| The Dawning of 35 Years at Winter Sun |
 The Noise-Arts & News Magazine November 2011
THE DAWNING OF 35 YEARS AT WINTER SUN
Phyllis Hogan embodies a rare, quick charm that immediately draws any visitor of her shop into a space both warm and familiar. While weathering a blustery day in the streets of downtown Flagstaff, one may wander into Winter Sun and feel the day’s chills melt away.
And perhaps this is the secret of her success, the one ingredient that has seen Northern Arizona’s herbal apothecary thrive through what is now 35 winters.
Phyllis came from humble beginnings along the southern diagonal of Arizona. Raised in Tucson, she had always felt the urge to discover more of the ancient Southwest. The rhythm of light and the medicines of tribal ancestors spoke to her like no other occupation.
She had gone to school and become a counselor, and after a brief stay in Flagstaff, settled in Coolidge with her two young daughters. Not long after arriving in the small rural town, she had sought the help of an old herbalist who had gone underground some years before — a Mrs. Valencia who had long traded with tribesmen, discovering the ways of the medicines of old. Mrs. Valencia, for one reason or another, had been jailed for some of her trades, and although she maintained a storefront in downtown Coolidge, it was mostly closed to the public.
Phyllis, upon hearing of this woman from a Hopi friend, intuited she had found the one individual who could be her mentor, and determined, set out to make her acquaintance. Her first attempt met with an old face suspiciously peaking out of window blinds. Phyllis knocked, but no response other than the waft of frijoles came from within. Her second and third attempts, with daughters in-tow, also met with similar fate. But the fourth time, reading like a proverb, broke the spell, and Mrs. Valencia opened her door just slightly, enough to take a good look at this stubborn white woman insisting entry into the herbal sanctum.
Needless to say, the young Phyllis Hogan and the elderly Mrs. Valencia hit it off, and it wasn’t long before Phyllis was a full-time apprentice, learning the tools of the trade, the names of the plants, the requirements of the ancients. She was a quick learn, for after two years, she had gained knowledge rivaling disciples of western medicine.
“I had my pick-up truck and I’d go to the village of Guadalupe right outside of Scottsdale and for two years, I would sell herbs once a month out of the back of my truck to get a feeling of what it was all about. Mrs. Valencia could talk and talk and talk, but until I actually had hands-on experience, I had no idea,” Phyllis remembers.
Because Mrs. Valencia was not inclined to open her shop to the public, Phyllis asked for her blessing to open an herbal apothecary a couple streets down. Mrs. Valencia did, and the first Winter Sun was born. It was November 1976.
“I opened the shop there as my ethnobotanical laboratory, because I sold herbs. I didn’t even have enough money to buy art, but I had a bunch of cool Hopi and Diné friends and they lent me a small case of jewelry and some really fantastic paintings.”
Through the first few years of operation, Phyllis connected with traders and began offering authentic Indian art and jewelry, not to be confused with imitations mass-produced overseas yet popular during the time. She also found a new, full sense of purpose from being a young entrepreneur.
But it wasn’t long before Phyllis found herself outgrowing her Coolidge store. With an amiable reception from a short visit to Flagstaff one summer, on a wing and a prayer, she packed her shop and home into four truckloads, and dropped anchor on a tiny little wooden shack on the outskirts of town. Back in the late 1970s, Flagstaff was bustling with summer vacationers traveling to Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, and wayward tourists were somehow compelled to stop at the Big Tree Campground, with the wigwam out front. It was there that Phyllis connected with even more traders, mostly from the Navajo and Hopi Nations.
By 1979, Phyllis had gained enough gumption to move into downtown. She located a storefront right on Front Street (Route 66), with enough room in back to house herself and her two daughters. And while the shop was situated between three notorious bars, she nurtured a homey nook, where people from all walks of life would come to congregate, to learn, and to share. In 1983 within the walls of Winter Sun, she, Sam Boone, and Michael Moore began the Arizona Ethnobotanical Research Association, which sought to document and preserve traditional plant knowledge.
When the Front Street building sold to make way for a new shopping center, Phyllis, with what she affirms as divine providence at her heels, partnered with Sue Bennett and the cooperative who bought a downstairs portion of the Babbitt Mercantile Building. Through an ingenious agreement, she secured the storefront Winter Sun now occupies.
“Downtown Flagstaff has been good to me. I never thought I’d make it this long. I mean, I was torn up when I got evicted. But, I’m glad I’m here now, because it’s so much classier.”
After three and a half decades, Phyllis’ uncanny ability to know exactly what combination of herbs and extracts will cure an ailment is sought after far and wide. Her daughters, Denise and DeeAnn are just as entrepreneurial, formulating and distributing Sister Creations and Peaks Scents, the all-natural skin care line whose signature product, “Super Salve” is a household staple.
Remembers the artist Jonah Hill, who is a longtime Winter Sun associate who now manages the apothecary: “Going out and collecting red root is one of my favorite memories here. It was part of a field school, and one day we went out into the forest, and Phyllis asked me to identify the plant and I couldn’t find it. ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ I couldn’t see it anywhere. Finally we talked a little, and I looked up, and it was everywhere. A little mystery of the herbs: you don’t know if they’re there or not unless they show themselves to you — opening up the senses to recognize things in nature.”
And Anthony Delagarza, often referred to as the Unofficial Mayor of Downtown for his years of service in various establishments and who now manages the art gallery of Winter Sun, had this to add: “It’s all about the chemistry here … When you’re back there learning about the herbs and the tinctures and the medicines, it’s basic and fundamental but it’s really magical the way everything’s put together.”
Phyllis Hogan’s magic glimmer’s ever more, 35 years in the making.
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| Article by Charles Seiverd 11/20/2011 |
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Established In 1976
| Winter Sun Articles | |
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The Dawning of 35 Years at Winter Sun.....
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