It was during the winter storms of 2017 that artist and landscape architect Jessica Neafsey was displaced from her Big Sur home by landslides that she found herself spending the night in Carmel. She was getting some work done in her hotel room when she took a break to walk through the dark and rainy village to find some dinner. On her way, something caught her eye down one of Carmel’s pedestrian-only passageways.
“I came across this illuminated cube in a courtyard I don’t think I had ever set foot in,” she says of the glass gazebo occupied by the lifestyle goods store Bee, Bark & Moss inside San Carlos Square, between San Carlos and Mission. “No one else was around, but Minori (Shironishi) was inside the cube sewing on her sewing machine. She was actually making something.”
Neafsey struck up a conversation with Shironishi, who runs the business with her husband, Philip Rodrigue. The experience left a deep impression on Neafsey and proved to be a harbinger of not only the next phase of her creative life, but of the life of San Carlos Square as well.
For years, the courtyard was home to the restaurant Club Jalapeño, which opened in 1997, a real estate office and an assortment of stores shuffling through, with bouts of vacancies in between. Nine years ago, custom clothing designer Loes Hinse moved in with sergers and fabric from another part of town. Three years ago, Bee, Bark & Moss opened in the gazebo, selling colorful handmade bags and other items, and later took on another showroom space for home goods a few steps down the passage.
Along with those businesses, painter Travis Hall moved in on the end at Mission Street, where he paints and displays his artwork. Ajne Natural Fragrance Company, an apothecary run by perfumer and herbalist Jane Hendler, makes and sells fragrances. In May, glass artist Kathleen Little opened her studio, Little Glass – complete with a kiln – which also serves as a showroom and classroom.
Around the same time, a small shop opened up across from the gazebo. Shironishi and Rodrigue encouraged Neafsey to lease the space for her business Anima, which features Neafsey’s hand-printed scarves, clothing and photographic art. She opened her doors in September. The square was humming with new energy from the makers who had now moved in.
The biggest jolt of energy came from the August opening of cafe and restaurant Stationæry, which took over the vacant Club Jalapeño space. The sleek cafe, owned by Alissa Bell Carnazzo and Anthony Carnazzo, offers coffee, tea, and breakfast and lunch items made from locally sourced foods, as well as Alissa’s letterpress stationery. Rodrigue calls the addition of food service from 8am-5pm daily a “slam dunk” for all the shops, bringing in more foot traffic.
The new energy was palpable to everyone, including customers who would bring up it up with neighboring shopkeepers. “‘This is unique, this is nice’ – I heard it a lot for the last two months,” Hinse says. And she’s seeing a whole new customer base come into her store, people looking for unique goods crafted by local artisans.
The change from sleepy courtyard to vibrant creative art space prompted the shop owners to rebrand themselves as Artisans’ Row Carmel. On a recent fall morning, seven of the artisans were gathered around the cafe tables in front of Stationæry, sharing their origin stories and expressing how proud they are of not just selling art and artistic goods but of making their wares in front of customers’ very eyes.
“It’s not everywhere in Carmel where that’s happening,” Neafsey says.
Artisan’s Row brings to a town descendended from an artists’ colony a place where today’s art is not just sold, but made in place.
The synergy between the artisans developed naturally, Rodrigue says.
“Creative people tend to find each other,” he says.
They get ideas and inspiration from their neighbors but don’t feel as if they’re competing with one another. They routinely refer customers to the other shops and they’re thinking of ways to collaborate in the future. They also call on each other for help – Hinse is frequently called upon to fix issues with serger machines at Bee, Bark & Moss.
They also buy from each other – Carnazzo says she and her husband bought glass from Little’s studio and had Bee, Bark & Moss help with the banquettes when they were opening the cafe – right down to the hand-mixed scents from Hendler’s apothecary store that several of the owners use to draw customers in through their doors and freshen the shared bathrooms.
“It’s practical and old-timey in the best possible way,” says Carnazzo. “It just speaks to the community of it.”