Scenic Drive E Pike Factory
A Conversation with Nikki Mazzei and Rachel Ravitch
What inspired you to open Scenic Drive
N: The common thread of the chorus is creating a space where people are welcomed to come in and feel inspired and connect with other people in our neighborhood and people who are designers and artists. Bridging the gap. There are so many reasons why people don’t know each other and it’s so simple in a way. To just learn things and not have to spend a ton of money taking classes, you could just meet up with people who are willing to share we kinda all feed off of each other.
R:And it’s amazing too like, the people that we’ve met Dawn, Matt and all these different designers and creative people everyone wants to create this community of where the culture is sharing what you know with other people instead of keeping it secretive “Oh no, this is my knowledge, I had to pay to learn this and I had to spend all this time…” it’s sort of a new trend in business in general and it’s really inspiring.
The collective/cooperative vs. the competitive/collective model?
R: No, yeah, basically the corporate/competitive model doesn’t really serve anybody except for the people at the very top and even those people it’s not really serving because none of them are really happy. The more cooperative method is about knowledge sharing and it’s driven by inspiration and happiness (laughs) as opposed to fitting into somebody’s bottom line. Cooperation creates a more community minded spirit, so it’s part of that trickle down effect, hopefully.
N: I think that part of it is too is that there is such a teaching/learning aspect to what we’re doing and because of the economy and everything else people are more pro learning and teaching. Figuring out how to do things for themselves. Whereas the corporate world is so “Go to Costco! Go to College you need to get a job! You need to buy a house! you know you need to do all these things and all the sudden you become dependent on everything that has to do with money.
R: People now who have been professionals like Dawn and myself, we went to college to do this specific skill set, to fulfill that but then when you’re ripped out of that or you choose to not be a part of it anymore it’s like well what does that knowledge mean and how can I express it differently and share it with people around me as opposed to just keeping it to myself .
What is your future vision for Scenic Drive, projects, dreams, fantasies?
R: I think that the one thing that is lacking and why independent designers can’t continue to make it on their own past a certain point is because it’s difficult to produce to the level they need to, to make it worthwhile in that same way. When you get to that production level it usually means that you’ve given your design away to somebody else to produce it in a sense, but there are other models we can look at that survived for a long time, I heard recently that Filson sold out to Ralph Lauren, but for a long time that was a company that made everything in Seattle, they made their own fabric they made everything, the quality of the materials hadn’t changed much in the last 100 years, it’s was all their signature stuff and by doing that they’ve been able to maintain a really true brand. But independent designers that we know will come to this point where they have to invest in all these different machines like they have to invest in a certain type of machine to make a button hole to put a button on and to put a zipper in jeans for example and if we can collectively create a cooperative production facility where we make the textiles and all the way to the finished product, basically it would be a facility where people can come and work on their own projects. A space where different designers could come and use all the machines and not everybody have to have every single one of those machines themselves. When you’re sharing with many different designers there is an integrity inherent to it’s existence that can’t be changed. And with this we’re creating a whole economy an economy that doesn’t exist anymore in Seattle. But there are definitely people that know how to sew, there is a whole program at Seattle Central…people graduate from there. The infrastructure is here to create that kind of industry and I think it’s really important to start making more industry like that in America if we want to survive.
Are there other people or organizations doing this?
R: There might be, like. It’s weird when you go to Barney’s or whatever what people think of as a luxury item is made like in Italy or France but there is no reason why we can’t be making luxury items here.
N: Craft is still really valued there in those countries, they value their craftsmen. They value buying something that costs a lot of money that took a lot of time with a lot of precision and maybe only five hands have touched it. But people here say they can’t afford that or what’s the point when they can just go to H&M and buy something for $19.99. I think also too is our vision is of creating a marker’s space for the general public and nurturing that teaching/learning aspect of what we’re doing because I think that’s really important, helping kids learn how to do things, teaching people how to use the letterpress and typewriters, I would really love to have a space that is 10 times the size of this space and we could just have every gadget you can imagine and workshops on how to use them.
Do you think alternative/local economies will eventually eclipse the global economies if so how?
R: I don’t know, I mean, it’s hard to say it’s like a dream almost…I hope so. Unfortunately our country has really invested itself in corporatism all the trade towers you see downtown are representative of that, if we start to have a more local economy what will happen to all those buildings? So there as basically been all this growth since the 70s that makes it less feasible, I mean who is going to take over that tower, cities are not going to let that go. They’ve invested in an entire city block being taken over and getting that tax revenue whereas European cities have commercial centers but they kept all of their downtown intact and built their urban center kind of away from downtown and so it’s not as important to them as keeping the integrity of our city intact. I think in some smaller ways and even in spite of itself the growth that has happened it’s kind of buckling back on itself, like Costco and malls are going to be obsolete because you have Amazon Fresh and businesses like that are emerging where you can buy dozens of rolls of toilet paper and have it delivered to you fucking door, you don’t have to drive there, the cost is slightly more expensive than buying it from Costco but the expense of driving, people are going to have to start thinking about that, when gas reaches $5 a gallon which will happen this summer people are going to start considering that and factoring that in. The delivery service is not really going to be that affected by the gas prices going up because they’re making the rounds regardless.
N: You can look at other countries, China, I think, they’re focusing on manufacturing things for themselves
R: Like France and Britain, they drive cars that are not manufactured to be exported they drive. They see a real value in that.
How do you think small businesses like yours will help reverse the global economic trend?
R: Creating a more pedestrian friendly city which is what small businesses do already something that helps fight that, it makes the city more vibrant. If we weren’t on this block there would no other business other than a coffee shop that would be inviting people to come in and do something.
N: There are so many empty buildings in this neighborhood that can be used to make it more vibrant and make it so much better. Basically a business that is good for the neighborhood not another Real Estate office or another Hair Salon but something that adds to the riches of what Seattle is supposed to be about, not another deep tunnel or another empty building that some developer owns and they’re just letting it rot.
Tell us about your monthly indoor market
Once a month we host a monthly indoor market featuring local art, craft and vintage. Featured artists/vendors include: Laura Vandecrimp (Vandecrimp Industries), Isabella Vicenza, Pamela Davis (Mucho Designs), Barbara Pronsato (Mintika), Maggie Schneider, Mark Ferrin (the hero thing machine), Izzie Klingels (Les Yeux D'Extase), Kook Teflon (Formerly Miss Oblivious), Cairo, 20/20 Cycles, and Scenic Drive.
Why is Native Funk and Flash so amazing?
R: Talk about local people doing things for themselves, that book is pretty inspiring. They have a little community that is supporting them and they’re like look at this person that what they’re doing is valuable, though it’s weird and they’re cuddling a doll under their blanket with little braids. It’s just unbelievable that that happened, that whole time period happened in the 60’s and 70’s were expressing themselves creatively and doing interesting things that completely contradicted what had been going on, you look at the 50’s and 60’s and that is when the whole push to use your automobile to go to the mall and drive up windows and all that bullshit and people like that were reacting to that and somehow…it didn’t change though, society didn’t change it just went right back to the way that it was I mean it kept going on that path.
N: Expressing themselves freely without any inhibitions, ‘This is who I am and and this is what I’m into’. They were reacting to standardization, where it’s just like Native Funk and Flash is just like not Standard, our shop is not Standard but it’s so rich and amazing
Dark or Milk Chocolate:
N: Both
R: Dark
Walk or Bike:
N:Both
R: Both
Beach or Mountains
Both
Creamy or Chunky
Both
Beer or Cocktails?
Yes, please
