Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff, which has been providing local artists affordable supplies since 1985, announced they will be closing their doors.

The Cheap Joe’s team announced their closure via an Instagram post March 21. The team referenced economic reasons as the cause of their closure. 

Since then, they have been mass-selling their stock and will be officially closing their doors once supplies run out, according to the post. The store held a liquidation sale Wednesday and will continue to discount products until their products are bought out. 

The management team predicts their final closure will be within two months, said Mason Kesterson, a retail employee at the Cheap Joe’s Boone location, 374 Industrial Park Dr.

The talk of closure has been a long-held conversation between the upper-management team, and economic problems have been going on for a while, Kesterson said. 

Kesterson said the announcement and indefinite closure will have a “big impact on students more than anyone,” and he sympathizes with the local art community.

Besides the Michaels and Hobby Lobby, two chain stores in Boone, Cheap Joe’s is the only locally-run art supply store. Students have been relying on their products since their opening, said Allison Golowski, a sophomore art education major. 

“It’s where I get all my art supplies from and it’s like three-fourths the price of Michaels,” Golowski said.

Golowski said for art students at App State, the only way for them to get their supplies for classes and projects are through stores like Cheap Joe’s. Golowski pays around $200 every year for art supplies and gets little to no help from App State, they said.

The supplies App State does provide are often for the foundation classes first-years take, which means upperclassmen have to scramble for their supplies out of pocket, Golowski said.

In addition to losing out on the lower prices Cheap Joe’s offers, art students will have to look elsewhere for the more niche supplies their particular craft requires. Golowski said stores like Michaels or Hobby Lobby do not provide some of the specific art supplies like specialized paper or certain brands of paint, which forces students to turn to online shopping.

“I will probably have to order everything online which means I would have to order everything in advance and there’s a chance that I will be paying for stuff I don’t actually need,” Golowski said.

‘Cheap’ Joe Miller originally started his career as a pharmacist for Boone Drug and set up his art supply store as a part-time gig. In 1990, the art supply store moved from the pharmacy and became the separate entity of Cheap Joe’s. From then until 2023 — when he died — he was an advocate for the local art scene and supporting artists, according to his memorial page.

“To have this place that is very accessible to students and is cheaper than corporate stores shut down, it’s really going to impact students,” Golowski said.