Giving ‘handmade’ a voice: Common Good Co. opens on King Street
Opening up just this summer, Common Good Co. uses its three story building as space for interacting, sharing, and creating art for the community of Boone.
September 10, 2019
685 W. King St. has housed the visions and dreams of many owners since its creation in the 1920s. The three-story building was a men’s warehouse, to a dress shop and many other stores over nearly a decade.
Now, the building houses the visions and dreams of couple and App State alumni owners Jacob Daniels and Melina LaVecchia with their new artisan store, Common Good Co., which opened on Aug. 1.
Walking in, customers are welcomed with black tiles contrasted with white, spelling out the words “Good Day” before they are met with bright white walls, which house a collection of purposely chosen pieces of art, Daniels said.
Common Good Co. has all types of art, such as leatherwork, pottery, prints, paintings and jewelry.
“We’re giving handmade a voice; we’re giving it a platform. We’re trying to be conscious about how we curate visual products so we know exactly where it’s coming from,” LaVecchia said.
Every art piece is local, student-made or fair-traded creations and include work from around the U.S. and other countries like Ghana and Germany, LaVecchia said.
Forage Candle Co., a local family business that sells all-natural and cruelty-free vegan candles, sells at Common Good Co. The leftover wax is used as a lotion, employee Hannah Avery said.
Daniels and LaVecchia are artists themselves. Daniels specializes in painting and LaVecchia works on ceramic arts.
“We were always around the dinner table, and my mom was always curating a beautiful table setting,” LaVecchia said. “So, I concentrate on this heritage of homemaking and being able to share a beautiful piece of pottery with a beautiful meal.”
With their shared love for the arts, Daniels and LaVecchia dreamed of a store for a long time, LaVecchia said.
The couple has supported local artists since graduating from App State earlier this decade.
Daniels and LaVecchia began their journey with opening Common Good Co. by creating a traveling marketplace for local artists called the Artisan Market Boone in 2014, LaVecchia said.
The market occurred every couple of months for about six years, but “the market life had its ups and downs,” and Daniels and LaVecchia wanted something more stable for themselves and the artists, LaVecchia said.
The couple bought the store’s location to kick-start their dream of, but the building needed restorations before it could be all that they wanted, Daniels said.
“If you can imagine, it was 100 years of people adding stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff,” Daniels said. “Our whole process was taking everything away and putting it back to the original walls and floors. There were four or five layers of flooring. It was definitely a labor of love.”
Since opening Common Good Co. in early August, the store had success as it hosts a “new perspective” of art on King Street and welcomes both familiar and new faces, Avery said.
Common Good Co. currently utilizes two of the three floors in the building.
The first floor is dedicated to retail, while the second floor currently houses a gallery of emerging artists and Daniels work.
Daniels and LaVecchia plans to open the third floor in the winter or early next year. They want to offer workshops, classes and a rentable space when it opens, LaVecchia said.
If interested in featuring your own artistry in Common Good Co., the store offers an online application on its website, and a curation process every other month.
