Making ends meet calls for creativity in colony of artists

By JOHN MARSHALL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Port Townsend Paper, established in 1927, remains the largest employer in Jefferson County and in Port Townsend, the county seat. The pulp and paper mill, which was bought by Northwest investors almost two years ago from a German firm, employs 500 people and has just secured a new five-year union contract. The mill may be shielded from tourists entering town along state Route 20, but it remains crucial to Port Townsend's survival.

The millworkers toil at one of the few ways to earn a decent wage in Port Townsend. Other residents have to work two jobs to live in this place of wonders -- the many arts programs put on by the Centrum Foundation with its $1.8 million budget, the excellent films at the restored Rose Theater, the several fine restaurants and one gourmet dazzler (Lonny's), the beloved Jefferson County Fair, where a three-day pass costs $10 and includes parking and a beef barbecue.

Making a living here has been especially difficult for those of an artistic bent, who have long formed a sizable portion of the population.

"Almost everyone here considers themselves an artist," says Elizabeth Morgan, a 34-year-old house painter and astrologer and would-be writer. "Here, people do not ask what kind of work you do; they ask what kind of art you do. You can't live the consumptive American lifestyle here."

Morgan says that people here can get by on as little as $600 to $800 a month. And she offers the example of Naked Lady Parties, a gathering where Port Townsend women collect clothes they no longer wear, stack them on the floor at someone's house and then try on various pieces of clothing before leaving with an entirely new, yet recycled wardrobe.

Sue Ohlson, 36, has found ways to make ends meet. She works half-time as a bus driver at Jefferson Transit ("I never ever dreamed I'd be a bus driver") and the rest roasting coffee at Sunrise Coffee Co., a small operation that she is in the process of buying, joining many other women who own small businesses in town.

Katie Novello, a 42-year-old accountant, is also a two-job worker, splitting her time between two nationally known non-profits here -- Copper Canyon Press, the country's leading publisher of poetry, and the Abundant Life Seed Foundation, dedicated to promoting plant diversity through the distribution of heirloom seeds.