By Isaiah Frizzell
What makes a town worth living in? The mountains, the sunlight, the local businesses, and the community, of course. The people who live, work and play in your town are the people that create and maintain the fabric of the community. Imagine a town without a community: strangers who briskly run into each other on the off chance they’re not on their phone or laptop? A video game of non-playable-characters and inaccessible terrain? Horrifying. When you get off your computer to take a walk or drive to the market, you step into shops just to see what’s going on, what’s happening around town. Everyone holds a different facet of the diamond that is community. It can be the people you’ll meet who define how you value your surroundings.
This week we look at who makes the Wood River Valley the special place it is in the hearts of the community. These are the people you will run into and talk with—talk shop, talk weather, crack jokes or maybe even partner with for business. The community is for the people, with the people, by the people. It’s real life happening right there in your neighborhood.
Jane’s Artifacts
Jane Drussel is perhaps one of the most well-known businesswomen in the Valley. Drussel is the owner of Jane’s Artifacts, an absolutely unique and community-defining shop in downtown Hailey. For sure, Drussel has an aura and many call her a comedian. At a spry 84 years old, she can be found working the aisles and phones of her jam-packed art supply, paper goods, gift shop.
A funny thing happened in 2019 and it comes up in nearly every conversation.
“We still advertise our open houses, which we used to do before COVID. Everything seems to be before COVID!” Drussel opines on the way things have changed, and not that the store or products have changed, it’s that people have, dramatically. Jane’s Artifacts’ open houses are community events of legend. A packed house with food, drink, prizes and great company in a stimulating environment. If you’re savvy, you take one look around her store and immediately get ideas for jewelry, scrapbooks, journaling, toys, games, or business. They sell a wide variety of essentials you’ll need in any office and can quickly grab there instead of forfeiting your attention and time to Amazon’s analysis paralysis machine. In fact, during the pandemic, for this very reason, Jane’s Artifacts was deemed an essential service. Let that sink in.
Local Flavor
The locals of community-oriented towns genuinely LIKE supporting the local shops and chatting with the personalities who keep the vibe going every day. Consider the cold, empty alternative, mentioned above.
Drussel has lived in the Valley since 1970. She arrived with her first husband from Utah and quickly became part of the culture. After working at JJ Office supply and managing the Bank of Idaho, she eventually helped Gemini Art, a loft above Atkinsons’, grow from selling strictly art supplies into a diversified market of office essentials, but Jane had a dream.
Drussel needed her own shop. She found a small basement in Giacobbi Square just after the fire and started Jane’s Paper Place. “We had to wash every single peg, it was all smoky from the fire!” Drussel laughs. After months of hard labor and exacting business acumen, she had her shop. As the concept grew, she also opened a Christmas store in Ketchum and the present location in Hailey—three stores total.
In 2004, an investment group would buy these from her but after they went under in 2009, during the huge economic downturn, she decided to open again but under a different name.
“The building was sitting here empty, and obviously nobody was going to rent it, you know, at that stage of the economy. So I reopened a store. I called Georgia [a well-known JA personality] and I said, “I’m going to reopen the store. Wanna come back to work?” She said, ‘Oh yeah!’ So she came back and her, myself and Rachel, we reopened the store. And, you know, we didn’t have much inventory in here for a while, but it gradually grew and did really, really, really well up until COVID, and then things, life, changed in all kinds of ways. And then, unfortunately, I lost my husband, who passed away five years ago.” The current Hailey location is that store, now known as Jane’s Artifacts. Drussel’s husband she met on a fateful evening at Sam’s, a club in Bellevue, where Mahoney’s now sits.
Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Barbra Streisand and many celebrities have frequented her shop, but Drussel reminds employees, “yYu need to leave them alone, let them wander around.” But, naturally, a high-school-aged employee approached Willis once, for a photograph. “I just looked at him [Willis] and kinda grinned and said, “He’s young.” Drussel laughs with a hint of embarrassment. Willis took it in stride and posed for a happy photograph with the young man. You should ask her yourself about a funny incident with Streisand.
What do you feel about community?
“I try to be very involved in the community. I was president of the chamber for several years and I’ve been very active in Rotary [Club] and very involved in city matters. I’ll be 85, my next birthday, so it’s time I let some of the younger people take over responsibilities.”
What do you like to do outside of the shop?
“We used to laugh, I had several fetishes, one was socks and the other was ribbon.” Drussel’s laugh is contagious and the statement almost becomes an inside joke if you know what she keeps in her ‘secret’ cabinet. “I paint a bit. When my husband passed away I took up quilting and I got really obsessed. I started embroidering squares and then got involved with the fabric store here and went to their Moonlight Sews and fabric has become my fetish. I can’t go into a fabric store without buying something.” She has three machines on her kitchen table. Always community minded, Drussel makes quilts for the men’s halfway house, hospice, the Senior Connection and pillow cases for Camp Rainbow Gold.
The Future of Hailey
“It’s kind of interesting, as the years have gone by, how I’ve seen the community change. When we moved here, Hailey was a booming little town. It had everything. There was no Costco, no box stores, nobody drove to Twin to buy groceries. Nobody did that. You just didn’t do that. We had the Triple S, we had The Merc, which was an old-fashioned general store with groceries and clothing. I bought all my kids’ clothes there. We had lots of little shops. We had an old-fashioned fountain over where, I think, the Jiu Jitsu place is now. It was Broyles Pharmacy. All the business guys would come in the morning and have their coffee and gossip. They were worse than women! It was the guys thing. It was an old-fashioned drug store and this was a booming place. As the years went by you could see the shops kind of go away. Costco opened up and the energy, the whole demeanor, changed. I don’t know what the future will be.
“I would hate to see our store go away. This is a thing of the past. People come in here and they’re amazed. They always say, “I wish we had a store like this in our town. But everything has changed. There’s challenges now with the way people buy everything and never leave their houses.”
Why should you pop into Jane’s Artifacts?
“We love to give hugs, hugs are free. We have the coffee pot on all the time, come get some coffee! I’ve been known to tell a joke or two [understatement noted as everyone laughs]. We try to offer that old-fashioned service where we have a one on one with our customers. Every day people come in and say, “Oh my god, we’re so glad you’re here!” and I don’t think it’s because we have the best stuff or the best deals but it’s just a happy, friendly place to go to.”
The community is made from the people you’ll meet. Find any and all manner of art supply, stationery, office supplies, toys and gifts at great prices. Jane’s Artifacts is at 106 S. Main St., Hailey, Idaho 83333.
The store does not have a website and will deliver merchandise to your door. Call at (208) 788-0848.