Do you speed through McMinnville every time you drive to Yamhill County’s wine country or head for the coast on 99W? Next time, stop the car and explore downtown McMinnville. You’ll discover you’ve been missing a lot when you ignored that HISTORIC TOWN CENTER sign with the arrow pointing in the direction you weren’t going, but should’ve been! When you peruse the shops on pedestrian-friendly N.E. Third St., you’ll start empty-handed, but you’ll soon want several extra hands to carry all your goodies from wine and chocolate to artwork and, of course, that perfect piece of jewelry for your hard-to-shop-for sister!

As a child, Hickory Mertsching was always drawing and painting. "I drew a lot of boy stuff like trucks, and even when I was a child, people seemed to respond to them," he says.

Arnon Kazmarov and Fergus Kinnell took very different paths to Oregon, but a meeting at a party at a mutual friend’s house led the two metalsmiths to start a blacksmithing studio, K & K Forgeworks.

With a mother who was an artist, Leah Nobilette says creating things was an integral part of her childhood. "My mother introduced me to art early, and we were always either taking art classes or just creating things," says the ceramic artist. "I’ve always loved making things. When I was a child, I was really into making little pieces of furniture out of sticks. I called it Fairy Furniture. I’ve always been very tactile in my art. I like art where you can touch the materials."

For mixed-media artist Yoshi Aoki, working in a variety of media is one of the main reasons he enjoys being an artist. "I love materials,” he says. “Only after coming up with a design do I choose the materials I’ll work with to create it."

Got your heart set on building the dinosaur-shaped headboard of your dreams for your bookworm of a boy’s bed? Feel like a hip mama because you’re letting your 4-year-old pick which of 34 colors she wants her spendy maple bedroom furniture to be stained in? Oregon Home asked design mavens for pointers for decorating a kid’s room with style.

First, B.L.T. yourself, and then continue on your S.E. Division St. trek to Old Portland Hardware & Architectural, Urban Flora, Langlitz Leathers, Tropical Salvage and Fleur de Lis.

From hand-designed furniture to TOHO seed beads and a stained-glass creation, continue your S.E. Division expedition in style with Ease, Beads at Dusti Creek, Longfellow's Books & Periodicals, Larry's Lighting Repair and David Schlicker Stained Glass Studio.