By Alissa Paolella
On a recent Saturday morning, before Ohio Silver Co. opened, a line of customers stretched from the door and down Xenia Avenue. Inside, the contents of the sterling silver cases at 245 Xenia Ave. were thinning.
On another day, a longtime customer wiped away tears at the counter. Near the entrance stood the Tin Woman, the silver figure Ohio Silver owner Marcia Wallgren built by hand and the shop’s unofficial mascot, keeping watch over the crowd. Behind the cases, a small staff moved without pause to keep up with a goodbye that grew far louder than anyone anticipated.
After 54 years, Ohio Silver Co. — one of downtown Yellow Springs’ longest-operating businesses — is closing. Wallgren, who has owned the fair-trade jewelry store since 1974, is retiring. What began as a quiet farewell to the village became a regional event this month, after a Dayton television station picked up the news and shoppers poured in from across the area.
Wallgren and her staff had hoped to say goodbye gently, giving loyal customers the first chance at the store’s remaining inventory. Then WDTN aired the story, and the quiet plan evaporated. In the days since, the shop has seen roughly three times the sales volume of its busiest Street Fair day, according to Wallgren — all handled by a small, rotating team.
“The outpouring of love and sadness for the store closing has been overwhelming, poignant and humbling,” Wallgren told the News last week. “Some folks hugged us and cried.”
Hundreds have posted on the store’s Facebook announcement, sharing what Ohio Silver meant to them over the years, and one recent day, three generations of one family who had always shopped there made a special trip together.
The shop has been filled with stories — of wedding and engagement rings, ears pierced as a rite of passage, special gifts given and received.
“[Customers’] loyalty over the years allowed me and my staff to live and work here all these years,” Wallgren said.
For all the emotion of these final weeks, Wallgren said she is at peace with her reasons for bidding Ohio Silver farewell.
“I look forward to making art, writing — I have research for at least one book — growing things and, body willing, traveling,” she said.
Market forces have played a role, too. Silver prices whipsawed over the past year, trading as low as $36.21 an ounce in late July 2025 before spiking to an intraday high of $121.58 on Jan. 29, 2026, then settling back to roughly $56 by mid-July, according to Forbes Advisor’s silver price tracker.
Wallgren does not expect those prices to come back down. She called the spike “a different animal” from the swings she weathered in the past, driven now by silver’s growing use in data centers, electric-vehicle batteries and solar panels. When she sees electronics makers investing in new silver mines that can take years to come online, she said, she reads it as a sign that supply is finite and prices will stay high. Some of her artisan lines stopped production or shrank their pieces to stay affordable, losing quality in the process.
The tariffs alone, she said, would have doubled the price of some pieces.
“At a time when affording food or gas is difficult, our products would be too expensive for our customers,” she said.
Wallgren said the 2025 closure of Short Street, which eliminated several nearby parking spaces with steady customer turnover, cut into foot traffic during the holiday season and added to an already stressful period.
Still, Wallgren described the closing as a decision she made on her own terms.
“It just wasn’t fun anymore,” she said.
The work began more than half a century ago, in a far smaller shop. Ohio Silver Co. was founded in November 1971 by brothers Tucker and Kris Viemeister and Kerry Moore, according to News archives. Originally called Standing Room Only and tucked into Kings Yard, the shop moved to its longtime home at 245 Xenia Ave. in 1977. Moore and Marcia Wallgren bought the business from the Viemeisters, and Wallgren — an owner since 1974 — later bought out Moore to become sole owner in 1984. The store is closing just short of its 55th anniversary.
Over the decades, the store built its reputation on handcrafted sterling silver — pieces first made on-site, then sourced from artisans across the United States and around the world — and on a longstanding commitment to fair-trade practices. That reputation reached beyond the village: Ohio Silver was a repeat honoree in Dayton.com and the Dayton Daily News’ Best of Dayton readers’ poll, winning Best Jewelry in 2018 and placing in the category in the years since.
Wallgren said part of the draw of the store was the experience itself. Customers returned for a hands-on, personal way of doing business, where they might try on a stack of rings, ask to have a chain hooked and linger — the kind of attention big retailers can’t replicate. Wallgren was quick to credit her employees for creating an environment that kept customers coming back.
“My amazing staff are [the ones who] made this business,” she said.
Managers Joe Williams and Daria Mabra are both villagers, and each is in the middle of a third decade at Ohio Silver — a rare tenure for any small business. Chica, Mabra’s dog and a familiar presence to regulars, is also part of store lore.
“I couldn’t have done it without them,” Wallgren said.
Mabra, who has lived in the village her entire life, gave a simple reason for staying behind the counter for nearly three decades.
“That’s really easy — the customers,” she said. “I’ve met so many very kind people, and they are so appreciative of the store.”
She pointed to the shop’s signature purple box — long a staple of its identity — which customers seek out as a gift for others and for themselves.
“People say they can’t find this mix of jewelry anywhere,” she said.
Lately, many of those customers have arrived in tears, and Mabra, tearing up herself, said the goodbye has reminded her of what makes Yellow Springs special.
Some come downtown hoping to glimpse a famous neighbor — “they see Dave and they freak out,” she said of comedian and village resident Dave Chappelle — but to her the real draw was always simpler.
“I don’t think there would ever be a time where people would not come here,” she said.
That sense of loss extends well beyond the store’s own staff. The closing leaves downtown Yellow Springs without one of its half-century anchors, part of the shifting landscape of independent retail in the village. Over the years, the store supported local nonprofits and the wider business community, and Wallgren said she takes pride in having added to what she calls the “vibrancy” of the downtown district. In a tribute this month, the Yellow Springs Chamber of Commerce thanked Wallgren for “decades of dedication,” calling the store a “true silver lining” for the community.
The tributes carry a note of finality, but the goodbye is not quite over. For now, the store remains open. Its closing sale features the full inventory of handcrafted sterling silver, along with fixtures and display cases; prices, the store says, are already below current replacement cost. No firm closing date has been set. As Wallgren put it, the sale ends when the stock runs out.
Current hours are 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, though Wallgren notes hours may shift. The store can be reached at 937-767-8261. Information will also be posted to the store’s Facebook page: facebook.com/ohiosilverco.
Wallgren built the store on a simple philosophy, she said: sell jewelry that is handmade, beautifully designed and made to last, at a price people can afford — and when it’s not made in-house, choose fair-trade pieces that support the artisans behind them. She hopes it endures.
“Those pieces will be around a long time for people to remember us by,” she said.
Mostly, though, she wants her customers to hear one thing.
“To my customers, we are really going to miss you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
*Alissa Paolella is a local resident and freelance writer for the News.
The changes keep coming at the newly minted Springs Market.
Since Aug. 2, dairy and frozen foods manager Erica Rodriguez-Wyant has taken on the role as general manager, overseeing the 30-some employees and keeping Yellow Springs’ longtime downtown grocery store up and running.
Rodriguez-Wyant’s promotion is the latest development at Springs Market — formerly Tom’s Market — since the Gray family sold the store to the Yellow Springs Community Foundation earlier this summer for an undisclosed amount.
The Yellow Springs resident has worked at the grocery for the last year, and most recently, has been working under the wing of professional grocer and interim general manager John Mabbott, whom the foundation hired to help transition the store to new ownership.
Rodriguez-Wyant comes to the position with a background in management — most recently having run a Starbucks, then the C-Shop at Antioch College — and as a mother of three, and all the nearly 30 years of management that entails.
“I’m just so excited,” she told the News earlier this week. “I love this job, the people I work with, the people that shop here.”
It must have been that passion that kept her going the morning of her News interview. A couple hours earlier, before the sun had risen, Rodriguez-Wyant single-handedly unloaded many hundreds of pounds of produce from the day’s delivery truck. Though her denim coveralls were drenched by the end, she still had to unlock the store by 7 a.m. — grocery sales wait for no one.
“Sure, it’s backbreaking work sometimes, but it’s worth it — I just really love this work,” Rodriguez-Wyant said with a grin.
In an email, Kumar Jensen — another longtime local and a project manager for the YS Community Foundation — said Rodriguez-Wyant rose to the top of the nearly 20 candidates in the search process owing to her “knowledge of the store, strong relationships with staff and the community, work ethic and expertise as a problem solver.”
“Erica is an incredibly fast learner, dedicated to her work and her team, and has demonstrated time and again that she is a reliable and dependable leader,” Jensen wrote. “We are truly excited to be able to hire from within and are looking forward to continuing to invest in and support Erica as the store leader.”
Interim manager Mabbott concurred.
“You don’t need to be religious to see her as a blessing,” he told this reporter in aisle four. “She’s a grocer at heart and she loves this town. What else is there?”
Though she has a few days before officially hitting the linoleum and running as manager, Rodriguez-Wyant said she hopes to implement a few needed changes at the grocery store — most of which entail shoring up communication between the store’s departments and staffers, and “figuring out a better work flow,” as she put it.
“So, that means minimizing the ‘who do I talk to’ questions when an employee isn’t sure what to do,” she explained.
By and large, Rodriguez-Wyant trusts her managers to make the right calls.
Behind the deli, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses have been recently phased out in favor of Amish cuts from Holmes County, Ohio-based Troyer Market. Also, paninis are returning to the deli counter imminently, Rodriguez-Wyant said.
For the meat department, she said she and the foundation have been on the lookout not for a new in-house butcher, but rather a local meat purveyor who could drop off smaller and fresher deliveries — a move that will supplant the pre-packaged cuts that the store began selling a few years ago.
An emphasis on local fare is also the priority in the produce department. Rodriguez-Wyant said area growers such as Orion Farms, Peach Mountain Organics and Guided by Mushrooms will always have shelves in Springs Market for their fruits, veggies and herbs. Produce manager William Morgan added that he’s hoping to secure even more produce from village farmers and gardeners, and encouraged any grower to reach out.
Rodriguez-Wyant also noted that she aims to round out the staff a little more: She said she’s looking to onboard a few more cashiers, her replacement manager for the frozen foods department and, understandably, a part-time position devoted entirely to unloading delivery trucks.
“And, of course, we’ll have more and more specials,” Rodriguez-Wyant added. “Right now, for instance, we have a dozen Amish eggs — normally for $7.49 — on sale for $3.99 for a dozen. Also, there’s sweet corn up front.”
Running a small-town grocery isn’t all bushels of corn and discount eggs, though. Rodriguez-Wyant cited the store’s temperamental equipment as a considerable foe. About two weeks ago, on July 15, Springs Market’s 15-door freezer in aisle six went out — the temperature rose to 71 degrees overnight and the store lost more than $13,000 in product.
It was a fluke and the fault of no one, Rodriguez-Wyant said, but still something she desperately hopes to avoid in the future with the aid of live temperature sensors.
Like any good modern grocer, she’s taken to checking cooler and freezer temps from her phone before falling asleep.
Though she and other staffers had to pitch quite a bit of spoiled stuff from that unfortunate malfunction, Rodriguez-Wyant said the village isn’t in jeopardy of losing its crown grocery store amid all the transitions and changes.
“Springs Market isn’t going anywhere,” she said confidently. “It’s changing, so give us a little grace, but it’s here to stay.”
Mabbott offered a few encouraging figures as evidence: He said the store is averaging 600 customers per week, and the typical basket in the check-out lane contains an average of $18 in store product. That’s just a couple dollars shy of the average basket in 2019 — the store’s most recent heyday by Mabbott’s metrics.
Under Yellow Springs Community Foundation ownership, Springs Market continues to chart a path toward the potential development of a co-op ownership model. The latest stride toward such a business model is the establishment of a local volunteer-based steering committee, which the News will detail in a write-up in next week’s issue of the News.
There’s nothing quite like an hour at the hair salon: Whatever you might have been when you stepped through the door — stressed, tired, locks a little longer than you might like — after some time spent having your hair washed, trimmed and styled, you invariably walk away feeling a little new.
It’s an experience local resident and hair stylist Jason Laveck believes everyone should be able to access, forming the basis of his recently launched free haircut, pay-what-you-can and pay-it-forward fund initiative.
Beginning this month, Laveck has committed to providing two free haircuts each month from his chair at In Salon, located at 120 Dayton St., and donations to a fund he’s established will cover additional free haircuts. When his schedule permits, he’s also offering pay-what-you-can appointments.
The effort is Laveck’s own, rather than an In Salon program, and appointments are first come, first served, with a waitlist maintained as donations arrive or new openings become available.
In speaking with the News this week, Laveck said he won’t ask for any documentation from folks who might be in need of the free service — just asking will be enough.
“This is the honor system,” Laveck said. “If you say you need a free haircut, then you need a free haircut.”
Laveck said the new initiative grew from the response to past pay-what-you-can haircut events, as some people continued asking when another would be held, and others contacted Laveck on behalf of those who could use the service. With the new school year fast approaching, he also thought of families unable to add haircuts to back-to-school expenses.
“There’s a need in our community, as small as it is, and as disproportionately wealthy as it is,” Laveck said. “There’s still people here who need these things.”
Laveck has been cutting hair for several years and became a licensed hairstylist in January 2025. As a newer stylist, sometimes with fewer clients than his more seasoned salon partners, he said he considered his open hours an opportunity to do some good.
“I’m still sharpening my skills and everything,” he said. “But I’ve been working on haircuts since before I went to hair school. … So I thought one way that I could use these time slots that aren’t filled is to meet this need.”
As of Monday, July 27, the free haircut fund had received $195 in donations. That’s enough, Laveck said, to cover several haircuts beyond the two he’ll provide himself. He’s set aside time on Wednesdays for the appointments, and those who sign up can look forward to the full salon experience: shampooing, scalp massage, a cut and styling and detox treatments when needed — time spent being cared for.
Laveck said he recently tended to a mother of three who had gone more than a year without a haircut. He gave her a shag cut that worked with her hair’s natural wave, then watched her response when she looked in the mirror.
“She was just so ecstatic that she got this haircut,” he said. “I think it gives people confidence and helps them feel better about themselves.”
It’s confidence, he added, that might carry someone into a job interview or simplify a single parent’s pre-work-and-school morning tasks and rituals. In all cases, Laveck hopes it will offer a fresh view of the person in the mirror.
“Whatever it means to each individual is going to be different,” he said. “It’s going to be a matter of perspective, but it’s going to help. It’s going to help someone in a multitude of ways.”
Laveck said he grew up in Springfield, but his mother worked in the village throughout his childhood. On sunny summer days, she would drop him at Gaunt Park Pool during her lunch break, and when it rained, he’d browse music at Dingleberry’s or comic books at Dark Star.
“I didn’t live here, but I walked around here and enjoyed it, and I felt safe here,” he said.
After years of visiting, Laveck made the village his home in 2020. He said arriving during the pandemic initially made it difficult to settle into the village socially, but working behind a salon chair and listening as neighbors talked through pieces of their lives helped him form new bonds.
“I found it a great point to connect with people here, people I would have never connected with,” he said.
Laveck, who also engages his creative penchant as a photographer, said he fervently believes in using art to give back to his communities; he’s spent a decade organizing “Portraits of Hope,” offering free portrait sessions to cancer survivors and their families, and at press time was preparing to host “Portraits of Hope” sessions at Ellis Park.
Likewise, just as Yellow Springs has offered him a community, he said he hopes he can offer something back via the art of hairstyling: an ordinary, comforting exchange that allows someone to enter without having to justify their circumstances and leave refreshed, having received the same attention as any other client.
“I see it as a goal to … do what I can for this small community that I’ve found comfort and safety in,” Laveck said. “I want others to feel that comfort and safety that I’ve had here my entire life. … I want people to see that there’s still good out there — even if it’s just in an hour-long haircut.”
To request a free or pay-what-you-can haircut, or to contribute to the pay-it-forward fund, contact Laveck via email at jasonsnipsys@gmail.com, message @jasonsnips on Instagram or contact Jason Snips on Facebook.
Because the initiative is his own, Laveck asks that interested folks contact him directly rather than via In Salon.
Village Artisans will present its 42nd annual Art on the Lawn Festival on Saturday, Aug. 8, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., at the corner of Limestone and Phillips streets, behind Mills Lawn School.
More than 75 artists and artisans from Ohio and beyond are expected to gather for the day to display and sell their original creations, including ceramics, drawings, fiber art, garden art, glass, jewelry, leatherwork, mixed media, paper craft, paintings and photography. Food vendors and live music will complement the juried artist booths.
This year’s featured artist is Amy Noffsinger, a multifaceted glass artist from Out of Bounds Creations in Camp Dennison, Ohio. Noffsinger won Best of Show at last year’s Art on the Lawn.
The 2026 event will take place rain or shine, and visitors are asked to refrain from bringing dogs and other pets.
Village Artisans is a cooperative art gallery in Yellow Springs. For more information, call 937-767-1209 or go online to http://www.villageartisans.blogspot.com or the co-op’s Facebook page.
I am an artist. If you, dear reader, only know me through my writing, you may not have known that about me, but it’s true. In fact, most of my time and creative energy isn’t spent on words. It’s spent on images — images that tend to be, as my own artist bio politely puts it, “intense.”
It’s the sort of artwork that isn’t always what people want to see, the sort that quickens the pace of gallery patrons. There are lots of artists like me making art like this, and I would like to take a moment to speak for them and, hopefully, make the case for slowing down and engaging with this work, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.
Art, for me at least, is not a place for logic. Pictures are not where I share my complete thoughts and coherent arguments. My images are built from raw emotion, unfiltered feeling and shameless vulnerability. They are the memories that have no words, a look through the unshaded window of my soul.
They take a lot of effort to make, and the results can be, as my best friend has tactfully told me, “dark.”
It is an interesting experience exhibiting this work. I remember very clearly my first art fair. Two out of every three people walking by would take one look at my booth, immediately turn their heads and walk off in search of something more appetizing, searching perhaps for something with more lilies and fewer screaming mouths. That didn’t surprise me or offend me.
Flowers are beautiful. They take skill to render effectively, and such things can bring genuine joy to a person. My booth, on the other hand, was packed with pictures that dealt explicitly with addiction, trauma, self-injury, anorexia, sex, gender dysphoria, etc., and I thought, “Well, you know, maybe this stuff isn’t for everyone.”
But not all of them ran away, and the people who did stop to look stopped and stayed. They stayed and looked for a long time. They talked to me, they bought pieces from me and genuinely engaged with the work in a way that I wasn’t expecting.
It was a very gratifying experience for me, and it was that remaining third of the people, that one in three who didn’t turn away, that got me thinking more about the value of “intense” or “dark” art.
I’ve had many opportunities since that day to share my work and speak with the people who find something there to appreciate. Of course, they have their own varied and individual thoughts about the art, but it seems to come down to them all simply having seen something of themselves in the images.
That’s wonderful to hear as an artist, especially as a “dark” artist, because the need to be seen is exactly why I invest so much of myself into creating this art.
That brings me to finally addressing the other two-thirds of the people, the people who turn away. I understand well the impulse to turn from something that is frightening, but I think that those who do so are doing themselves a disservice.
If you, dear reader, are someone who finds themselves running from the shadow in search of the reassurance of the day lily, let me try to bring you to the dark side, if only for a moment.
Disturbing artwork is an offering. It is the artist reaching out to share a piece of themselves with another person, and it is a precious gift indeed. Every single one of us experiences pain, grief and loss. Every single one of us has been scared. Every single one of us has walked through shadow, but not all of us are willing to stay there, in those painful moments, for the time it takes to turn them into art.
When I look at a piece of art, I may spend five, maybe 10 minutes, with it before moving on. Ten minutes thinking about what I am seeing and what the person who created it must have been feeling.
But, as the creator, I have spent up to 200 hours with a piece. That’s dozens of hours sitting with the memory and the emotion of it. That is the gift of the dark artist: a willingness to sit with that pain and to share it so that another person may step one foot into the shadow for just a moment, see themselves there and know that they are not alone. So that they can step into the pain of their own memory, and maybe for the first time, see something beautiful there.
To be clear, I’m not disparaging anyone’s taste. I do my best not to art-shame, and I’m not expecting anyone to redecorate their home based on my musings.
I worry that this entire essay may read like a bit of branding for an artist who is seeking more attention for her work. Perhaps it is that, but call it what you want — intense, dark, frightening, grotesque — I genuinely believe that we are losing something when we turn away from the horrible in art.
We are training ourselves to turn from the pain of our fellow humans, and worse than that, we are turning away from that part of our own selves that hurts, that cries, that feels unsure or lost. That is often the very part of ourselves that needs most to be seen.
So please, my dear reader, the next time you are out in the world experiencing artwork, fight that first impulse to turn away from the art that is, as a recent viewer of my work called it, “difficult to look at.”
Instead, spend a few intense moments with the darkness. Walk into it with your arms open, because what is waiting there for you isn’t a monster. It is you — you in all your fragile humanity. The you who has been waiting a long time to be seen, to be acknowledged and embraced.
That isn’t the sort of gift you get every day, and it definitely isn’t one you should turn away from. Stay. Look. Find that lost you. Maybe offer them a flower. Hold them tightly for a few minutes and let them know that they haven’t been forgotten.
*The author is an artist and writer living in Yellow Springs. You can follow her work at http://www.mynameisiden.com
Recent Comments