By Kylie Balk-Yaatenen - March 12th 2024
JANESVILLE
Raven’s Wish has been a downtown Janesville artists’ hub and gallery since 2007. Now, owner Alicia Reid has decided to sell it.
She said she already has had a few people interested.
Raven’s Wish, 101 W. Milwaukee St., currently houses 62 artists, some local to Rock County and some from as far away as Canada.
Reid said that she wanted to be a gathering place for artists, for people who appreciate art — and even for people who inherit art and don’t know what to do with it.
“Rarely does a week go by that someone doesn’t come in with something that they’ve inherited. We don’t offer appraisals, but we’re kind of a clearinghouse for all those questions,” she said. “I have like a four-page list of area appraisers that I can give to those folks.”
Reid, originally from Arkansas, was drawn to Janesville by a friend who taught at UW-Whitewater. She wanted to take photos of nature and had never been to the Midwest.
She has a degree in music education and worked as a band director for about six years before going back to school to study geography. She got fellowship at the University of Utah and spent eight years in Utah, working at a nature center and teaching as an adjunct at the university.
“I have many past lives but all of them in the creative art and outdoorsy fields,” she said.
She said she asked the now-former owners of Myers Frame & Stitch, 2871 Liberty Lane, how to frame her own work. They offered her a job and she said it “it kind of snowballed” from there.
They were ready to retire after 10 years and she bought the business.
Reid said at first it was more of a specialty shop for fabric, needles and thread, located on the north side near a former Shopko store. She said that wasn’t her interest. She tried to split the store up and hire someone else to be in charge of that; however, she did want to have a gallery to showcase local artists.
She found the space on W. Milwaukee Steet downtown and opened Raven’s Wish in 2007. She said she chose the downtown area even though at that time the downtown was not yet seeing the resurgence it’s experiencing now.
“To be an art gallery, we needed a spot where we could touch more folks passing through, folks that were eating lunch and wanted something else to do. A downtown location made more sense,” she said.
Reid said it was Jackie Wood at the Olde Towne Mall and Jim Alverson from Home Again Consignment store who encouraged her to move downtown, saying it was going to see an upswing.
There have since been hurdles like bridge repairs and road construction, but she said she has tried to remain positive and just kept letting people know she was still here.
“Steady as she goes, you know, you try and let people know through social media what is going on,” she said. “You try to let people know that you need your business, and we want to be your local and let folks know that they were a part of us surviving not just Raven’s Wish but all of the downtown businesses.
Now, she said it’s a good time to hand over the reins as downtown continues to improve with new businesses coming in and the coming Rock County Children’s Museum across the street.
She said the business will remain an art gallery and eventually — when the right person puts in an offer — they and the artists will talk about how to proceed.
She said she promised herself when she turned 65 that she was going to travel across America and paint national monuments and other nature scenes.
“I am going to go on a big painting trip, buy an RV and wander around the country, and touch all the four corners,” she said.
“We’ve had a good run of it. I’ve made countless friends and acquaintances. And I’m so pleased with the customer base that we have,” Reid reflected. “I enjoy how I spend my day visiting with folks and solving problems and selling them a piece of art or taking their great aunt’s artwork and making it something that they can hang on their wall and enjoy.”
“It just feels like it’s time, I still feel good. I still have a lot of energy and I want to get out and see my country and get to know it a little bit better while I still can,” Reid said.
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