Artful Attic coming to Camas

Lori Lander and Tyson Morris were supposed to marry each other next week. Instead, they’re wedding themselves to the downtown Camas business community.

“It feels like a big family. It feels like we just married into a big family that’s been waiting for us,” Lander, a Southwest Washington native, said.

The real wedding has been pushed back a year. The opening of Artful Attic Boutique, of which Lander and Morris are co-owners, has been taking up all of their time lately.

“This has been my entire life since May,” said Lander. “And that’s fine. This is a labor of love.”

The boutique will host a grand opening Saturday, Oct. 20, and Sunday, Oct. 21, at the store, a 1,500-square-foot space located at 217 N.E. Third Ave., in downtown Camas.

The shop will open with regular business hours the week following the grand opening, but that hasn’t stopped folks from coming in early.

“As we’ve been here, we’ve had people literally walk in the door and say, ‘Hey, I’m an artist, can I have my stuff here?'” Morris said.

“People are coming in because they’re just craving a place. Nobody wants to deal with the hassle of selling on Etsy and Ebay and whatnot,” Lander added.

That’s exactly the response the Artful Attic owners hoped for: the shop will serve as a place for custom work from Lander and Morris, but also as a podium for local artists to display and sell their creations. Lander said they also hope to offer art classes in 2019.

“As cheesy as it sounds, I firmly believe that art is healing for people, and the world needs a lot of healing right now,” she said.

Morris, a 23-year veteran of the United States Air Force, is Lander’s case study on the subject. Encouraged to experiment with his artistic side, Morris began playing with art materials in May. Five months later, he said he is as excited about Artful Attic as Lander is.

“All of a sudden, it clicked. It was something that I didn’t know was missing until I realized what I was doing,” Morris said. “She inspired me. I didn’t know I had this side of me, and she brought it out. It turned into something that we both love, and that we love to do together.”

Although Morris’ artistic endeavours are just beginning, this has been in the cards for Lander for a long time. She was working an office job earlier this year, and finally realized she was ready to embrace her passion as her work.

“I got to a point where I needed to interact with people. I needed to see the people that benefit from the work that I do,” she said. “I kinda decided that was where I needed to go and didn’t want to sit in a cube anymore.”

For a while, that meant their Washougal home doubled as their workshop. But that’s starting to change.