Back to Fall 2007 / Winter 2008 Issue
An Artist's Touch
For one Crystal Coast businesswoman, art does more than just imitate life.
by David Hall
From Monet to Degas to Cézanne, the great Impressionists all had one thing in common: They simplified their subject matter with thick strokes, choosing to gloss over detail in favor of a desired effect.
Up close, for example, one can see that Van Gogh used asymmetrical splotches of yellow set against dramatic strokes of black and dark blue. It looks like a mess. From a few steps back, though, we see a Starry Night Over The Rhone. It’s deceptive, really—the artist’s version of sleight of hand. There’s a related degree of deception being perpetrated in a little corner store in downtown Morehead City. Jame’s, the upscale clothing and accessories boutique at the corner of 8th and Arendell, is not what it seems.
Sure, there are dresses and handbags and jewelry and shoes—all the things you’d expect in a quaint boutique. But look closely, and you’ll see that this is no ordinary shop.
Jamie Dickinson, the youthful, energetic owner and founder of Jame’s (it’s named, in part, for her father, James) hears it almost every day: A couple of customers stroll through the store, stopping to lift a sweater in front of them or sample the fabric on a shirt before they look up at the paintings surrounding them.
“I like that one,” they’ll say, pointing. “I wonder who the artist is.” Eventually they’ll turn to Dickinson behind the counter and ask, “Is that a local artist?” She tells them that yes, the artist is from around here until, inevitably, the customers coax it out of her.
Dickinson, a Beaufort native with a degree in studio arts, is guilty as charged. In this store, retail meets Renoir.
Asked whether Jame’s is more boutique or art gallery, Dickinson, 25, is undecided. Asked whether she’s more shopkeeper or a artist, her answer is immediate and decisive: “Oh, artist,” she says in a manner that implies she’s never really been anything else.
The store is a true hybrid, a marriage of passions both pragmatic and aesthetic.
After seven years in Wilmington spent attending college at UNC-W, working as a personal trainer and paying the bills as a computer graphics technician with duties more technical than creative, Dickinson, who has painted and drawn ever since she can remember, finally pulled the trigger. She moved back home and, with the support of her parents, opened the store at the former site of Branch’s office supply in June 2007. With Dickinson’s paintings hanging above creative racks of contemporary clothing, it’s difficult to say whether the place is a store with paintings or an art gallery with clothes. And that’s just the way Dickinson wants it.
“Everybody used to walk into my apartment and say, ‘It’s like an art gallery in here,’ ” says Dickinson, a tall, slender volleyball enthusiast with the requisite build of a volleyball enthusiast. “So now I actually have the space where people other than my friends come in and say, ‘Oh, I like the artwork.’” Dickinson’s paintings, most of which are oil or acrylic, vary in subject matter from underwater seascapes to boldly rendered nudes to a mixedmedia collage done shortly after 9/11. Some works are literal, others more impressionistic in nature. She has sold a handful of pieces, which range in price from $150 to $2000, since she opened the store.
Much of the art is left over from her college days, before life and its demands began to monopolize the time she’d use to paint. Plans are in the works for a new series on a subject to be determined. Upon its completion, Dickinson plans to temporarily clear out her merchandise and, for a night at least, turn Jame’s into a full-fledged gallery for an opening.
Meanwhile, customers enjoy the works displayed in her store, a business which, in artistic terms, might itself be best described as mixed media. The sunlight from busy Arendell Street engulfs the softly lit room, casting bright reflections off the hardwood floor. The light picks up the oil brush strokes on a painting that depicts a pair of swimming fish against the deep blue background of the sea, giving the piece depth and realism. Look closely around the store, and you’ll see the detail of an artist in every fixture. The racks upon which some of the merchandise hangs were custom made by Dickinson and her boyfriend, using brackets fashioned from plumbing pipes to lend an industrial look. The fitting room area in the back of the store has the feel of a post-modern urban lounge, complete with two padded benches on a decorative rug that rests under an eyecatching chandelier. There’s even, of course, art there; a nude woman reclines on her side atop a table, her face shielded by reddish hair.
Dickinson’s favorite piece hangs in a place of honor behind the store’s counter. It depicts a brilliant yellow lemon slice, backlit to reveal its juicy insides. She painted it right before she went off to college and bought accessories to match it, creating a theme in her bedroom. It’s the only piece in the store that’s not for sale. Parting with a sold piece, Dickinson says, is bittersweet, like sending a child out into the world. Her mother, Linda, knows the feeling. So it is with great pride that she and her husband have helped facilitate their daughter’s return home to build a dream. “There’s been a lot of people that have tried to persuade her not to do this,” Linda Dickinson says. “She’s put her nose to the grindstone and she’s worked and just forged on ahead, and I just have to admire her for that.”
The store’s conception dates back well into Dickinson’s childhood. When she was 8 or 10, her mother recalls, she drew a picture of a store she wanted to own. Because she was into horses at the time, as many little girls are, Dickinson’s future business would have a barn on the ground level and a restaurant on top, where she would display her art. So had her interest in fashion not developed, Dickinson might be selling pony rides down Arendell Street. Instead, years later—after replacing the barn idea with one for a marina—she had a more practical notion. Her father recently found an e-mail she sent him four years ago detailing her desire to open a clothing store.
After deciding once and for all in December 2006 to start the business, Dickinson worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in her graphics job in Wilmington. Over the final three months she held that position, she’d get home around 4 and use her computer to order supplies and inventory for the store until around 10 p.m., and then do it all again the next day. She finally left that job in April, and on June 1, 2007, Jame’s became a reality. To Dickinson’s knowledge, Jame’s is the only place on the Crystal Coast to get Rachel Pally, Christopher Deane, Betsey Johnson lines and Rock & Republic jeans. She specializes in Hudson jeans for men and women, and she sells the trendy Kooba handbags. Dickinson gets her products from trade shows and Internet vendors. She traveled to a major show in Las Vegas last winter, and she plans to return. Her eye for fashion, she says, is related to her eye for art.
“Everybody says, ‘How does she get her ideas for buying this merchandise?’ ” Linda Dickinson says. “And it’s like, ‘I don’t know. She just knows what it is she wants.’ ”
Painting, for Dickinson, is a release. While she’s working on a piece, she says, the phone might ring three or four times before she realizes it. Art requires problem-solving, finding the perfect combination of colors and perspective. The result is gratifying.
“You kind of stand back and say, ‘Wow! You did that!’ ” Dickinson says, referring to her art—although she could just as well be referring to her business. In this home of converging passions, it’s hard to tell.
Up close, for example, one can see that Van Gogh used asymmetrical splotches of yellow set against dramatic strokes of black and dark blue. It looks like a mess. From a few steps back, though, we see a Starry Night Over The Rhone. It’s deceptive, really—the artist’s version of sleight of hand. There’s a related degree of deception being perpetrated in a little corner store in downtown Morehead City. Jame’s, the upscale clothing and accessories boutique at the corner of 8th and Arendell, is not what it seems.
Sure, there are dresses and handbags and jewelry and shoes—all the things you’d expect in a quaint boutique. But look closely, and you’ll see that this is no ordinary shop.
Jamie Dickinson, the youthful, energetic owner and founder of Jame’s (it’s named, in part, for her father, James) hears it almost every day: A couple of customers stroll through the store, stopping to lift a sweater in front of them or sample the fabric on a shirt before they look up at the paintings surrounding them.
“I like that one,” they’ll say, pointing. “I wonder who the artist is.” Eventually they’ll turn to Dickinson behind the counter and ask, “Is that a local artist?” She tells them that yes, the artist is from around here until, inevitably, the customers coax it out of her.
Dickinson, a Beaufort native with a degree in studio arts, is guilty as charged. In this store, retail meets Renoir.
Asked whether Jame’s is more boutique or art gallery, Dickinson, 25, is undecided. Asked whether she’s more shopkeeper or a artist, her answer is immediate and decisive: “Oh, artist,” she says in a manner that implies she’s never really been anything else.
The store is a true hybrid, a marriage of passions both pragmatic and aesthetic.
After seven years in Wilmington spent attending college at UNC-W, working as a personal trainer and paying the bills as a computer graphics technician with duties more technical than creative, Dickinson, who has painted and drawn ever since she can remember, finally pulled the trigger. She moved back home and, with the support of her parents, opened the store at the former site of Branch’s office supply in June 2007. With Dickinson’s paintings hanging above creative racks of contemporary clothing, it’s difficult to say whether the place is a store with paintings or an art gallery with clothes. And that’s just the way Dickinson wants it.
“Everybody used to walk into my apartment and say, ‘It’s like an art gallery in here,’ ” says Dickinson, a tall, slender volleyball enthusiast with the requisite build of a volleyball enthusiast. “So now I actually have the space where people other than my friends come in and say, ‘Oh, I like the artwork.’” Dickinson’s paintings, most of which are oil or acrylic, vary in subject matter from underwater seascapes to boldly rendered nudes to a mixedmedia collage done shortly after 9/11. Some works are literal, others more impressionistic in nature. She has sold a handful of pieces, which range in price from $150 to $2000, since she opened the store.
Much of the art is left over from her college days, before life and its demands began to monopolize the time she’d use to paint. Plans are in the works for a new series on a subject to be determined. Upon its completion, Dickinson plans to temporarily clear out her merchandise and, for a night at least, turn Jame’s into a full-fledged gallery for an opening.
Meanwhile, customers enjoy the works displayed in her store, a business which, in artistic terms, might itself be best described as mixed media. The sunlight from busy Arendell Street engulfs the softly lit room, casting bright reflections off the hardwood floor. The light picks up the oil brush strokes on a painting that depicts a pair of swimming fish against the deep blue background of the sea, giving the piece depth and realism. Look closely around the store, and you’ll see the detail of an artist in every fixture. The racks upon which some of the merchandise hangs were custom made by Dickinson and her boyfriend, using brackets fashioned from plumbing pipes to lend an industrial look. The fitting room area in the back of the store has the feel of a post-modern urban lounge, complete with two padded benches on a decorative rug that rests under an eyecatching chandelier. There’s even, of course, art there; a nude woman reclines on her side atop a table, her face shielded by reddish hair.
Dickinson’s favorite piece hangs in a place of honor behind the store’s counter. It depicts a brilliant yellow lemon slice, backlit to reveal its juicy insides. She painted it right before she went off to college and bought accessories to match it, creating a theme in her bedroom. It’s the only piece in the store that’s not for sale. Parting with a sold piece, Dickinson says, is bittersweet, like sending a child out into the world. Her mother, Linda, knows the feeling. So it is with great pride that she and her husband have helped facilitate their daughter’s return home to build a dream. “There’s been a lot of people that have tried to persuade her not to do this,” Linda Dickinson says. “She’s put her nose to the grindstone and she’s worked and just forged on ahead, and I just have to admire her for that.”
The store’s conception dates back well into Dickinson’s childhood. When she was 8 or 10, her mother recalls, she drew a picture of a store she wanted to own. Because she was into horses at the time, as many little girls are, Dickinson’s future business would have a barn on the ground level and a restaurant on top, where she would display her art. So had her interest in fashion not developed, Dickinson might be selling pony rides down Arendell Street. Instead, years later—after replacing the barn idea with one for a marina—she had a more practical notion. Her father recently found an e-mail she sent him four years ago detailing her desire to open a clothing store.
After deciding once and for all in December 2006 to start the business, Dickinson worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in her graphics job in Wilmington. Over the final three months she held that position, she’d get home around 4 and use her computer to order supplies and inventory for the store until around 10 p.m., and then do it all again the next day. She finally left that job in April, and on June 1, 2007, Jame’s became a reality. To Dickinson’s knowledge, Jame’s is the only place on the Crystal Coast to get Rachel Pally, Christopher Deane, Betsey Johnson lines and Rock & Republic jeans. She specializes in Hudson jeans for men and women, and she sells the trendy Kooba handbags. Dickinson gets her products from trade shows and Internet vendors. She traveled to a major show in Las Vegas last winter, and she plans to return. Her eye for fashion, she says, is related to her eye for art.
“Everybody says, ‘How does she get her ideas for buying this merchandise?’ ” Linda Dickinson says. “And it’s like, ‘I don’t know. She just knows what it is she wants.’ ”
Painting, for Dickinson, is a release. While she’s working on a piece, she says, the phone might ring three or four times before she realizes it. Art requires problem-solving, finding the perfect combination of colors and perspective. The result is gratifying.
“You kind of stand back and say, ‘Wow! You did that!’ ” Dickinson says, referring to her art—although she could just as well be referring to her business. In this home of converging passions, it’s hard to tell.
