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Willits Arts Manufacturer Expands · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Painters have worked on stretched canvas and wood panels for centuries. But in Willits, a company called Artifacts is betting on something sturdier. Founder and CEO Anton o' Hanlon says it all started with one simple question.
• 0:14
  Speaker B: The art materials industry has been dominated by stretch canvases and wood panels for hundreds of years. And so when we first started the company, we looked at artwork from a very specific lens. And that lens was, how long will it last? If you ask any collectors, if you yourself have any artwork, think about how long you want the artwork to last. And I've asked this question for thousands of people, and the answer is always the same. It's as long as possible, right? You want it to last forever. So if we're looking at art in that, from that perspective, the best and the best thing you can paint on is going to be an aluminum panel, because it doesn't warp, bend, or crack over time, and it doesn't react well to humidity. So when we started manufacturing panels, we didn't think of, oh, we're going to maybe make some stretch canvases, maybe make some wood panels, and then also aluminum panels. We looked at it as, just how long is this thing going to last? And aluminum ended up being the best support to paint on. In fact, you can paint with a crayon on aluminum panel. It lasts longer than if you paint with the best oil paints on a stretch canvas.
• 1:19
  Speaker A: That's right, a crayon. Artifacts panels are like a sandwich. Two thin sheets of aluminum around either a plastic core or an aluminum honeycomb. O' Hanlon compares the aluminum to the wooden frame behind a stretched canvas. On top of it, artifacts mounts to the surface. The artist actually paints on like linen, cotton or paper, 22 materials in all. So how do these panels stack up against canvas in price and in weight?
• 1:46
  Speaker B: So aluminum panels are going to be a little more expensive, but not as expensive as one would think. There's a lot of really high end stretch canvases that are much more expensive than our panels. So I'd say like, in general, for professional artists, we sit somewhere right in the middle. But the benefits are that they're super light. So like a 4 foot by 8 foot panel is 19 pounds. My wife is like 5 foot 90 pounds, a tiny little person, and she lifts up a 4 by 8 foot sheet with one hand.
• 2:13
  Speaker A: O' Hanlon grew up surrounded by paint. His parents founded Natural Pigments and Willets when he was 9. And he says his big idea came from a childhood spent studying how great art survives.
• 2:24
  Speaker B: Traveled all over the world, looked at lots of Artwork in the Smithsonian National Gallery. We traveled to 20 plus countries in my childhood to see how these artworks are preserved and what materials are used. That's when we started going to the back rooms of like the Smithsonian National Gallery where they have restoration and conservation work and a lot of the older artwork, 200, 300 year old artwork was actually being restored onto aluminum panels because of all the reasons I said earlier,
• 2:56
  Speaker A: artists already wanted these panels, he says. No one was making them. So in 2014 the family started artifacts together. O' Hanlon says his parents set the foundation and he couldn't have done it without them. He later bought out their share as the businesses grew in different directions. But the two family companies still go hand in hand like paint and the panel underneath it.
• 3:18
  Speaker B: The two companies are operating separately, but we obviously have a very good symbiotic relationship to where their, their focus is on paints and grounds and mediums. And my focus is on the supports that those paints and mediums are put on.
• 3:33
  Speaker A: For most of artifacts history, it was a one man show.
• 3:37
  Speaker B: I am a Mendocino kid. I grew up here in Willets, California. I went to school in Willets High School. And so for the I've owned the company for 12 years. And so for the first 10 years it was just me. I made every panel, shipped every canvas, talked to every customer. And then over time we, it took a long time, but we did start scaling and I hired my first person, then I hired three and then now we're looking at 11 people in the organization. We're growing 60% year over year now and we just expanded to a 12,000 square foot facility.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: And he's dreaming bigger than his own shop.
• 4:14
  Speaker B: And so the dream and the goal is not just for artifacts to grow, but for the art community and to have a backbone industry in general in Mendocino county as of course the timber industry is diminishing and the cannabis industry unfortunately is also is diminishing as well. We need something in Mendocino county that can be and backbone industry. And I believe that art artists and art materials can be that.
• 4:46
  Speaker A: Right now Artifacts cuts and mounts its panels and Willets but buys the aluminum sheets already assembled overseas. That's about to change. O' Hanlon says new machinery should be ordered next month. And by the end of January, Artifacts plans to press its own panels right here in Willits. That opens the door to custom sizes, new products and bigger canvases. Artifacts panels already carry two murals. At a park in Willits, an 8 by 100 foot mural is coming to Windsor and The company is even pursuing mural work for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. O' Hanlon says most public murals are painted on walls or plywood, where they eventually crack, warp, or disappear in a remodel.
• 5:29
  Speaker B: So that's kind of the reason why we're moving into a lot of these public arts. Where before we're doing a lot of studio work and small, smaller artworks for artists, now we're looking much bigger. We're looking at these cultural sites, we're looking at big public arts projects where our panels will actually shine even more because they're protecting not just a single person's investment into an art piece, but actually a whole community's investment into an artwork.
• 5:56
  Speaker A: This year, Artifacts was named in the US Chamber of Commerce's CO100 list of top small businesses and featured by the California office of the Small Business Advocate for Manufacturing Month. This team is now 11 people strong, and O' Hanlon says he's mindful about who joins it.
• 6:14
  Speaker B: We're always hiring people that want to grow personally, professionally, and financially. Everything starts whenever a first person comes in. We always talk about what your goals are and what Artifacts goals are and how we can make sure that both of those goals are met together. And so every conversation starts with that, with every, every person in the organization. And then every day we talk about our mission, our vision and our values.
• 6:42
  Speaker A: And when Artifex posts a job, people line up.
• 6:45
  Speaker B: Last time I put out an ad and within three days we had 68 people apply for a job. For one job, we hired two people because we had found two unbelievable people who are interested in art, artists themselves and really believe in the mission.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: O' Hanlon says growing an industry here takes more than jobs. We Willits needs housing for the families he hopes to hire, along with the restaurants and other businesses that make a town feel like home. He's been talking with city planners about it, and he sees plenty working in the north coast's favor.
• 7:16
  Speaker B: There's a lot of people in Humboldt county and Mendocino county who are starting different kinds of businesses. In fact, Mendocino, Humboldt county have the two highest per capita rates of artists in their communities. We also have one of the highest entrepreneurs per capita in the whole country. So there is a lot of opportunity, not even counting how beautiful Humboldt the Mendocino county is.
• 7:41
  Speaker A: For any small business owner listening, there's something encouraging here. The kid from Willetts High who once made every panel and answered every phone call himself, now has a team, a growing Factory, and a 10 year goal of 160 employees, along with an art center in Willits, and that draws painters from around the world. In a state case study this month, his advice to other owners was reach out for help and don't give up if the first resource isn't the right one. At the heart of it all is the art.
• 8:10
  Speaker B: The ultimate goal is to protect the artwork. And I believe the artwork that's painted on artifacts panels will last longer than any other artwork in the history of the world.
• 8:20
  Speaker A: And he has an open invitation for listeners here on the North Coast.
• 8:24
  Speaker B: I would love to connect with any artists in Mendocino county or Humboldt county who this message has resonated with. I'd also encourage any city planners, nonprofits, public arts managers, or anybody else in the area that cares about public arts and cares about the art to reach out to us and talk to us. We really care about the artwork that's being put out in this county but in the state. And so we want to be part of that story, and we want to make sure that that artwork that is being put up now is protected. We have murals in Willits, California. We have murals in, excuse me, in Windsor, California. And we would love to see an artifacts panel protect murals in every city in this county, both in Humboldt and Mendocino County. So if you're a person that's part of that process or is interested in doing something like that, please reach out to us at Artifacts Biz. You can message us, email us, call us, and I would also encourage you to visit us.
• 9:25
  Speaker A: Artifex is located on East Hill Road in Willits and online at artifexartefex. Biz. Reporting for KMUD News, I'm Bridget Karstensen.