Page 2 - Small Shops of Sonoma County 2018

Dear Readers,
Our LOCAL GUIDES are part of how we can be a contributing partner for our local economy. Gazette readers have told us that they prefer to support locally-owned businesses because they know by now what a difference keeping dollars local means. It’s been a long education process that we started 16 years ago with our first guide to small shops.
We do it again every spring with our Gardeners Resource Guide for locally- owned garden businesses (online all year). And we do it throughout the year with our guides to Flower Shops, Art Galleries, Bike Shops, Jewelers and more. By now we have 11 guides after adding our Cannabis Dispensary Guide last month, and updating our Bookstore Guide this month. We update the guides about every two years so they stay current online
Small businesses have a hard time competing with large corporations.
We know, because we are small. We have less than 20 people to create
and distribute the Gazette both in print and online. Our circulation and distribution is #2 in Sonoma County, but #1 is the local daily with almost 400 employees. But we have something they don’t, and that’s the ability to publish a FREE paper which gets to a broad-spectrum of readers by being able to distribute in coffee shops, stores, restaurants and waiting rooms, etc. as well as our street boxes you see in every community across Sonoma County.
People tell us they see the Gazette EVERYWHERE. We know there are more places to be, so if you want us in a new location, just tell us. Our delivery crew enjoys the journey and come back with stories of meeting people along their route. They get attached to the communities they serve so it’s a win/win.
Our mission is to connect people across Sonoma County to each other through our articles and columns. We are about BUILDING COMMUNITY, and this Small Shops Guide is part of BUILDING your connection with the people who own these Small Shops. We want you to know them the way we know them...entrepreneurs doing what they love. When we help them survive, we create more happy people. Anyone can tell you that if you spend the majority of your time working, you better love it.
We love what we do, and we LOVE where we LIVE.
THANK YOU for helping support our home by using this guide for your holiday shopping.
MEET TERI SLOAT ~ Our Cover Artist
The only thing I have ever taken a straight line towards is teaching. It seems my preferred entrance is always through the back door, whether it is into book writing and illustration or fine art.
While I wish I had gone to art school, wish I had studied in Europe, wish I had taken figure drawing more often and studied art history more, the truth is that I am impatient and tend to live in my head. My art is an effort to duplicate what I see in my head,
or on the horizon, or on a limb chirping...to capture
that place where red-wing blackbirds sing while I
paint, the reflections in the water, and the glow of a
coffee cup or an apple, or a story playing itself like a movie in my mind.
I have come from a backround of book writing and illustration into a world of fine art. While still loving the creation of books and the writing of stories, I need the freedom to express my images without the limitations of pages, layout of words and limitation of subject matter.
I am a plein air and studio painter of landscapes, as well as a folk artist. Both have strong roots in a life spent outdoors, on farms and ranches and trails, and often in remote areas. My art helps me share that sense of wonder and inner quiet I feel when out in nature. It is that quiet that allows me to hear the stories of the land I am painting, that allows me to share the folkloric images in my mind. The patterns and colors of land, water and air weave their way into my own story of where I am standing, whether it is in front of a marsh full of black birds, or in front of my own imaginary story.
Many artists influence my work, and they all were on a constant search to capture the inner story of what was around them...from the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh, to Alaska’s beloved folk artist Rie Munoz, to the contemporary artists I paint with on a regular basis.
2 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 12/18 SS
FIND Teri Sloat’s paintings & prints at these Local Galleries:
SEBASTOPOL GALLERY 150 N.Main St., Sebastopol sebastopol-gallery.com,
FULTON X CROSSING, 1200 River Road, Fulton fultoncrossing.com, 707-536-3305