Olive It Cafe showcases area artists
Olive It Cafe, 3402 N. Crestline St., opened in 2008 and its menu includes local art.
Not only a cafe, it is also a gallery brought to fruition by owners Arne and Kathleen “Kat” Hill who wanted to make a contribution to their community. “We wanted to create an opportunity for artists to showcase their work on the North Side,” Kat Hill said, “We noticed that most of the time in order to be able to view local art we needed to travel outside of our North Side neighborhood which gave us the idea that it would be a bonus if there were a creative corner on the North Side.”
Since opening, the cafe has featured dozens of artists including musicians and poets who perform on a makeshift stage near the front door. Jewelry, clothing, accessories including scarves and hats, paintings, and photography are displayed on walls and shelves around the seating areas. It is not unusual for patrons to personally meet artists who regularly visit to change up their displays while having a homemade cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee.
If you were to saddle up beside jewelry artist Mitzi Boren at the coffee bar, it would be hard to refrain from asking her about the earrings, necklace or bracelet she’s wearing. The latter has small photos and some type of print framed, soldered, and linked together as a sort of slide show; meaningful clips of her life. Boren’s mediums include glass, solder, family photos, bottles, bottle caps, pop cans, vintage papers, tin, broken china, and vintage keys on which she lacquers cut out words or phrases from old print. The keys then find a new purpose; to a heart, to happiness or to the imagination.
Heather and Andy Holland might enter the cafe carrying interesting suitcases and wearing unique hats. The suitcases are filled with more hats made from vintage suits when men were more apt to wear loud patterns over today’s muted style. The couple worked for many years in dry walling and construction. In January of this year, they decided to try something new, knowing that they could always go back to dry walling.
They began a business called Old Man’s Pants and now spend their time in second hand stores and at the sewing machine, coming up with designs for their hats from classic styles to funky including a hat called “Woman’s Prerogative” that comes with snap on flowers in different colors and another hat of red argyle that comes with matching fingerless gloves.. “We can barely keep up with the orders,” they said.
Reho Barron’s paintings hang on a wall in the cafe where she also sells fabric jewelry. President of the River Ridge Association of Fine Arts, Barron believes that art has the ability to make people more sensitive to the beauty in the world which she captures in pastels, watercolor, and oils. The association meets once a month at the cafe.
Olive It Cafe is all things art. “The cafe is fortunate to have found the most amazing artists and we are still finding local talent to add to our ‘menu,’ “ Kat Hill said, “We get to use a creative eye in the design of our food menu as well and offer a variety of locally grown items which we believe is also an art within itself.”