Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  An Adirondack chair was the impetus for this newest gallery in town. The Ned Natives shop across the parking lot from Rocky Mountain Oyster opened last week and Linda Detroy, her husband Doc Conway and Tom Walker, former video store owner, have pooled their resources, talents and connections to become one of the many Nederland businesses that showcase local art.

So far, they seem to be the only one with custom made Adirondack chairs.

Tom Walker had carted his favorite chair around for a long time and finally came up with the idea of taking it apart and making a pattern of the pieces so he could replicate the chair.

Doc Conway has been in the landscaping business for years and his goal was to harvest the seeds of native plants and grow his own.

“I thought we should have a little store to sell the seeds and Tom wanted to do outdoor furniture and yard art. Then Linda came up with selling local art that focused on the outdoors and the partnership was born.”

Tom had many artist contacts from when he owned the Dog House video store and sold local art in the shop. He talked to local woodworkers Willy and Roger Lickey and David Jessup who grows succulents in hypertufa containers, and Kathy Rian who makes reclaimed, repurposed bird feeders and the Ned Natives found their little shop growing.

Doc has done much of Ron Mitchell’s gardens around town and the two men came up with a deal to rent the space and the natives were in business.

Linda Detroy is a professional journalist who has always loved gardening. When she met Doc, she began working on landscaping with him and then when they married, he started Doc Conway’s Property Improvement. Last March, when they began talking about bringing in artists and craftspeople, they came up with the Ned Natives idea.

They moved into the building a week ago Wednesday, July 5, and have spent the last week, cleaning and painting. Much of their gallery is outside now, under a tent, but once they get a couple more rooms remodeled, they will have space for more artists.

The plants from their seed harvesting business will be ready next spring; paintbrush, blanket flower, lupine, kinnikinnic and blue-eyed grass.

Local artist Annette Croughwell has a few pieces of her work in the shop, old windows repurposed into pieces of nature framed in glass.

“We want to support the people who live here,” says Detroy. “We’ll see if that’s what the people want.”

The partners also plan to turn stumps and logs into found art. The shop will be open Thursday to Tuesday for now, and later, seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

(Originally published in the July 13, 2017 print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)