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Rug store owners calling it quits for artistic goals By SUSAN DEROSIA Ashland Daily Tidings This will be a very busy month for John Hauschild and Brooks Garten, owners of East-West Gallery in downtown Ashland. Rug purveyor John Hauschild is giving up his East-West business of 19 years to devote full-time energy to his music career. Ashland Daily Tidings/ DENISE BARATTA Garten, a painter whose art has graced the walls of the store often over the years, this month will hang her final exhibit in the space and hold her final First Friday reception. At the end of October, the two will lock the door and turn in the keys, closing the store that has been an oasis in Ashland for nearly 20 years. With walls hung with multi-hued rugs - all handmade - from the middle east and central Asia, furniture made from Indian rosewood, onyx chess sets from Pakistan, tables of tawny mangowood and loft filled with carpets of all sizes and shapes, there is much that still points to a fascinating past for the store. The shop was first opened by Walter Von Fink in 1984, then John Hauschild joined him in 1985. Fine carpets had interested Hauschild for years. "My first wife inherited a couple of antique Persian rugs from her grandmother and I decided to look around and try to find other old rugs, through sales and antique shops and learned how to recognize them and I'd buy and sell them. I had a friend in New York who came from a long-time rug family and he would send them to me." By the time he moved to Ashland in 1983, Hauschild had already spent 10 years collecting handmade rugs. He and Von Fink had another store in Ashland, but they closed the store and concentrated on the East Main location. The store was very different then. "The whole space was pretty dark compared to what it is now. There was no balcony, low-ceilinged with no air conditioning. It was very different, much more like an Asian bazaar, not like a gallery. There were a lot more things packed into the area." The store went through changes and in 1988, the ceiling was taken out and the loft was built. Meanwhile, Hauschild was making frequent trips overseas to find items for the store. "With all the imported things, the idea was to travel overseas and look for all the different tribal art and furnishings and as time went on the inventory became more and more skewed to the art." He recalls. "When my partner left, we had a big sale and at that time we went for a cleaner, more spacious look. More art and carpets." Brooks Garten first walked into the store to ask if she could hang some art on the walls. A self-taught artist, her free-flowing style combines both realistic and abstract elements. In the mid-80s she was a communication student at SOU, graduating summa cum laude. While at SOU, she worked at Jefferson Public Radio and later in radio and television in Medford. As her relationship with Hauschild evolved, her sense of art and design became a part of the gallery. Both Garten and Hauschild have been musicians since they were children. Garten played piano and sang. Hauschild, who grew up outside of Chicago, started as a child playing trumpet, then took up the guitar as a teenager. By the '60s, he was a blues musician, frequenting the blues clubs in Chicago and learning from greats such as, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the Butterfield Blues Band. Over the years he continued his music, and now plays with the Blues Dusters. "The group plays a lot of the original blues and country and R&B � but a lot of original music." Joining him in the group are, drummer Kent Clinkinbeard and lead guitarist Leonard Griffie, and pianist Alan Crutcher. On October 18, the Blues Dusters will play at the Bulls-Eye, with bassist Joe Cahoon joining in. Over the years, the band has experienced more success and Hauschild has started a solo career, but having the store has always limited his ability to write and perform music as much as he'd like. Both his career and his personal life took an odd turn when he took Garten to a festival in Portland to see legendary blues and gospel singer and minister Solomon Burke. "It was a magical circumstance," he remembers. "We went to see him perform in Portland and it turned out we were staying in the same hotel." "Solomon Burke had a lot of big hits like 'Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,' Got to Get You Off of My Mind' and 'Cry to Me.' At the festival he performed his hits on Saturday night and then on Sunday he does a gospel show. It was on Sunday morning before we went to the gospel show. Brooks just happened to open the door to our room and she saw him. He was dressed in a big purple and gold robe, looking regal. And they said hello." "So we got ready and left our room and in the elevator and there he was. He and his daughters were in the elevator. We were going to wait for another elevator but he asked us and to ride together with them in the elevator. No one else came in. Standing in the elevator we talked a little and he said, 'Do you want to come up and sing with me?' We hadn't said anything about singing. He just said that his grandmother was a seer and he has some of that in him and he said he just felt it. So I said yes. "So, he said, 'OK I'll call you up.'" "On the way to the show, Brooks said to me, 'When we're ready to get married, we need to get him to marry us.' "So we go to the concert and about half way through he called me up and I sang one song, then he invited me to stay up there. I sang for the whole thing. Now, one thing he would do is he would reaffirm marriage vows for people in the audience. "When got to the end of the set, he said, 'John where's your wife? How long have you been together?' I told him five years.' He said you've been together five years and you're not married yet? So we got married right there, Portland Waterfront Blues Festival, and it was completely unplanned." Since then Hauschild and Garten have become friends with Burke, who eventually asked Hauschild to join him in performances - once as the opening act for the Rolling Stones in Los Angeles. Hauschild and Garten are now looking to the future. "I'm going to be free to spend more time on music." Hauschild explains. "And there'll be more time for Brook and me to do music together and Brook has more time to get her paintings hooked up with some nationally-known galleries. More time to devote to these creative endeavors." His ties to Afghanistan also figure into his future. "There's also a program that we're trying to organize putting people together to replant trees in Afghanistan. I know people that wanted to replant trees to reforest. I'm putting them together with Afghan people. It's a church group and they wanted to make a cooperative - peaceful endeavor." To see Garten's paintings and to talk with them about their plans, drop by from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at East-West Gallery, 296 E. Main Street in Ashland. Call 482-4553 for information. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. 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