The Four One in Parkdale features some of owner Anna Laxague’s artwork, including original woodwork and acrylic pieces, as well as reprinted scenes on mugs and hats.
The Four One in Parkdale features some of owner Anna Laxague’s artwork, including original woodwork and acrylic pieces, as well as reprinted scenes on mugs and hats.
PARKDALE — Parkdale is known as a tightknit community proud of their local stores, brews, and views. The Four One is no exception as an art-centric shop peddling locally-made goods like keepsakes, ceramics, attire, and more. Gorge residents and tourists alike enjoy browsing for the right piece.
Anna Laxague, owner of The Four One, uses the space as a storefront as well as a personal studio space for her own artwork. She said the shop name comes from Parkdale’s zip code: “It’s the last two digits of the best zip code in the world.”
As someone who grew up and worked in the outdoor industry, Laxague said the outdoors inherently inspires what she makes. Her pieces are acrylic paint on wood that she sands, cures, and treat, usually reclaimed chunks she finds digging through bum piles at the mill.
Laxague freehand paints nature scenery onto each unique slab, letting the grain, shape, and slopes of the wood inspire the scene that unfolds. “The piece of wood determines what to do, and it’s fun because each piece is totally different and needs to figure out what it wants to be,” she said.
Originally from Truckee, California, Laxague bounced around from one mountain town to the next following her outdoor passions — hiking, mountain biking, skiing, river trips, you name it. From Mount Shasta to Bend to Hood River around 2003, Laxague said she moved to the Gorge for the whitewater and ended up staying for everything else.
Ultimately, she landed a full-time job at Meadows and settled in Parkdale with her husband Jason and dog Enzo. She has a home art studio but branched out with the combination retail-studio space in June 2024. Friend and previous occupant of the space Brooke Spaulding presented Laxague with the idea of taking over the lease from her shop Lady Fern.
Laxague always thought it would be cool to have a shop but never had solid plans to open one until the month before she opened her doors at The Four One. “The space was already known as a creative space when it was Lady Fern, so people were really supportive of the transition to The Four One,” Laxague said.
She is plugged into the artistic community in the Gorge and was able to get in touch with people pretty quickly for inventory. The Four One is filled with handcrafted jewelry, paintings, hats, stickers, mugs, and more. “We have a very outdoorsy, nature-inspired vibe. Inventory keeps growing and we just have so much to look at,” Laxague said.
Spaulding and friends and family of Laxague have been monumental in encouraging her passions and helping support the retail space. “I have an amazing support system, and they even help keep the shop open when I have a conflict,” she said.
Being a painter was not always her dream; in fact, Laxague never really understood creative freedom until later in her adulthood. Before that, she felt art was more of an assignment to reproduce a “perfect thing.” But when she broke her shoulder in a mountain biking accident in 2010, she found herself mostly immobile for many months.
It was during this time that her mother sent her to the art store with her credit card and told her to go crazy. She bought painting supplies and got to work, letting her love for rivers and mushrooms leech into her art, depicting waterfalls and mountain scenes, birds and evergreen forests.
No two pieces are ever alike due to the woodworking process and the uniqueness of every slab. “I always liked making things with my hands. My process is fun because I can turn what would be trash into art all on my own,” she said.
Laxague’s artwork is featured in The Four One, Solera Brewery, and Art on Oak, where she is a working artist each month. Her shop in Parkdale is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and she will be open for the entirety of the Gorge Artist Open Studio Tours May 2-4.
This will be Laxague’s first year participating in the upcoming tour, a Gorge-wide art-crawl where people take self-guided tours of local artists’ studio spaces.
“It will be fun! I’m excited to participate, there are a couple other stops in Parkdale, and I have a wide variety of local artists’ work in my store so I think it will be a good destination for people,” Laxague said.
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