Area artisans find eclectic outlet at Trellis Marketplace

Twelve years ago, Lynn Pilant retired from his longtime job as a metalworker and steam fitter and took up a more natural medium – carving wood.

“It’s a calming hobby, and interesting,” he said. “You carve away the wood until something emerges.”

He carves scenes on wood and what he calls “Wood Spirits.” Pilant, 72, enjoys the woods, hiking and mushroom hunting.

His Wood Spirits live in the woods and were born in the woods. The faces, old and wise with long beards and bushy eyebrows, materialize from cottonwood bark or wooden sticks.

He sells his sticks at The Trellis Marketplace at 4102 S. Bowdish Road, which serves as an axis of creativity where a handful of artisans display their wares.

Darcee Terhaar, one of five owners of the marketplace, was constantly decorating her home before the business opened two years ago.

“My husband, Dan, always hoped that when he came home from work that the bed would be in the same place,” she said.

The shop enables her to spread her creative wings and display her whims in the form of flower arrangements, antiqued signs and refinished furniture.

“I’ve even picked up things in old garages that I turn around and fix up,” she said, “Of course, I always ask if I could take it first.”

Kathy Robinson, another owner, displays her hand-painted stool with cherries on the seat and a large table finished with a crackling effect to appear aged. Out of her section of the shop, she also sells food products from American farms and unique treasures.

Terhaar, Robinson and the other owners are always on the lookout for new artists like Pilant to show at the marketplace.

Betsy Hamre is a consigner at The Trellis, where she displays her handmade signs, tables, chairs, shelves and lamps built of an antique thermos, an old boot or a stack of books. They are all her designs and one-of-a-kind.

“I’ve always had the need to use my hands to create things,” she said, “and I’ve really just learned by the seat of my pants.”

All of the artisans at The Trellis Marketplace keep track of their items by having their own little shops within the shop. The different sections have their own names: “Otter Chaos,” “Bella,” “Pickets and Pastimes” “Glorious Gardens & More,” and “Hen Picked.”

The styles complement each other and give the impression of a rustic farmhouse mixed with surprises, and the old and the new.

It is a place where one could catch a glimpse of a Wood Spirit hanging around, comfortable in the esthetically pleasing environment where reminders of simpler times like good old-fashioned apple cider keep the customers coming back.

Customer Nancy Larson lives on the North Side but visits the shop monthly.

“It’s hard to find true primitive country items in Spokane,” she said.