T’s Antiques

 

Let’s fall in love with Holly Hobby all over again, except this time we’ll call her Theresa Pollock.

The first day I ever walked into T’s Antiques in Downtown Newberg, I thought I had just stepped in front of a mirror. There stood this spunky gal wearing denim overalls and her hair up in a ‘We Can Do It” bandana twist. Low and behold, I am wearing the same thing, my typical summer garb. We looked up and down and laughed for a moment, already knowing we could spin an easy convo. I was immediately honored to meet the owner of this new storefront and felt right at home.

Theresa’s enthusiasm for life in general permeates the walls and that deep cosmic sparkle in her Black Beauty eyes is beyond welcoming.

Today, I am visiting to showcase the incredible masterpiece of a shop that Theresa and her workmanship-genius husband Donnie have created. It’s a got an industrial-hip vibe quilted in small-town cozy, with all the goodies of the past neatly tucked, stowed, and displayed in an easy-breathe fashion.

The low corrugated metal pony walls and cattle fence hangers bring a distinct order to the usually expectant world of antique chaos. It’s a brilliant design.

Every time I venture through “The Neverending Story” front door of T’s Antiques, I find just what it was I needed with batteries for a friendly smile included.

I wander the main market floor corridor physically noting plenty of room while losing myself in vintage value.

Coordinated colors splash off the walls.

 

Famous faces of long ago gaze among patina patterns.

This museum quality experience certainly sets a true pedestal for the “Queen Anne’s” of the auction.

 

The Vintage Curator herself. Keep an eye out for her branded bread truck as she scours the grape strewn hills and flats of the  Willamette Valley Wine Country for these time capturing treasures…

Have no fear gents, the doilies are completely balanced out by an industrial buffet of masculinity setting the overall tone of this retro-revival renaissance of a shop. Tools, nautical metal, and snuffboxes abound in the sailor’s ocean of the modern “Man-Cave”.

Donnie has made steady contributions of classic, ornamental car-hood art, vintage male-motif signs, and incredibly purposeful industrial style light fixtures, with all parts authentically up-cycled. His cultivated background in auto-body repair and welding, poignantly add depth to his art. Here lies a true sampling of the American Breadbasket, a slice of something for everyone.

The Cubby Hall to the right of the entrance leaves everything to the imagination. I become a 5-year-old, enveloped in the wonder of the odd and the unique.

Here I immerse for an hour, in the quiet, taking in the smallest details of artistry from hands that lived during a different perspective of life. One I can only read about in a first edition or in that happenstance of an old wrinkled man with a story to tell, and I do stop for those cherished moments of real history, no media involved.

These shelves hold stories I can create in my mind’s eye. They glitter with a child’s memories, a grandmother’s craft.

Each piece carries the vibration of its significant use from some household long ago, some nostalgic farm.

Who enjoyed the breeze of that General Electric fan? Who opened that Barbie for Christmas in a lifetime since forgotten?

Who will be the next worthy keeper of these obscurities to pass them on to our young ones as living history?

I believe it’s all of us, I believe in the Jacobean* magic.

 

* The characteristics of Jacobean furniture was that the furniture was usually large in sizing, was made to be sturdy and was certainly made to last a long time.