Local Business

The Riversider | February/March 2022

Claybourne Co. WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT PHOTOS: ZACH CORDNER Owners Brent Barnes, Nick Ortega, and Jonathan Griffith

Located just on the outskirts of Riverside in Perris, Claybourne Co. is a top-tier premium cannabis brand owned and operated by three childhood friends who grew up together in Riverside.

Launched around five years ago, owners Nick Ortega (CEO, Co-Founder), Jonathan Griffith (VP of Marketing, Co-Founder), and Brent Barnes (VP of Breeding and Cultivation, Co-Founder), has established their own miniempire in the IE that’s catapulted the Claybourne brand into one of California’s premiere businesses in the cannabis industry.

Nick: Claybourne Co. started back in 2017—that’s when we had this idea. We all knew people in the IE that operated in the traditional market, and I ended up getting extremely interested in the cannabis industry, so we kind of started dabbling with them. I remember when I invited Jonathan over to my house one night and showed him some articles about dispensaries in the Bay Area, and I was like, “Hey, dude. Do you think you could design something like this?” Jonathan: At first, we were going to make an Apple store with weed. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing.

Nick: And then I hit up Brent. “I know you’re like a plant geek and you’re always talking about plants, but do you think you can grow weed, man?” He told me “no” at least two dozen times, and then eventually he was all, “Yeah, I guess I can try. I’m interested in it.”

Brent: In my world, it was kind of a normal conversation. Cannabis was being legalized, and I’d been working in plants my entire career. I’m a plant geneticist and I have my graduate and undergraduate degree from UC Riverside. Basically, I’m a plant breeder by education and trade—that’s what I worked in prior, and that’s what we do here at Claybourne. A lot of what created the brand and the marketing and everything allows us to also have genetics that people don’t have. That’s one of our claims to fame.

Nick: Technically, we started the company back in 2017. My kid was born in June of 2017 and I had these guys over at my house in July of 2017 to present them the Claybourne business plan idea in my living room. My wife still has the picture of us—she always sends it to me every year on the anniversary of when we were in the living room pitching the idea to Jonathan and Brent (and a few other friends who ended up not getting involved). But we officially started selling products in 2018—Bare Dispensary in Palm Springs was the first place where someone actually bought Claybourne weed, which is cool.

Jonathan: I grew up in Wood Streets—skating at RCC and downtown. I met Nick in high school. We went to Poly High, and Brent was over at King High.

Nick: I grew up on the outskirts of Wood Streets over by Sierra Middle School and Ramona High School. I’d skate across town to go skate with these guys.

Nick: Actually, when we were putting our business plan together was around the same time my first son was born. Jonathan and I had a childhood friend whose middle name was “Claybourne.” I was going to name my son Claybourne, but my wife didn’t like that name. At that time we were starting this company, we were like, “Let’s just name the company Claybourne.” Jonathan came up with a

cool logo that looked like an old Hobie Surfboards logo—it just said Claybourne inside of a diamond. And then at the last second right before we started to get our packaging done, he came up with our eagle logo instead. It stuck, and we just ran with it.

Jonathan: Claybourne is just a cool name. We didn’t want to make the name too literal—we didn’t want “cannabis,” or “green,” or any of that bullshit in the name. We were thinking ahead, so we can sponsor and activate outside of the cannabis industry. And it’s something your grandmother could wear.

Brent: The very first design said “Claybourne Cannabis Co.,” and we took out the word "cannabis" very quickly because there was still a stigma attached to it.” I mean, when you’re branding, you need to reach out to people who don’t use cannabis just as much as people who do.

Nick: We’re an extremely high-quality premium flower company, but we also offer a wide range of products. We don’t just sell extremely expensive weed—the majority of what we sell is approachable to the everyday consumer and is high quality. We don’t play the cannabis game of 420 or 710—like totally “cannabissed” out. Basically, we want to be approachable to as many people as possible, and Jonathan has done a really good job of building, branding, and marketing Claybourne—allowing us to do just that.

Nick: Well, it all starts with the flower, as it goes into various products as an ingredient. We make three different flower product segments, basically. We have our Flyers pre-roll line, which is all the same indoor flower. It gets ground up and goes into the Flyers, so they’re extremely high quality pre-rolls. We also have our Power line of products, which is that same flower but it’s enhanced with kief—kief is basically tricones that falls off the plant as it gets processed. We process a lot of flower, so naturally we generate a lot of kief and we decided to re-use that kief and give it to our consumers. And we have our Eagle extracts line, which is also from all our indoor raw materials. Our indoor flower also gets processed and turned into high quality extracts.

Jonathan: We’ve also got a little bit of merch like Claybourne hats, t-shirts, and hoodies to support the brand. We want to make things that almost everyone can wear to just be fans of the brand and rock it.

Nick: People from Riverside can either come into Perris, or they can go into Jurupa Valley, San Bernardino, or Moreno Valley. There’re various cities around Riverside, but unfortunately the City of Riverside doesn’t allow legal cannabis—maybe soon, though. Since Riverside is our home, it’s where a good amount of our business is. We’re one of the top three flower brands in California, period. And we’re the only legal cannabis company from Riverside, which is cool. We’re very proud of that. Nobody sells more flower in this area than Claybourne, that’s for sure. We might be number three in the state, but we’re definitely number one in this area.

Nick: We’re expanding our product portfolio and launching new products. We’re going heavy on direct-to-consumer, so that people can access our products where’s there isn’t any legal retail, like in Riverside, for example. Although you can buy our products from a lot of different licensed retailers in the cities surrounding Riverside, you can also buy directly from Claybourne and have it delivered to your house. We have over 90 employees, and we’re expanding our sales team in Northern California so we can get more of our products out there throughout the state. We’re taking the success we have here and are introducing our products in other markets outside of California. Brent is also expanding our cultivation facility.

Brent: By the time we’re done, we’ll have about 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of actual growing canopy—and that’s in two buildings. It’s one of the most hi-tech cultivation systems in California. It doesn’t look like it from the outside, but once you walk in—it’s a different story. One of our biggest claims to fame is that we’re blue collar. All of us here at Claybourne are blue collar—we’re not some rich kids with major backing. We built this company from the ground up with our own two hands.

For more info on the brand, please visit claybourneco.com or you can follow them on Instagram @claybourne_co

Presented By eastside arthouse words: alejandra garcia Photos: rosana anguiano cortez

Age: 26 Occupation: Part-time graphic designer/apprenticeship at N9ne Lives Collective Instagram: @gisselleadrawna Online store: adrawana.bigcartel.com

After a much forced slow-down from the Covid-19 pandemic, Gisselle had the time to prioritize her life goals. She left her timidness aside and emboldened to take her love of tattoos to the next level. Her focus at the moment is to branch her creative endeavors into tattooing and digital painting based on tattoo styles, where she can explore neo-traditional style that marries realism and American traditional styles. As of late, she landed an apprenticeship at N9ne Lives Collective—a tattoo shop based in Jurupa Valley. Gisselle is experienced in traditional painting and digital illustration. She’s known for painting skeletons and skulls, amongst lustrous, colorful florals, and plant life. Skulls and skeletons became a norm for Gisselle, as she took inspiration from the traditional, prehispanic holiday, holiday, Dia De Los Muertos. Inspiration could be found for whoever is paying attention, for Gisselle’s journey began while taking an art class in middle school. The continuous path of creating led to a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts/Graphic Design at California State University, Fullerton. As she’s balancing her time as a tattoo apprentice, Gisselle’s artwork is also available for purchase as she owns and operates her business, Adrawna—a clever wordplay on her middle name “Adriana” and the word “draw”. Her art prints and original merchandise, such as stickers, soft-enamel pins, and buttons can be purchased through adrawna.bigcartel.com

Age: 36 Occupation:Full-time graphic designer and videographer for Balsa Circle/Artist and illustrator (on her freetime) Contact: hello@orlovie.com TikTok and Instagram: @orlovie

Ekaterina migrated to the United States with her family at a young age from Russia. She’s currently breaking the narrative of fitting-in and paving the way for her daughter and future generations to be authentically oneself to become successful. When she’s not at her full-time job, Ekaterina is primarily a watercolorist. She blends the mediums of digital art and watercoloring to fully express her craft, which is watercolor illustration. Among other mediums, she’s currently exploring outdoor mural painting and would like to add muralist to her resume. The sense of community at the Eastside Arthouse is another fuel of inspiration for Ekaterina to pursue her passion, as well as the flora and fauna of Southern California has brought more color to her work. “Being part of the arthouse is so beneficial

because you can always find things to learn,” said Ekaterina. “People are uplifting each other,” she continued, “and if you’re not able to do something, you can give it to another person who is able to do it.” The community she found at the Eastside Arthouse, and the support from her husband, family and friends are helping Ekaterina spread her message. Although people differ culturally, storytelling is a universal element that shares similar life lessons that transcend language and heritage, and Ekaterina utilizes that element to spread hope through her art. Starting the month of March, Ekaterina will be open for commissions, and she’ll be showcasing her first exposition at the Artlands in Redlands in early April.

To redefine and elevate the essence of graffiti and street art is one of Jonathan’s primary focuses. At a young age, he started his venture with drawing that later led him to handle paint spray cans to canvas his vision wider and visible for all to see. Jonathan refined his skills and explored different art mediums at Norco College. He also worked at the Norco College Art Gallery. Not only did he gain a sense of professionalism, he also met amazing artists there. He learned through their experiences about navigating their own careers as artists. Jonathan found their stories of hardship relatable. Self-doubt can be a cruel disease that grasps and corrodes dreams. However, the stories his peers shared helped Jonathan gain confidence and clarity about his chosen profession. The sense of community he built there was a supportive one. Jonathan realized that he was more than capable of leading a career as an artist. Those affirmative stories of encouragement led him to transfer to and graduate from California State University, Long Beach with a Bachelor’s in Studio Art. Jonathan is an active member of the Eastside Arthouse, and he’s also applying to Claremont Graduate University to continue his studies in fine arts. As a seasoned artist, Jonathan still connects to his roots of street art and graffiti. It’s important for him to highlight the basic elements of graffiti aesthetic, as well as street art through an abstract lens. To strip out the lettering and focus on the basic geometric outlines is a beautiful element that Jonathan admires. One of his motivations is to pursue a teaching career, so he could educate others that street art and graffiti alike have value in art. Jonathan is currently open for commissions. If you’re interested in Jonathan’s work, please send him a direct message through Instagram.