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Soda shop gives artists an outlet

By Kathie Durbin
Published: January 13, 2010, 12:00am
3 Photos
Ryan Siebold stopped by Pop Culture on his way home to buy a six pack of specialty soda last week.
Ryan Siebold stopped by Pop Culture on his way home to buy a six pack of specialty soda last week. The shop stocks up to 300 different sodas. Photo Gallery

On a rainy Tuesday evening in early January, Pop Culture stands as a bright spot on Upper Main.

Inside the spacious venue, Isaiah Wyckoff and his dad, John Wyckoff, are unpacking their paints and easels. The Wyckoffs and a handful of other local artists have been coming here on Tuesdays for about three months to create their art in a communal setting.

As part of their “Art With a Conscience” series, they work within broad themes chosen by Isaiah, an art student at Clark College and Portland State University. Last month, the theme was “The New Poverty.” This month, as a new year dawns, it’s “Be the Change.”

John Wyckoff, a retired architect, is composing a collage in acrylic paints featuring a man with intense blue eyes and furrowed brow who appears to be emerging from a shattered shell. John Wyckoff explains that the shell represents poverty of spirit, body, mind and soul. The central figure is “the natural man in the middle.” He adds mysterious symbols as he goes — a ladder, a parasol, an assemblage of gears.

John Wyckoff has been painting for five years, since his retirement, and has sold a few paintings, mainly landscapes. He looks forward to Tuesdays at Pop Culture.

“It’s nice to engage the public because I spend most of my time alone,” he says.

The bluesy riffs of Eric Clapton’s “Crossroads” fill the room. John Wyckoff likes that too: “Got to have music.”

Artists’ night is just one of the ways Dan Wyatt has tried to reach out and engage the public since he bought the former Moxie’s restaurant at 1929 Main St. a year ago and renamed it to reflect his desire for a “geek hangout” downtown.

Wednesday is bluegrass night. Wyatt books rock bands most weekends. Current and former students of Vancouver School of Arts and Academics occasionally do stand-up comedy on Saturdays. (A complete listing of events is on Pop Culture’s MySpace page.)

Wyatt, 36, has rebuilt the vast selection of specialty soda pops (up to 300 varieties) that were Moxie’s stock in trade under former owner Peter Hatcher. But he’s shelved Hatcher’s sandwich list in favor of a menu featuring Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs with various combinations of spicy condiments.

“I was doing the sandwiches, but I didn’t think it was a good fit,” he said. “Everyone makes sandwiches.”

He’s painted the walls in sunburst colors, decorated the behind-the-counter space with Frisbees, and installed a performance stage made of 2-by-4s stained to look like vintage wood. The tables at booths along the wall are painted to look like Nintendo boards. A lounge area under the front window is furnished like a stage set of a 1960s-era living room.

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Vancouver artist Chris McKinney helped design the space and built the stage. “I told him, ‘You’re a musician; build the kind of stage you’d like to play on,’” Wyatt said.

He has more plans for the space once business picks up from a winter slump. For example, he’d like to put in a traditional soda fountain like the one he remembers growing up in Salmon Creek.

“I prefer to consider this a neighborhood project,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out how I can bring in more pop culture.” And though he has a business to run, he says, he thinks of himself “as more of a host.”

Wyatt, a self-described “reformed metalhead,” spent several years in Los Angeles, working in the film industry, where he edited movie trailers and served as assistant editor on a PBS documentary about blacklisting during the McCarthy era. His wife, Lorie, worked in advertising. After they had children, they found it hard to balance parenting with their demanding careers.

“We’d come home at 7 or 8 p.m. and there would be no time to play with the kids,” Wyatt said.

So they moved back to Salmon Creek, and Wyatt became a stay-at-home dad.

“After two years at home, I needed a creative outlet,” he said. Pop Culture became that outlet. “I rolled the dice on it,” he said.

He had a hunch that there were a lot of young creatives working in Vancouver who would gravitate to a welcoming, hip, laid-back space. So far, his hunch has proved right.

“Everyone is hidden away,” he said. “This brings them out in public.”

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