Chris Smith: Sebastopol junk artist Patrick Amiot creates sculptures supporting Black Lives Matter

JUNK ARTIST extraordinaire Patrick Amiot of Sebastopol responds all the time to the simple urge to create. He made his most recent pieces because he felt downright compelled.

The prolific maker of typically whimsical sculptures from used materials has people in his life who right now are dedicating their lives to moving America far closer to achieving liberty and justice for all.

To add his voice, Amiot went into his Florence Avenue shop and created several Black Lives Matter pieces. The most visible stands in front of Community Market and along Sebastopol Avenue/Highway 12.

The statement in repurposed steel has a black hand clutching a patched, red heart. I asked Amiot if the piece is on temporary exhibit on the easterly approach to Sebastopol, or will be there permanently.

He replied, “Once we have no more racism in the United States, we’ll take it down.”

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As an ex-baker who’d never, ever hand a box over the counter before wrapping it with string, the late Ed Brisgel couldn’t quit the habit when he switched from pastries to loafers.

It was 1956 when Brisgel and his wife, Mollie, packed up their family in New Jersey and trekked to Santa Rosa for a visit. “They decided to stay,” says son Jerry, who was then 12 and is now 76.

The Brisgels promptly opened a shoe store in the Sebastopol Road retail center that these days slowly transitions into Roseland Village, a residential, retail and civic hub envisioned as the new heart of the district immediately south of Highway 12 and west of 101.

The Brisgel family’s Roseland Shoe Mart was “one of the original stores in that shopping center,” Jerry Brisgel said Wednesday.

The Brisgels offered shoppers neighborly, attentive, bend-over-backward customer service. But that was standard at retail stores 40 and 50 and 60 years ago.

A couple of features came to distinguish Roseland Shoe Mart. The Brisgels specialized in wide and large sizes.

“People with narrow feet don’t like us,” said Jerry Brisgel, a comic who replied to my inquiry about the origin of his surname, “It’s half Scotch, half seltzer.”

Then there was the custom of tying each shoebox with a string that keeps the lid on and can make the box easier to carry. The Brisgel family’s shoebox string “makes it different than everybody else,” Jerry said.

The string tradition stayed on when Roseland Shoe Mart moved more than 20 years ago to Cleveland Avenue, north of Coddingtown, and changed its name to Santa Rosa Shoes. The stringing continued when the Shoe Mart grew, then grew again, and when ownership of the store passed to Jerry and his wife, Anne, and when their son, Craig, became assistant manager.

The string ties are something the Brisgels will miss when they pass Santa Rosa Shoes next week to another, larger family retailer. Jerry and Anne have sold the business to the 101-year-old Beck’s Shoes, which is based in Santa Clara County and operates more than a dozen stores.

Jerry said he and Anne know owners Adam Beck and Julia Beck-Gomez, and know that they’ve wanted to expand into Sonoma County but did not seek to compete with Santa Rosa Shoes. The Becks found an answer by making the Brisgels a purchase offer that fit them like a comfy pair of Rockports.

The Becks take over next week. The Brisgels will leave them some string.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.