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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us September 26, 2005 Essentially Ashland Uniting cultures: American Trails offers a world-class Native American experience Ashland’s Dave Bobb opened his Plaza gallery in 1990 Lance Pugh I first met Dave Bobb 15 years ago when he moved his family to Ashland from the Central Valley in California, where he was both a landscape architect and a historic preservationist. He searched hard and found a space next to Rich Hanson’s Gold & Gems on the Plaza and began building a business that is not usually found in small towns. He was and still is a larger-than-life cartoon character who resembles Yosemite Sam: Burly, distinctively mustached, a booming laugh and a ready wit … topped off with a well-worn cowboy hat that looks like it got caught under a stagecoach for a 100-mile haul. The world of Native American arts and their retail availability is confusing to me, but Dave is fluent in this world of artifacts, art, music, weavings and heirloom baskets. While I stare, unknowingly, at something in his inventory, Dave usually drops by and gives me an in-depth description of what I’m looking at, peeling back 20 layers of mumbling conundrums and revealing the pearl of knowledge which he possesses. After a year of being in Ashland, David wondered why there were no Christmas events in town. Having grown up in New England and recalling fond memories of family outings singing Christmas carols in the station wagon while driving around to view all the beautiful lights on the historic homes and Constitution Plaza in Hartford, Conn., David approached several other business and B & B owners in town and started informal meetings at his Gallery to talk about possible plans for a Holiday Festival. The Holiday Festival of Lights was born. One of the committee members, Sandy Spaulding, talked about her experiences of having participated in a Holiday Festival and Candlelight Home tour from her small town in Texas and helped him find a wholesale supplier for the lights. I remember Dave when he cold-called on 80 merchants and rounded up $8,000, the necessary amount to purchase enough little white lights to decorate our downtown during December. After closing his shop at night, he would man a tall ladder, drill anchors and string the wires and bulbs well into the night until all was right with the sparkling lights. Locals walking by encouraged him as Bobb bobbed up and down the ladder throughout the evenings. He spent three weeks alone on top of the former Mark Antony Hotel with the owner of Upper Level Tree Service rappelling down the face of the building. Fortunately, both knew the ropes. Dave Bobb’s American Trails has offered Native American arts, crafts and museum-quality pieces for 15 years. Submitted photo After such a warm reception by fellow small business owners he was shocked by the response he received in a story in the Daily Tidings implying Dave and his “cohorts” main motive was to line their pockets with shopper’s dollars rather than to create a festive atmosphere that could provide future fond memories of childhood like he had for another generation of kids. Undaunted by the negative publicity a great group of volunteers was assembled, the majority of which had no interest or possibility of economic gain, to help with planning the event and a small cadre of workers to help Dave hang the lights. Working a 40-hour week after his normal business day and weekends for three months all of the lights were hung and the rest is history. The townsfolk loved the look and feel of the project and soon the previously reluctant Chamber of Commerce moved in and took over the project as their own. I guess once the risk was gone it was safe to warm up to the lights of winter. Shortly after arriving in town a small group of art gallery owners under the inspiration of Jim Nelson at the Blue Heron Gallery formed the Ashland Gallery Association and Dave became an active member, eventually building a Web site to help promote the arts in Ashland. In 2000 American Trails received the Arts Council of Southern Oregon award for Small Business of the Year. Through the years David has been a big supporter of the Schneider Museum at Southern Oregon University and helped Greer Markle with his fundraising mask auctions and was instrumental in getting the Durango Collection to the Museum in 1994. The Durango Collection is one of the most comprehensive collections of early weavings from the Americas and was displayed in many of the nation’s largest museums including the Denver, St. Louis and Salt Lake museums of natural history, and portions of the collection were displayed at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. and the American Folk Art Museum in New York. He also had his good friend and weaving historian Mark Winter from the Toadlena Trading Post and Museum in New Mexico bring a show of contemporary Toadlena-Two Grey Hills weavings to the Schneider along with Mary Blue-eyes who gave a lecture and demonstration of Navajo weaving techniques and together they donated a beautiful weaving to be used in a fundraising raffle. His Mexican Folk Mask Collection was just recently featured in a Collectors Show at the Schneider as well. The Ashland Gallery Association’s First Friday’s Art Walk is a big hit with both locals and visitors alike. Again, this is not a Chamber event, rather the result of merchants working directly together. To get an idea of just how professionally the AGA appears, browse on over to www.atasteofashland.com. You will be impressed. You can catch David interviewing artists on a Cable Access Show called the “First Friday Art Walk”. Up the street at 383 East Main Dave has opened up a Best of Oregon store, this run by his two sons, Aidan and Arty. They carry all manner of made in Oregon products, but my favorites are the Pendleton blankets, shirts jackets, hats and bags. Dave has created an intergenerational store, allowing his sons to keep living and working in the valley. Look for their grand re-opening celebration in October. I headed out the door the other night, as the temperature turned pleasingly cool. I wore my cowboy boots, cowboy hat and Pendleton jacket and, of course, long pants and a western shirt. I walked downtown, hoping to run into another man of the West, with a cowboy hat and an imagination as big as the high desert sky. Future columns will focus on various businesses as well as key individuals and events that will lead the charge from times past to lend perspective to the revival of Ashland. Send your favorite remembrances to: [email protected]. 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