Her intentions are pure, but Jenny Mitchell is tugging at your Downtown Guelph emotional heart strings.
The lifelong Guelph resident and musician has created a line of seven custom T-shirts depicting iconic businesses in the downtown core that have closed over the past few years.
Mitchell took old photographs she found and basically traced them to create a hand-drawn image of photo to be used for the shirts.
"These places were important to me growing up in Guelph and each time with each drawing was really, really special. It was almost magical tracing them," Mitchell said. "I think it says something about Guelph changing."
Mitchell said she chose the seven images because they were all independent retailers that operated for several years before closing or being closed. She didn't want chain stores, ones that moved or ones that just changed their names.
"But it's not always about me. This is a time of their life for people. It brings back a time and memories for them. These places were special for people in all kinds of different ways."
Proceeds from the sales of the T-shirts are being used to fund and fix The Golden Bus, which — as well as being precisely what the name says it is — serves as a mobile artistic space used from everything form concerts to showing films during the Guelph Film Festival.
The seven images depicted on the shirts are:
- Macondo Books: the used book store was a fixture for 36 years on Wilson Street before closing in 2014.
- Diplomat Hotel: Now the Western Hotel and restaurant on Macdonell Street, the Diplomat has a varied and long history in Guelph, dating back to the 1800s.
- Budds department store: Operated on upper Wyndham Street for 84 years before closing in 2015.
- Carden Street Cafe: Now the location of the restaurant 39 Carden and before that the Happy Traveller restaurant.
- Family Thrift Store: An everything-but-the-kitchen-sink used goods store that also played as a concert space at times on upper Wyndham Street. Was owned by Jenny's father Ray Mitchell.
- Sun Sun Restaurant: If you've ever been out drinking late at night in downtown Guelph, chances are you ate takeout Chinese food from this bar crowd fixture that closed in 2015. Now home to Breezy Corners diner at 44 Macdonell St.
- Apollo Eleven Restaurant: A diner that was a fixture for almost 40 years in the bottom of the Petrie Building on Wyndham Street that is currently undergoing renovations and will be the new home to a brew pub.
"Macondo is the runaway winner so far, followed by the Apollo," Mitchell said of the shirts' popularity.
An initial run saw her make 75 shirts and orders keep coming in as word spreads.
Mitchell also made a connection with the images and how they relate to her Golden Bus project.
Good places close sometimes despite the service and goodness they bring to a community. "I'm paying tribute to longevity that I'm willing into the bus," Mitchell said. "They had no choice. In my own mind, I'm a storefront of a different service."
Anyone wishing to order a T-shirt can do so by contacting Mitchell through her Facebook page.
For more information about The Golden Bus go to http://goldenbus.tumblr.com/.
