the unusual businesses on dickerson road seem off the beaten path, even though they’re near the center of town
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OPINION
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NEWS
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GREEN
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FEATURE STORY
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“It used to be a lot of automotive type businesses, carpenters, contractors, that type of thing,” said Devine about the road. “Now there’s still the automotive, but the contractors have left, and the artist types have moved in.” After Caravan Campers, there’s Tint Doctor & Auto, one of several automotive shops on the street, Fiori Produce, and across the road, the American National Insurance Company. “Some of the people who come over here and live over here—they feel like it’s a little niche that a lot of people don’t know about,” said Kelly Westmoreland, an insurance salesman with American National. “There are things on this street that people would never know about, maybe, like the water gardens, the homebrewer, and the live theater company down the street.” In recent years, Dickerson Road has developed something of a reputation as a miniature hub for the arts. This is partly because of the presence of Reno Art Works, a small gallery and set of artists’ studios on the road. They moved into the neighborhood in 2012 and currently operate two different spaces of studios, housing work areas for over 20 artists. They’re in the process of renovating a second gallery, called New Kid Gallery, focused on young artists, and achieving nonprofit status. They also operate the Potentialist Workshop, an alternative theater space that houses classes and performances by the improv comedy troupe Up & Atom, video shoots for stand-up comedians, and live theatrical performances. Their next production, Ali, has performances from Nov. 15 through Dec. 6.
ARTS&CULTURE
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ART OF THE STATE
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FOODFINDS
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FILM
“People have been working really hard here for a while, but PR wasn’t a big part of their mission,” said Aric Shapiro, the executive director of Reno Art Works. “And they didn’t need it as much. And we’re also the tipping point. The Wedge has been here for three or four years now, and [Infinity] Forge has been here for eight years. And Candace Nicol was here with Oxbow Press for years, so there was something kind of going, but didn’t quite reach a larger awareness.” Shapiro said that attracting attention to the neighborhood and the creative community there has been part of the mission of Reno Art Works. “In order for us to survive and thrive and be true to our mission, we had to make a really big deal about what we were doing to find the other artists to rent the space,” he said. “For us to make it we really needed to make a large production out of it, so we had to talk about: ‘Here’s Dickerson Road. Here’s Reno Art Works. We’re out here. We exist. Look at it! Look at it! Look at it!’” Shapiro said that, for artists, part of the appeal of Dickerson Road is that it’s safe without being gentrified. It’s cheap to rent space, but the small-town atmosphere makes the area seem secure. “You can work ’til 2 or 3 in the morning, and you don’t have to worry about who’s milling around your car,” he said. “And that makes it more accessible for a larger portion of the population. … Everybody’s kind of chill, everybody’s relaxed and wants to make it look good. It’s that in-between phase where it’s still beautiful and approachable and nice and worth looking at, but not so much that it’s restrictive.” |
MUSICBEAT
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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS
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THIS WEEK
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He gestured to the projects-inprogress and random assortment of detritus in front of the gallery. “If we were in Midtown with a church pew, a couple of pieces of plywood, and a desk in our parking lot, people would be like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Community colleagues At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a dump where the park is now. In the 1930s, there was a garlic farm in the area. Some local business owners mentioned rumors that, at some point, there was a brothel on the road. In the 1970s, there was a hippie commune called Truckee River Risin, that used to host Greenpeace “Save the Whales” rallies and music festivals. Buz Rhodes lived on the commune in the ’70s. Now he owns Rhodesigns, a shop on the road where he makes handpainted signs, airbrush paintings, and does custom automobile pinstriping. “A lot of people have come and gone,” said Rhodes. “A lot of people who lived in Reno for years never knew about Dickerson Road—back then and now too. … It’s been a great place to have a shop.” Infinity Forge, a blacksmith shop, has been on the road for eight years. The shop hosts open
MISCELLANY
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NOVEMBER 13, 2014
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RN&R
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ickerson Road is only a mile and a half from the Reno arch, only a five-minute drive from the heart of downtown, and yet it feels worlds removed. Tucked in a narrow metaphorical peninsula between the Truckee River and the railroad tracks, with only one way in and out, the road itself is just over half a mile. It ends with a cul-de-sac at Oxbow Nature Park, one of the city’s great, untrammeled parks. Along the road, there’s a constant hum of welding, drilling, grinding and other power tools at work, punctuated by the rumble and whistle of trains rolling by at close proximity. The neighborhood is close to the urban core, but feels small and rural, the kind of place where everybody knows each other. Local businesspeople are as likely to be out in front of their stores mingling with one another as they are to be inside minding the shop. And the businesses there are unique—no national chains or stores with broad commercial appeal. Instead it’s all misfit niche businesses: supply stores for unusual hobbies, artists’ studios, and specialty manufacturers. The road is also home to a few hundred people who live in standalone houses and apartment complexes along the river. The road begins west of Keystone Avenue, where Second Street merges with Chism Street. Heading west from the beginning of the road, the first business on the street is Caravan Campers, a company that manufactures camper shells and is celebrating 60 years in business. Mike Devine, the current owner, has worked there for 38 years. His father was one of the company’s original partners.
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