SRC's guiding philosophy is "creative reuse," or "rethinking your relationship to stuff." Its website states that "folks throw away a bunch of good stuff. If you just scrape off the label, or cover it with fancy paper, or hot-glue a few bits together, it might just be the most useful thing! We are here to assist folks in finding the treasure in the trash."

Beyond a merely environmental ethic, creative reuse focuses on connectivity between humans, artists, the earth, and creation. The store's mission statement ends with a bold claim: "We believe that art has the power to change human consciousness, and that our project will challenge others to think more broadly about interpersonal and global impact."

Take a trip to browse their collection and you might just agree.

A fun mess
The store is a mess of bins, but a fun mess — collections of materials that range from empty pill bottles to costume jewelry. Walking the aisles leaves you no choice but to reconsider the breadth of items that go into the creation of art.

A long fabric wall is organized by color, with rolls differing in size, most all selling for $2 per yard. Drawers open to reveal hundreds of stamps, or buttons, or sewing tools. Office supplies are in one corner, and loose screws and architectural materials in another. Doll parts sit next to statement necklaces. There are multiple bins of old photographs, digital prints, and film, vestiges of other lives ripe for reuse and admiration.

Filling a basket with some items that intrigue, some of necessity, and none in an overpriced multi-pack feels like the way we're meant to gather art supplies. Shopping at SRC connects artists with each other through the materials that were once useful to someone and regain their use to the shopper, now. There is something special about buying a single used marker and furthering its lifespan.

In addition to cultivating an eco-friendly community of artists caring for supplies, SRC works to address inequities in art. Its "Free for Teachers and BIPOC Artists" program allows public schoolteachers and BIPOC artists to sign up for a rotating selection of free supplies from the store. If the supplies on display don't quite suit your needs, SRC lets program members email the staff and describe materials they need for art projects.

Donations
If you have some supplies you have been meaning to clear out, donations can be set up via email as well. I asked an SRC employee how to go about donating goods and was told that the store "asks that people... give us a sort of overview of what they have. If you have a bag of yarn, just say 'a bag of yarn,' so we know you aren't giving us a bunch of empty pill bottles, which we have a million of."

SRC is generally very accepting of donations, due to the broad nature of the materials they collect and sell. When I asked about current and consistent needs, the employee was quick to state that "the top sellers tend to be yarn and fabrics. We tend to stock that a lot." But also, "weirdly enough, we have had some requests for National Geographics. We used to have a whole thing of them; now we only have a few."

They continued, "It's kind of all over the place, because this is a store where, really, there's everything — even in terms of non-crafting stuff... because it might be here, too."

So, the next time you need a refill on staples, or some fabric paint, or scratch paper, or just need a space to browse for artistic inspiration, SRC could serve as a great starting point. The lovely, Queer-friendly space fosters a unique shopping experience with secondhand goods that are second to none in variety.