Mitchell Artisan Market provides sneak peek

Energy and Environment Reporter

Before moving to the Crossroads, Leo Bertucci studied journalism and political science at Western Kentucky University.

To support reporting like this, and to help support and preserve high-quality, community journalism, please consider a donation to the Morris Roberts Local Journalism Foundation.

Visitors check out Root and Vibe at Mitchell Artisan Market Tuesday in Victoria.

Toys, plants and children’s clothes now have a home inside a repurposed 120-year-old school building.

Tenants of the new Mitchell Artisan Market showed off their spaces for the first time Tuesday. The yellow-and-red building on Victoria’s Commercial Street was once the Mitchell School and later an academic guidance center.

Julie Hughes, owner of Root and Vibe, speaks with potential customers Tuesday in Victoria.

An array of green leaves lined the walls of one converted classroom. Known as Root and Vine, Julie Hughes’ space is both an indoor plant nursery and a sound meditation studio.

Hughes tapped a crystal singing bowl, then circled the bowl with a mallet, creating a gentle hum.

The artisan market provided an “awesome space” for Hughes to fuse together her interests, she said.

“I’ve been looking for a space to do my (meditation) classes and I wanted to have plants as well,” she said. “So within my meditation and classes, I do a lot of self care work and plants go really well with that.”

Julie Hughes practices sound meditation with a crystal singing bowl.

Hughes said she plans to have eight meditation classes a week, with up to 10 mats available during each session.

Down the hall is the Lucky Robot Toy Store, run by Karissa Winters. Shelves are stocked with harmonicas, juggling balls and stuffed animals.

Winters, who also leads the Innovation Collective in Victoria, envisions the market and the adjacent buildings behind it as a “community-focused place.” She said there could be movies on the lawn, a sandbox for kids and a restaurant inside the former school cafeteria.

Claire Santellana, Crossroads Art House owner, talks with potential customers Tuesday during the Mitchell Artisan Market opening in downtown Victoria.

“I really want people to say, ‘I want to go hang out at the Mitchell because there’s always something going on,” Winters said.

After-school art classes are already in the works. Crossroads Art House is designing a classroom just to the left of the building’s front entrance. Classes will be offered Tuesdays through Thursdays and on Saturdays, beginning Aug. 22, said Art House owner Claire Santellana.

Anyone 5 and older can take a class at the Art House, Santellana said. Each class will have no more than 24 students.

Art House students at the Mitchell building can join a new youth program, which consists of three levels: Explore, Imagine and Create.

Bowen Winters and James Santellana play with Legos Tuesday morning at the Mitchell Artisan Market.

“The kids can test into the program to see where they land,” Santellana said. “It’s based off of their knowledge of principles of design, elements of art and art history. They have certain things they have to master before they move up.”

Santellana said the Art House will also host an enrichment program for home-schooled students.

All of the market’s new tenants said they still have work to do before their space is fully decorated and painted. One of these shop owners is Jill Parkan Sills, who runs the Frank & Ruby Boutique, a clothing and home décor store. Parkan Sills said she expects more outfits for girls, shorts for boys and items for adults.

“They’re whimsical,” Parkan Sills said of the clothes she ordered from a wholesaler. “They’re made with a silk material, so it doesn’t irritate kids like some other clothes do.”

Parkan Sills said she also plans to sell cookies and cupcakes from her cottage bakery, Shirley’s Sweet Treats.

Sip & Shine, the coffee shop operating inside Riverside Church, will open a food truck in the building’s parking lot on Sept. 12, founder Dawn Rivera said.

Cindy Guevara paints inside the Mitchell Artisan Market Tuesday in Victoria.

Staff from the coffee shop set up a tent outside the Mitchell building Tuesday, giving customers a taste of what is to come.

“We’re excited to have this downtown location,” Rivera said.

Last year, the Victoria Independent School District sold the longtime school building for $300,000 to Realtor James Wearden.

The Michell Artisan Market held it grand opening Tuesday morning in downtown Victoria.

Mitchell Artisan Market Grand Opening

WHERE: 306 E. Commercial St., Victoria

WHEN: Sept. 12, starting at 11:30

Those interested in leasing space inside the Mitchell building can call realtor James Wearden at 361-649-9157.

Wearden said the Mitchell building will be open for market shoppers from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays beginning next month.

“The ladies gave everybody a sample of what they have to offer,” Wearden said. “It was exciting to see people come out for the sneak preview.”

Wearden said the building has 11 vacant spaces, four on the first floor and seven upstairs.

“When more people want to get involved, the better it is,” Wearden said.

Leo Bertucci is a Report for America corps member who covers energy and environment for the Victoria Advocate.

Energy and Environment Reporter

Before moving to the Crossroads, Leo Bertucci studied journalism and political science at Western Kentucky University.

To support reporting like this, and to help support and preserve high-quality, community journalism, please consider a donation to the Morris Roberts Local Journalism Foundation.