Akron, Ohio's Giant Holiday and Much More

Akron creative Karen Starr is passionate about her community, and she and a legion of friends and collaborators do a lot to make the city better and more fun.

In this live edition of The Gale Hill Radio Hour, Karen talks about a host of great projects, starting with the gorgeous coffee-table book If This Wallpaper Could Talk, which she produced with her photographer friend Shane Wynn. As its title suggests, it's all about wallpaper, specifically Akron wallpaper.

An interior designer, Karen has an affinity for wallpaper, though she's well aware that not everyone shares that feeling. She also has a deep appreciation for January Paint & Wallpaper, which has been in business since 1956 and is where, as a kid, Karen accompanied her mom on shopping (or just browsing) trips.

In this interview, Karen also talks about her own business, Hazel Tree Interiors, celebrating its 12th anniversary in 2022. Whenever feasible, the Hazel Tree team members incorporate the work of local artists and makers into their interior design projects.

Speaking of projects, Karen co-created two big ones:

The 2022 Highland Square annual PorchRokr Music and Art Festival marks the 10th anniversary of Akron's "giant holiday" party, transforming the porches of one of Akron's most eclectic neighborhoods into one-day art studios and concert venues. Thousands of locals and out-of-towners rock out to diverse musicians and artists who use both residences and business establishments as their personal stages. The festival rotates each year among four sections of Highland Square to encourage spontaneous interaction among all its neighbors. PorchRokr 2022 takes place Saturday, August 20.

Also in 2022, Karen and her co-creators are marking the 10th anniversary of Free Akron Outdoor Movies with a showing of Labyrinth  on September 10 on the lawn of Glendale Cemetery, where the event has always been held.

Finally, and this is also fun, Karen sings with Roxxymoron, an eight-piece rock/pop cover band with horns, tight vocals, and a song list spanning generations. It was voted "Best Local Band" by Akron Life Magazine. During the interview, Kate asks Karen whether she has a favorite song to sing. Listen to find out what it is.

This episode was one of many live podcasts recorded in spring 2022 at Comida, a chef-owned restaurant in Hudson, Ohio's First & Main shopping and dining district. Called Podapalooza, it was presented by PodPopuli of Hudson. 

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to The Gale Hill Radio Hour!

The show is available in Apple and Google Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast directories. Also on Substack and YouTube;  Facebook, Instagram  and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Kate: Hello, and welcome to The Gale Hill Radio Hour.

I'm your host Kate Jones doing a segment of the PodPopalooza live show from Comida in Hudson's First & Main dining and shopping district. My guest, lucky me, is Karen Starr, co-owner of Hazel Tree Interiors on West Market Street in Akron.

Karen, thank you for being on the show today.

Karen: Thank you so much, Kate. It's great to see you again. It's been a minute since we've had a conversation. Wonderful to see you.

Kate: Yes. Along with a thriving business, you also have a coffee table book to your credit. I have it right here and you've written the stories featured in. If This Wallpaper Could Talk is a book about Akron's wallpaper and the people who love it, with photography by Shane Wynn.
This is really a delightful book. How did it come about?

Karen: Well, I'm an interior designer by trade and I am fascinated with wallpaper from growing up. Really, my mom has. Fearless creative expression in her wallpaper.

Kate: Like what?

Karen: Well, in our guest bathroom, for instance, there was graffiti wallpaper from the late '70s. That was just so much fun.

She let me pick my wallpaper for my room at a very young age. And it was just something that I always thought was so beautiful. And we would go to January Paints in Akron on Exchange Street when I was a little kid and it was just such a fun place to me. So I fell in love with wallpaper from a very early age.

Being an interior designer, as I grew up and being fascinated with wall coverings, um, I just have this love in my heart for the artistic, you know, the aesthetic, a way that that wallpaper can pull together a room. So when one day when I was getting ready to go to a client's house, for whatever reason, I was thinking about the different wall coverings that we had placed in her home. And a flash of an idea came across my brain. And it was, I do love those that's what life is all about. So it was just this image of this client in sitting in front of her wall paper, in the room that we had wallpaper. And it was just, it was like, oh, we're going to make a coffee table art book about Akron wallpaper.

And I immediately thought of my friend, Shane Wynn, who is an incredibly talented photographer. She does both portraiture. And also she captures the essence of spaces in a way nobody else does. And so I called her and I said, "I have this idea. I want to turn it into a book. Would you be the photographer?" And she was like, "I'm in."

So months later, we're thinking about how to create this book. And then the Knight Arts Challenge is open again. And we said, "Oh, maybe we can get a grant to create this book. So we submitted it to the Knight Arts Challenge. It was accepted. Our funding was matched by Gar foundation and Akron Community Foundation and Summit County Historical Society.
And so all of that cobbled together, the way that we brought this book to life. So it's all about just wallpaper stories. We called them "People and their papers." So whether it's a new wallpaper in a home of a resident in Akron, or it's a historic building, like on the cover of Stan Hywett  and the great-great-grandson of fan Gertrude Seiberling. There are photographs in the nursery of Stan Hywett. And it's the only original wall covering in the mansion to this day.

So, you know, whether, whatever, there's a lot of wallpaper stories in Akron, whether you know it or not. So we made a book about it.

Kate: That is simply terrific. So what did you learn by doing this book?

Karen: I learned that people have a visceral reaction to wallpaper.
So a lot of people say, "Oh, wallpaper, I hate wallpaper. I had to tear it out of a house and it was awful." Some people have this nostalgic feeling of wallpaper: "It reminds me of my grandmother and her kitchen." You know, it's an art medium that brings about lots of emotion, whether you love it or hate it. That's what I learned about wallpaper.

Kate: So do you have any good stories to share about wallpaper or about the book, about doing the book?

Karen: It was really interesting because we really wanted to focus on lots of different types of spaces that featured wallpaper. So we have kind of the current day take on wallpaper, which is in a vinyl mural. And we have the, I Promise school that the LeBron James family foundation has this very famously photographed. Now wallpaper mural in this grand staircase inside the school that's featured in the book.

And we also had a fun story was Don Drumm and Lisa Drumm, you know, very famous to us artists in Akron and Northeast Ohio. They have wallpaper in their foyer, in their kitchen, but also he kind of created this, you know, wall covering of plaster in their main bathroom. That is all of his beautifully carved sunflowers and this gorgeous like cranberry. And it's all in the book photographing him. And Shane said to Don, when we're photographing him and she goes, "Can you get in the bathtub? Because that would be the best shot."

So one of the shots in there -- you can't tell, but one of the shots in there is Don Drumm standing in his bathtub, so she can get this full surround of what he carved into the walls. So that might be the loosest interpretation of wallpaper. You know, it's definitely a wall covering, but it's our book and it's Akron and it's Don Drumm.

Kate: And Don is such a good sport. He's a really a terrific guy and a real gem in Akron. What a gem. 

Karen: Yes, indeed. Going back to your snatch of an idea, it reminded me in a way of how Hazel G was born. Uh, so I want to just say that Hazel tree interiors, um, provise, your interior design services and your business partner, John hated does the custom framing for it.
He's a tree also has a showroom and gallery for local artists, home decor, artisans, and furniture makers to show and sell their existing and custom or commission pieces. Oh, that is fabulous. You have a lot going on and Hazel tree. I would love you to tell the backstory though, because that is extraordinary.
So the backstory of how the name came to be, the dream came to me. I apprenticed in the interior design business for about four years before I wanted to start my own business. John was a picture framer for 20 years, 15, 20 years for a local studio before he started his picture framing business. So we were both home-based new businesses, meaning no insurance, no two people's starting new businesses in a house.
Um, so we knew that we wanted to create a business together that joined my interior, design his picture framing, but also supported the work of the local artists and makers that we were working into my interior design projects. We do a lot great goal. I mean, that is a really wonderful thing to do. Thank you.

Locally made is everything to us. It's core to our mission. It's why we started what we do. And we also focus on re-purposing and environmental sensitivity when it comes to new sourcing of materials and things like that. So all of that, and this was in 20 10, 20 10, the recession, when people said you are crazy to open a retail space on west market street in Akron, in a recession, but we thought it'd be crazy not to because what we were doing, we were starting these two kind of separate home-based businesses.
We needed a bigger audience. Norka futons building came. Up for availability and it was the perfect space for us. So we threw a fluke meeting, serendipity, my favorite partner and collaboration, uh, brought to us, you know, the idea that that building could be the space where we joined our businesses and we started this new thing called Hazel tree interiors.
So. That happened. And also, I think what you were asking about the origin story as I, a lot of people say or ask me, what, how did that name come to be? And I'll say it came to me in a dream and I'm not even joking. It literally came to me in a dream. So that is a short story of how Hazel tree came to be, how the name came to be.

And we've been there since July of 2010. So in July it will be our 12th anniversary. We actually have two locations now because we have our showroom and our picture framing gallery on west market street in Akron still. But we also have moved our interior design operations to an additional space over at bounce innovation hub.
We ran out of room, we needed some more quiet. So we now have two locations over there and business is, is going so well. We've grown our team. We've grown our services. So we not only do custom picture framing and interior design, but we do a lot of art curation for companies and organizations in the community.
We are still so focused on how do we get more things locally made? How can we support the locally made movement? Um, so very, very active and trying to make more things locally made with reclaimed materials. That is the thing I will work on for the rest of my life and what a great thing to work on. Thank you.
I love that is truly marvelous. And Hazel Tree has a bit of, or Hazel trees have a bit of mythology with them. Is that right? Yup. So there's there's um, creativity, there's inspiration. There's good. Fortune and dreaming of a Hazel tree is said to predict success in wealth. All right. You know, that's right.
Damn good dream. Isn't it? It was fun because I, when I, when I had the dream about the name, I woke up and said, what is a Hazel tree? I have no idea what a Hazel tree is. So I Googled it and it said those things. And I went well. All right. I think that's great. So, Karen, I love how you listen to yourself. You know, you listen to what comes through you.

And that is such an important thing to do. Everything comes from my intuition and I advise anyone out there, starting a business, really doing anything in life. Your head will tell you one thing, your heart will tell you another, but when you have your head and your heart and your gut all aligned, that's where it's at.
So I follow my intuition. And over the years I have doubled down on that. You know, when it didn't really make sense in one way, but in my gut, I knew the answer. I follow my gut every time. Yes. And how the, what feelings well up, you know, and if you feel like it's a burden, then it's not the right thing.

Exactly. Wow. That's really good. 

Thanks, Kate. All right. So you've got all these, you've got these, and you're doing your business for environmental and social reasons. You source products from companies and individuals as near to your area as possible. You, you know, the pieces for sale are all locally made.
You've got all this going on with the community. You also are involved in the community in other ways. Would you talk about that? 

Well, sure. Um, I love Akron. Yes. I just love it with all my heart. I grew up in Stow as soon as I was old enough to get my own apartment, I was in Highland square and haven't moved much since, uh, west hill Highland square, you know, all in that area.

But, uh, one of the things that I am most proud of as being a co-creator of is the Highland square pore tracker festival. That was a festival that, you know, this year will be our 10th in-person festival. We did our first one in June of 2013, and I just love what we have created for the community. It's the coolest day in Akron and it takes a huge village to put it together.
Um, and this year is it's on August 20th. Um, and you can go to Highland square, uh, porch, rocker.org. Wait a minute. That might not be the right. Google it, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's a great festival. And, uh, I should spell that porch as in P O R C H rocker, R O K R. Correct. It's something to look for. So Google it come to the festival.
That's one of my favorite things ever that I co-created and still perform on their porches. Is that right? Yes. We, so Highland square is a fairly large neighborhood. We've divided it into four quadrants and we rotate every year. We go to the, to the next quadrant. So it's the same four quadrants, but we rotate them through.
So this year is the third time that we've been in this quadrant and it grows bigger every year. More people, more bands, more artists. So much fun. It's Akron's best day to sorry. Marathon. Do the musicians live there or do they get invited to use porches in Highland square? Everyone has to submit to be a vendor or to, uh, to be a band that plays that day.
The music committee does an incredible job. Every year they get 300, 400 however many hundreds of submissions. And it's only ever between 120 and 170 mans, which one 70 is so many, but that year we had that many porches. So we, wow. We filled them. So it's all of the musicians, all of the volunteers, everyone does it for free.
Nobody gets paid for this festival yet. It's this crazy giant like Akron holiday that we've created over the course of almost 10 years. And it's all outdoors, all outdoors, outdoor, the, obviously their porches, their porches, porches, and lawn. So we say bands on the Porsche's art on the lawn. We have a beer garden, we have a kid zone and we have a main stage and we have different stages throughout.
There are all sorts of things that's for everyone is we really wanted to. Continue to make a festival that was for all ages. So it's not just people who like rock and roll and love to go to the beer garden. That's not it, there it's all ages. There is a huge amount of people that bring their dogs. And so there's a hashtag pooch rocker that my friend Kyle started.
So when they post pictures of dogs on poor tracker day, they have like a specific hashtag tracker.
So that's really fun. I love that festival. And also, um, I think this is our 10th year as well. This is our 10th anniversary for free Akron outdoor movies, which was an event that I started with some buddies. We had a running group that ran through the west hill neighborhood. One of our routes was in the Glendale cemetery, which is one of my favorite places.
It's a beautiful historic cemetery near downtown Akron. And we were running through one morning and we were like, wouldn't it be fun to put, you know, put on a movie on the great meadow lawn there. And so we did, and now 10 years later, we have equipment from different grants that we got from PNC bank and Knight foundation.
We have all the equipment we put on a movie at least once every summer, this year is September 10th and Glendale cemetery. The movie will be labyrinth because we really wanted to show movies that we wanted to show our kids. So it's like old-school movies that we want to show our kids. So we're just going to do it in this cemetery.
And hopefully other people want it we'll want to show their kids. And that's what happened. And, and people do people do it's, it's been an incredible ride. It's been so fun. Do they. Park and then sit in the, on the lawn, on the green there. Yeah, they park 'em on exchange street near January Paints. Wow.
Twice in one podcast. I love your January. Well, of course, of course, April. Uh, so they park, you know, park out there and then come in the, um, the exchange street gate and come onto the lawn there. What, what fun? It's so fun. My whole life is trying to create things that are fun for me and for my community and just love it.
And, and these were all ideas that you put into motion. I mean, not solely like free Akron out or movies and portraits or what the group effort collaborate. Yes, absolutely. We co-create this right. So Hazel tree was a co-creation with my business partner and these festivals are co-creations with other, you know, Akron loving creatives that I spend time with.
Yeah. Some fun for the community and fun, you know, just something that is joyful. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's a good thing. Joy is what life is all about. Well, anything else you'd like to mention what you'd like to mention your band at all? Um, I love to sing I'm in a band for almost 10 years now called Roxy moron.
I'm one of the singers in the band and it's an eight piece full horn section kind of cover band that does all sorts of songs, rock and roll hip hop current day, 1940s. It's all over the place. Um, but it's a great, great time. I love my band brothers, um, and. So that's also what I do Hudson with Roxy moron.
We'd be happy to come. Yep. Yeah. I'm a green or on, in the, um, green space here and the first and main one is sure would be just fine by me. Yeah. It's it's a good time. It's it's the dance party. Good time. Yup. Good. Do you have a favorite song? You like to, oh, oh gosh, you have spot. You know what song? I love to sing, which we do very rarely, but I love to sing white rabbit.
Oh, real, such a great set. That is such a crazy, awesome song. And it's pretty rare because, because we are like a dance party band. We don't play it all the time, but oh my gosh. I just channel her when I sing that song. That that's excellent. I would like to hear you sing that. Oh, our next gig is Jilly's music room May 28th in downtown Akron.
So you can come and maybe we'll play that. All right. That sounds right. Okay. Anything else you'd like to mention? I would just like to encourage people to shop locally, just a reminder. Look at what incredible things are made by your neighbors here in Northeast Ohio. It's such a strong environmental choice that you can make to buy legacy furniture made by your neighbors.
Yeah. Shop local and not, and not have it shipped or anything that saves a lot of energy. Yep. Okay. Well Karen, thank you for being here. It's been such a cool, thank you so much, Kate. This is a blessed thing. This is Kate Jones with the Gale Hill Radio Hour until next time. Thanks for listening.