories, good site opportunities, and the community’s confidence in the studio’s ability to complete the project. Although the NEA grant was for only one-fifth of the $250,000 budget, the balance of the money was raised by Tieton Mosaic from local fruit families, current corporate agriculture entities, and a generous public through Kickstarter and other fundraising initiatives. It’s hard to imagine a public art project of this ambition succeeding without deep historic and emotional connections, so perhaps there are public art lessons in this story.
The mosaics themselves were made in flat glass, hand-cut, with painted areas of vitreous paint, which were then fired before assembly. The success of this project quickly garnered other Tieton Mosaic commissions in the Northwest and beyond. Locally, it has given graphic and contemporary expression of the town’s history and legacy, and perhaps more importantly, increased visitor interest, and hope for a bright future.
Mighty Tieton’s Backstory
In 2005, Seattle art book publisher Ed Marquand went for a bike ride around the Yakima Valley in Central Washington. He rode into Tieton, a small community at the end of a road through countless acres of fruit trees. The town he found was clearly struggling after many decades of modest prosperity followed by decline; four blocks of mostly closed retail businesses and empty, outdated fruit warehouses with sun-faded “For Sale” signs on them. The Post Office and a few stubborn businesses were still open, but barely. Tieton was feeling the effects of massive consolidation in the ag industry, and changes in the retail habits of its residents. It is a common sad story, but this one took a turn.
Marquand pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned fruit warehouse and rode over a vine of goathead thorns poking out of a crack in the asphalt. In ten feet, his tires instantly flattened from 18 punctures. Walking his bike into the park, he pulled out a patch kit and started the tedious task of patching the tubes. This gave him time to wonder about all the unoccupied storefronts around the square. With Seattle studio and production space so limited and expensive, the stolid, workmanlike single-story storefronts looked functional, affordable, and somehow promising.
With some encouragement from the City of Tieton, longtime locals, and a host of urban creative cohorts, he and his partner started buying up some of the buildings. Eventually, they developed a “Hands-Across-the-Cascades” business model. Simply put, they identified urban creative business needs that could be fulfilled in these spaces, providing jobs and opportunities for the people who live in the community.
Fast forward two decades. The results have been dramatic. The retail spaces are full. A variety of hospitality, light manufacturing, and creative businesses are thriving. Mighty Tieton has been the subject of much press coverage, but Marquand is most interested in telling the story about how individuals in creative businesses can play an important role in revitalizing struggling economies—urban and rural.
Leading with imagination, making unlikely connections, and always keeping heart in the lead can be transformative.