Retail redo

In last week’s Best of Northern Nevada issue, we listed Sierra Water Gardens as “closed.” It turns out that’s incorrect—sort of. When I called owner Samantha Stremmel, I learned that the situation is a little more complicated than that.

First, to clarify the “closed” label, Sierra Water Gardens as we knew it—the garden shop on Dickerson Road that doubled as a venue for summer concerts—is no longer. That location closed August 2017 and is now a private event space run by The Hytch, a boutique wedding service. It’s still called Sierra Water Gardens, though.

On a recent afternoon, two smartly dressed, would-be plant shoppers arrived at that location and were confused by the locked gate. As luck would have it, I had just exited the other Sierra Water Gardens, so I was able to direct them to the place they’d seen on Instagram.

Diagonally across the street from the garden-store-turned-wedding-venue and just west of Wedge Ceramics Studio—also owned by the Stremmel and her husband—there’s a warehouse with a sign that reads, “Wayside Studios.” It contains three work spaces that have been occupied since spring 2017 by artists Sarah Lillegard, Casey Clark and Ahren Hertel. The building has two rooms on the ground floor that the artists weren’t using for much, and in November 2017, Stremmel opened a small store there. A framed chalkboard outside reads “Sierra Water Gardens Pop-Up Indoor Plant Shop” and announces that the shop is open Fridays through Sundays.

“This front room is [the artists'] showroom, where they get to show what they do,” Stremmel explained. That window-lit, white-walled room is decorated with one large Hertel painting, one fiber assemblage piece by Lillegard, a shelf of Clark’s pottery, and a lot of plants nestled in corners and hanging in the window. It looks almost like a gallery and almost like a living room.

With its limited hours and an entryway that looks like it may or may not be intended for the public, people are sometimes unclear on whether they’re in the right place. This sort-of-public/sort-of-private arrangement presents some pros and cons for all involved.

“It can be difficult to communicate to visitors what areas are accessible, who is working here, and [make sure] that the plant shop’s business hours are adhered to,” Lillegard said in an email interview. Sometimes customers arrive when the artists are working but the shop is closed. The artists have to explain that there are two different—but related—entities here.

Lillegard said that despite the confusion, the potential for cross-marketing is a plus. She’ll install some new work in the front window soon. With her labor-intensive, high-concept fiber works, it takes a long time to make enough work to fill a gallery, so being able to showcase just a few pieces at once works well for her.

Next to the gallery/living room is the main warehouse bay, which is forested with cacti, succulents and houseplants and stocked with handmade planters by Clark and other potters. Stremmel said the entire set-up was inspired by a visit to Cindercone Clay Center in Bend, Oregon, an artists’ studio facility that’s fronted by a retail shop.

If this nondescript location doesn’t bring in throngs of shoppers, so be it. To Stremmel, this is in part a business venture—and, to a large extent, an experiment in encouraging art-community involvement. Ω