On a cool and cloudy Saturday evening in September, the Spray General Store shone like a beacon just off Highway 19, aglow with warmth and light.

Inside, people munched on fancy finger foods and gazed at the works of artists from Spray and other small, remote communities in the John Day River country of Eastern Oregon, each piece as thoughtfully framed and lighted as the high-priced offerings of a big-name gallery in Portland’s painfully hip Pearl District.

Out on the store’s front porch, the Cheyenne West Band was rocking its way through a rousing rendition of “Wagon Wheel” for an appreciative audience of 50 or 60 people, with little kids racing around and the grownups, mostly locals, seated on lawn chairs in the middle of Main Street, toes softly tapping, hands gently clapping, and a few even singing along: “Ohhh, mama, rock me.”

This sort of scene would have been almost unimaginable just a few years ago, when the old general store was sitting there locked up and vacant on the side of the road, a wistful reminder of better times when the sawmills were running and there were plenty of good jobs to go around.

Now, this is what people do in Spray on a Saturday night.

A town in transition

Built on the site of an old ferry landing on the John Day River, Spray is one of only three incorporated communities in Wheeler County, Oregon’s least populous with just 1,451 inhabitants spread out among the bunchgrass hills and rimrock canyons. As of the 2020 census, Spray had 139 residents, down from 160 in 2010.

Like many other communities around the state, its economy has suffered with the decline of the timber industry.

“A lot of people I grew up with here couldn’t wait to get out,” mused Valerie Howell, a longtime resident and former mayor of the town. “Some of them tell me, ‘We’d like to come back, but we can’t make a living.’”

Joni Kabana is a relative newcomer to the area.

After a 22-year career in high-tech project management, and with her three children grown, Kabana reinvented herself as a portrait and commercial photographer. Along the way she gravitated toward humanitarian work, spending 10 years in Africa, where she put her photography and communication skills to work for local hospitals and non-governmental organizations such as Mercy Corps International.

Back in the States, she opened a photography studio in Portland but eventually found herself missing the connection with the land she had felt in rural Africa.

“I started looking for a piece of land, and I found this piece of land in Spray,” Kabana said. “Five or six years ago I moved here permanently because it just felt right.”

By the time she made the move to Wheeler County, the Spray General Store was in pretty rough shape. It had been closed for a few years at that point, and the building showed ample evidence of its many decades of hard use.

But when Kabana looked at it, she felt a sense of possibility. The old store, she decided, could become a kind of gathering place for Spray and all its residents, a space where people could come together around art, music, food — the kinds of things that break down dividing lines and foster a sense of community.

And the more she looked at it, the stronger that feeling grew.

“Something convinced me to do something about it,” she said — but she has a hard time explaining just what that something was.

“I do things sometimes,” Kabana confessed, “when I don’t know why I’m doing them.”

Making it happen

It took about nine months to convince the owner to sell, but eventually they came to terms. Kabana raided her retirement account for the $95,000 purchase price, and just like that, she became the store’s new owner.

Then all she had to do was get the place fixed up.

It was a tall order. The building needed a little bit of everything: Fresh paint, a new roof, a new floor and assorted repairs of various kinds.

But Kabana had friends, both from her past life in Portland and her new life in Spray, who were willing to help. Once again, she had to dip into her savings to cover the cost of materials, but much of the work that went into renovating the old store was done for free or at a steep discount.

The Spray General Store held its first community event in October 2021, when major renovations on the building were still underway. Organized by Kabana in partnership with local teacher Rosie Day, the first annual Spray Film Fest featured short videos produced by Day’s students at Spray School.

Kabana wasn’t sure what to expect.

“The time came — and nobody came,” she recalled. “Then people started pouring in from all directions.”

More events followed. Open mic jam sessions, concerts, game nights, artist workshops, makers’ markets, often with a focus on local talent and all with the intention of building community.

“I value humans in all their different flavors,” Kabana said. “And even if we disagree on some things, I think we come together through art, music and food.”

Help from the neighbors

The Spray General Store doesn’t charge admission or participation fees, although it does accept donations. But bringing in traveling musicians, lining up workshop instructors and putting on other events costs money.

To help cover those costs, Kabana relies on a steady stream of grant funding from organizations such as the Oregon Community Foundation, the Roundhouse Foundation, the Oregon Frontier Chamber of Commerce, and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s Oregon Main Street and Diamonds in the Rough programs.

But many of the grants Kabana wanted to apply for are intended to go to organizations that have nonprofit status, which takes both time and money to obtain.

That’s where the Juniper Arts Council came in.

Based in John Day, the private nonprofit was formed in 1991 to promote the arts in Grant County. As a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Tax Code, it can accept tax-free donations and grants from government agencies and private foundations. It can also act as a “fiscal agent” to accept grants and donations on behalf of arts organizations that lack 501(c)(3) status, like the Spray General Store.

When Kabana approached the Juniper Arts Council about acting as the general store’s fiscal agent, the council members were struck by her vision and commitment. Even though Spray is about a dozen miles over the line in neighboring Wheeler County, the group agreed to work with her.

“We’re all about the arts,” said Kris Beal, the council’s president. “And Spray is as close as you can get to Grant County.”

Since then, Beal said, she’s been impressed with what Kabana has accomplished, in terms of both attracting grant funding and what she’s been able to do with the money.

“Joni’s a mover and a shaker — she applies for everything she can,” Beal said.

“I always say you can do anything if you have people with passion,” she added. “Joni has the passion, and she has good people working with her.”

For her part, Kabana says the Grant County group’s assistance has been critical to the Spray General Store’s success.

“I could not have done this without the Juniper Arts Council,” she said. “They’ve been truly transformational in the town of Spray.”

Winning hearts and minds

Change comes hard to small towns. Old-timers tend to be suspicious of new ideas, especially when they come from outsiders recently arrived from the big city. It can be easy to do or say the wrong thing, giving rise to resentment that can quickly harden into a grudge.

Kabana has worked hard to avoid those kinds of missteps. For one thing, she said, she thinks of herself as the steward of the old general store as much as its owner. She has tried to respect the building’s history throughout the renovation process, staying as close as possible to the original design and materials, and she hopes to get the store listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“I know my place,” Kabana said. “I will never lay claim to land or a town where there are five generations of people (who came before).”

That’s important to people like Howell, the former mayor, who has fond memories of riding her horse to the store to buy candy as a young girl.

“It’s a different use, but she’s not changing the building,” Howell said. “She didn’t come in and raze it and build a different structure.”

Howell also appreciates the respectful and inclusive approach Kabana has taken every step of the way, regularly attending city council meetings to keep the community informed of her plans and ask for feedback on what they’d like the Spray General Store to become. And she likes the fresh infusion of energy that Kabana has brought to the town.

“She’s got the enthusiasm that we need,” Howell said. “She’s bringing people to the community. She’s drawing people here.”

A regional reach

On the afternoon of Sept. 23, as the Cheyenne West Band was setting up on the porch, the Spray General Store held an opening reception for its very first art exhibition. Titled “Home Is Where I Want to Be,” the show runs through Nov. 20 and features works in a wide variety of media, from painting and photography to ceramics, textiles, metalsmithing and woodcarving.

Intended as a showcase for artists from throughout the John Day River territory, the exhibition includes 40 entries. Fully half of those entries were submitted by artists from Spray, with nearly all the rest coming from Wheeler, Grant and Gilliam counties. Only two came from outside the John Day watershed: one from Maupin and one from Redmond.

In one corner of the expansive main room, visitors helped themselves to plates of chicken satay, raw vegetables and crackers with salmon spread; in another corner, a musician strummed softly on an acoustic guitar.

The art was perfectly displayed — neatly hung on the walls or on panels set up for the occasion, or tastefully arranged on display tables, each piece individually lighted so it showed to best advantage.

Kabana enlisted her friend Lincoln Miller, who sits on the board of the Spray General Store, to take charge of the show’s installation. The owner of PushDot Studio, a fine art printing and digital art studio in Portland, Miller has extensive experience in putting on art shows. He also volunteered his services to print and frame many of the photographs in “Home Is Where I Want to Be.”

Taking in the totality of the art on display, Miller said he was impressed by what he saw.

“It’s a pretty strong show, I think,” he said. “The variety and the artwork is at a pretty high level. Hopefully a lot of people will get to see it.”

June Shull of Prairie City and Patricia Ross and Carrie Bellinger of Mt. Vernon — three of the seven Grant County artists with pieces in the show — found a quiet corner to sit and chat at the reception.

It was their first time seeing the old general store since the renovations — “I thought this was where you came in for a gallon of milk,” Shull joked — and they liked what they saw.

“We think it’s beautiful,” Bellinger said. “Very classy.”

And they expressed the hope that the Spray General Store would hold more regional art shows in the future.

“We need a place to hang our paintings,” Ross said. “I think they have a great place for socializing, for getting people together.”

That’s exactly what Kabana wants to provide — not only for her adopted hometown of Spray, but for all her new neighbors in the far-flung John Day River country.

“I want to fill that (need),” she said. “I want to have shows where all these local artists can sell their work. It’s way wider than Spray.”

Bennett Hall is a veteran Oregon newsman and the editor of the Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day.

“My mother always said when you live in Spray and you swim in the John Day River and you swallow a little river water, you’ll grow roots.”

Valerie Howell, Spray resident and former mayor