“Your wife called… She knows you were at Johnny’s,” reads a waist-high sandwich board propped on the sidewalk, referring to the restaurant and bar just down the block. “You might want to buy her something pretty.” Below that suggestion, arrows helpfully point toward the entrance to Paste Arts & Crafts Supplies.
The board’s suggestion comes courtesy of Katie Shanahan, who owns and operates that Soulard shop, and its impishness seems apt. Particularly when discussing Paste, Shanahan bubbles like a newly opened soda.
“I’ve always been ‘crafty’ myself, and I’ve lived in Soulard for a couple years, and in order to get any kind of craft supplies, you have to drive all the way out to the county, go to a big chain store,” she says, her words tumbling over one another like puppies newly wakened from a nap. “So we just thought there was nothing like it around and decided to give it a shot.”
Opened late in June, Paste occupies half of the ground floor of the 99-year-old Soulard Fine Arts Building, facing a row of the neighborhood’s huddled brownstones. Mild incense or a scented candle perfumes the shop, which, despite the age of the building, also boasts new-looking white linoleum and a handsome pressed-tin ceiling. Stocking Paste is a plethora of supplies devoted to arts and crafts: inks and powders, yarn and knitting needles, ribbons and feathers, stickers and rubber stamps (“What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about?” muses one such stamp).
Moreover, the shop’s front window—beneath its funky, parti-colored logo—displays work on consignment from local craftspersons. “There’s about 20 of ’em in here now, and we’re always taking new stuff,” Shanahan says. “Especially around the holidays, we’ll really bulk up on it for gifts.”
In addition to paintings in a small upstairs gallery, work on consignment includes buttons, zippered purses, jewelry, and matted tableaux by area photographers. “It’s keeping the money right here—it’s giving it right back to the crafters,” says Shanahan of the display. “Plus, it’s nice when people walk in off the street—if they aren’t necessarily a crafter, they still can purchase something.”
The craftspersons involved “price all their own stuff, and I’m beyond impressed—I mean, it’s all affordable. They put so much time and work into it, some of ’em, I think, price too low.” She chuckles a bit ambivalently at that notion, then adds, “But they want to make their stuff accessible to everybody—it’s not like when you walk into a boutique, and you have to spend $40 on a candle.”
Ah, yes—money. In a signal irony, Shanahan’s business actually may have benefited from the recession. “Crafting is one of the few industries that in this economy has risen, for a couple reasons,” she says. “One, people want to make their own stuff—it’s less expensive—and two, people don’t have as much money to go out and do stuff, so it’s kind of nice at-home activities.”
A welcoming nabe has also helped, she notes: “The people here in Soulard are amazing—the amount of support I’ve gotten from the other business owners, the residents, is just incredible.” In turn, she’s committed the shop to the community. Her opening-weekend profits went to The Soulard School, for instance, and last month, Paste sponsored a 24-hour “knitathon” for Children’s Hospital patients.
Otherwise, Shanahan’s begun to offer classes in crafting. “We do one-time workshops, just because I think it’s hard for people to find four Tuesdays to commit to something,” she says. “It’s usually pretty low fees—we try to keep ’em all under $25. It’s for a couple hours, but that includes all your supplies and everything that you take with you.
“Especially around the holidays,” Shanahan adds, “it’ll be nice: You come in, you make an ornament, make a candle, make something that you can give as a gift.”
That sounds like a praiseworthy plan indeed—with or without a dalliance at Johnny’s.
To learn more about Paste Arts & Crafts Supplies, visit the shop at 1009A Russell, direct your browser to pastecrafts.com, or call 314-577-6930. Hours: Tue–Sun 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
