by Jeff Miller
It’s known as “the nation’s longest running seasonal arts & crafts cooperative.” But The Yes Store can’t make that claim anymore, since it’s no longer seasonal. It’s year-round.
And it’s not nomadic anymore, because after 55 years it’s found a home, at 1100 State Street, in La Arcada Plaza.
“We got tired of looking for space every year,” said Yes Store president Deborah Healy. And when you consider the path the store has taken over half a century, you can appreciate that sentiment.
“I’ve dealt with so many realtors and owners and locations over the years,” Healy said. “My husband says, how can you remember them all? Well, I worked really hard to get them.”
And remember them she does. Which is all the more impressive because there’s hardly a block on State that hasn’t hosted the nomadic shop at least once in 55 years. Some were big, some small, depending on what was available when November (through Christmas Eve) rolled around. But no matter where it landed, the artists, craftspeople, and customers kept coming back.
How many creators have graced their displays over these 55 years? Thousands? “Oh, yes,” said Healy.
Yes has been around (and around) for so long that its beginnings are a bit hazy.
“The people who started it were passionate about it,” Healy said. Those founders were Gary Chafe, Armin “Arnie” Mueller, and the famed Dr. Harris “Bubs” Meisel, who also founded what’s now Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital, among many other achievements. The Yes Store “was a beautiful thought,” Healy said. “It was the ’60s. People wanted to be cooperative.”
As the story goes, when one of the co-founders, Gary Chafe, now deceased, went in to register the business long ago, he was of course asked the shop’s name. “He started giving a long name and the clerk said, no! You can’t do that!” said Healy. “And Gary said, yes, you’re right. So he went home and thought about that word, yes. The most positive word.” And so The Yes Store was born.
The shop made its meandering, seasonal way to 1979, when Deborah Healy and her husband, Kevin, came aboard. “We would usually start looking for a space in July or August,” Healy said. “It would get serious in September. We had to get it settled by October to send out applications.” And the number of contributors who could get a yes varied greatly because “we never knew what size store we’d get. Most were quite small.” Some were quite large, like the old Sears building. Some were quite interesting, like the old State Theatre, now the home of the Unity Gift & Thrift Shoppe.
Santa Barbara is so arty and crafty that “we could easily host 120 artists if we had the room,” Healy said.
Yes wended its way through the ’80s. In 1990 Healy became one of the managers, and then in the early ’90s “it came to us that we needed to incorporate. So we hired a lawyer who did the paperwork and we were incorporated as a general cooperative corporation.”
Now, in its new life, the store has been reformulated as a C corporation with owner/officers Deborah and Kevin Healy, Laura Giordana, and Eric Duffy. The four devoted “a lot of time, energy, investment, and dedication to make this new dream of a year-round Yes Store a reality,” Healy asserted. And this year 26 creators will be displaying in the new Yes.
(Historical note: For 55 years, Yes was open from November to 5 p.m. on Dec. 24. “Till this year,” Healy noted. “This year we stayed open till Jan. 15 to try it out and it worked!” Which propelled the year-round momentum.)
“We love being in La Arcada,” Healy said. “We love being part of the arts district.” On their (now permanent) displays will be the usual eclectic offerings of paintings, sculpture, jewelry, pottery, graphics, woodworking, leather, and more.
There are countless stories about the cooperative spirit that has propelled The Yes Store into its 56th year. An example:
“I remember one year we just couldn’t find space,” Healy recalled. “So I just walked up and down State Street, looking.” Then she came upon Cymbaline Records at 1035 State, whose proprietor was just hanging up a going-out-of-business sign. Healy called the building owner who asked how she’d heard it about it. She explained that, and then told about the store’s annual search for space. “‘Oh’, she said. ‘I love the Yes Store.’ She even came down and helped us paint and became a contributor.” And yes, Yes had another temporary landing place.
But now the annual search is over. After all those moves, and what Healy called the store’s “deep, amazing history,” Yes has finally found a place to call home.
