With cozy, well-worn seating nooks, buoyant houseplants and whimsical paintings and handwritten messages scrawled floor-to-ceiling, the beloved Lexington coffee shop Third Street Stuff feels a bit like an artsy, eclectic aunt’s house and a bit like a favorite neighborhood dive bar. Authentic, artistic and unpretentious, the space is wholly teeming with the aura of owner Pat Gerhard, an artist whose canvas on any given day ranges from clothes, books and benches to tables, boxes, sidewalks and windowsills.
But of all her creations, the walls of her popular coffee shop and gathering place – covered with brightly colored words and whimsical designs – are perhaps Gerhard’s most well-known masterpiece.
“My artist side simply wants to keep adding more and more little painted things to my environment – things to look at, things to inspire, things to wonder about,” she explained.
Indeed, the space – which Gerhard originally opened as a gift shop in 1996, before expanding to include the coffee shop business in 2004 – has cultivated its fair share of fans. The shop is almost always bustling with individuals reading, studying or working, and small clusters of people gathering to catch up with friends or meet with colleagues over coffee, pastries or sandwiches. Gerhard is a constant bright presence, and while she knows many of the patrons by name, she is just as welcoming to the occasional stranger who happens in, whether they are new in town or just passing through.
Third Street Stuff patron Stuart Horodner has made the eclectic coffee shop a regular meeting spot. He remembers discovering the place after moving to Lexington to become director of the University of Kentucky Art Museum.
“Pat has created a business that truly reflects her personality and deeply held beliefs – it’s a fun and funky café for artists and activists, business leaders and other solid citizens,” Horodner said. “I have met so many of my best friends there, and countless museum supporters and collaborators.”
Originally from Pennsylvania, Gerhard arrived in Lexington in the mid-’70s to study visual art the University of Kentucky. Much to the delight of her legions of friends and fans, she chose to stay.
“It has surprised me for 50 years that I live here, but I love it,” she said.
Known for her endless creative energy,
Gerhard says she was never good at relaxing.
“I am best when anxiously busy,” she said while explaining the story of how Third Street Stuff came to be. In true entrepreneurial style, Gerhard grew her business from the ground up. After graduating from UK, she funneled her creative, “anxiously busy” energy into fabricating handmade items to sell from her Lexington apartment, located on West Third Street. It was there the business name “Third Street Stuff” emerged.
“It’s a complicated story,” Gerhard said with a laugh. “But I eventually found my groove – or my groove found me.”
Her longtime friend Lexington-based artist Diane Kahlo remembered the early days of Gerhard’s artistic career.
“When we first became friends, her art-making business was in her home,” Kahlo said. “I remember that her entire house, except the two bedrooms, was covered with tables full of paints and materials.”
Any time one of her creative trains hit a roadblock, Gerhard nurtured and reinvented her business through new iterations, with her creations evolving from woven art to painted jewelry and decorative boxes.
“Some things really took off, and I kept moving forward,” Gerhard said. After trying several business models, she eventually opened up a small shop on South Limestone, keeping the Third Street Stuff business name intact – a name that reclaimed its relevance once she relocated her shop to its current location on the corner of Third Street and North Limestone in 1996. After nearly a decade in the location, she had a lightbulb moment and thought, ‘Why not add a coffee shop?’ As it turns out, it was a great fit – both for Gerhard and for the North Limestone neighborhood.
Mick Jeffries
With a small section filled with funky and eclectic gifts – from funny socks and funky bags and art journals, candy and coffee mugs – the shop is still a great place to pick up unique gift items.
“I still have a few arty things for sale, so a little of the old gift shop is there,” she explained, “but coffee is our main thing now, and people seem to love it.”
In addition to her playful, carefree artistic work, Gerhard also carves out time to create paintings of people and scenes – work she describes as message-driven artwork. This often takes the form of portraits of people she has encountered and knows from the streets near her business.
“I am drawn to the vulnerable and [to] telling their stories,” she explained. “They have stumbled somewhere and couldn’t get back up. It could be any of us.”
Kahlo echoes the sentiments of many of Gerhard’s acquaintances when she describes Gerhard as “an incredibly multi-dimensional and inspiring woman.”
“She’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever met,” Kahlo said. “I don’t know which part of her I admire the most – I am in awe of the unique way her personal style, her business and her community activism are all integrated.”
After decades of reinvention, Third Street Stuff has grown into an important neighborhood hub, with its own unique vibe. It’s the kind of place to grab a coffee, start a novel, compose the perfect love note or gather with friends to catch up or hatch a plan.
And Gerhard wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I like to think there have been revolutions planned here,” Gerhard said, smiling. “I like that people come here, sit at a table and make plans to change the world.”
Portraits and “message-driven” art, such as the portraits of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor pictured here, have been recent artistic focuses for Gerhard. Photo by Mick Jeffries
Smiley Pete writer Celeste Lewis sat with the business entrepreneur recently for a chat.
Tell me about growing up. Are you from Lexington? I was taught early on to be a worker. My parents were products of the Depression so they valued hard work. My dad always had a list of tasks for us. Working is part of my DNA. I’m kind of driven.
My first 18 years were spent in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The friends I hung out with in high school and junior high were the artists and activists. It was a huge high school and big enough that you never met 75 percent of your class.
It was a really good introduction to the things I cared about. It was the ’60’s and very easy to pick out what was important to me. We protested rules and the Vietnam war. We fought for civil rights and women’s rights.
As a junior in high school the scene changed dramatically. We moved to the Pennsylvania countryside. The change was dramatic. The culture of the new community and the new school were confusing and incomprehensible to me. The rules were followed there. And no one was protesting anything.
In a few years I married and moved to Lexington with the husband. Things changed and we got divorced. He went back to Pennsylvania, and I stayed in Lexington. I got married again and soon had a baby boy. I graduated from UK with a bachelor’s degree in visual art. It often seems, looking back, that the big events kept happening, and I just responded instead of making a plan ahead of time. Maybe that’s how it happens to a lot of us.
Tell me about how the business has evolved over the years. I always loved art and wanted to make money making things and selling them. Out of school and with a baby, I noticed the well-developed craft fairs in Kentucky and wondered what I could do that would fit into the craft fair scene.
I took a few semesters of weaving from Arturo Sandoval at UK. Fabric and fibers seemed like a good material to work with when there was a baby with you. Dry, and easy to start and stop. One thing led to another, and soon I had a business with four or so weavers working with me to produce woven items for craft fairs and then soon for stores selling handmade items all over the country.
The weaving was high labor, and we were soon trying to compete with handwoven items from India and south Asia and Africa. We couldn’t compete. I went home with my looms to reconsider.
Gerhard’s colorful, textured multi-media art is an integral component of her downtown shop. Photo by Mick Jeffries
I moved to West Third Street and renamed my business Third Street Stuff. I made painted earrings, and painted postcards, painted clocks, painted wood made into so many things. After a few craft fairs I hired some people, mostly students at UK, to help me produce these items. A similar cycle occurred. Prices of materials went up. Imports of very similar items seemed to come to market, and things changed again.
Eventually I had a small store, a gift shop, to sell my painted things and other artists’ work. It was quite a road, quite a path. I kept pushing on as I had to do something, and painting and handmade was what I knew.
What role do the arts and the creative community play in Lexington? After having a space on South Limestone, I saw this empty building for rent on North Limestone. It attracted me deeply. I liked the community around North Limestone.
This was 1995, I think. After a while I wanted something more. There were so many cars going by, and Sayre School was across the street and Transy one block away. I thought about what I might do to interact with more community than the small gift shop could attract. And I thought, coffee shop.
Almost 18 years have gone by since the coffee shop opened in 2004, and the community around North Limestone is so inspiring and encouraging.
This creative community that came into the coffee shop made so many ideas come to reality. One of these ideas was the Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. Those early discussions came to be a fabulous inviting arty space at the intersection of Midland and Third. Only an overgrown plot of land existed where this park is now. So much art exists in the neighborhood now – there are so many large murals on North Limestone. The creative community brings this to Lexington.
There is so much creative energy here. And that creative energy came into the coffee shop. I am so grateful and inspired by the community.
What is a favorite place in Lexington where you go to recharge? I love to walk around downtown Lexington. I do this every afternoon. I also have a wonderful place to paint and play with art materials at home.
What’s the weirdest thing you have ever painted on? Lately I’ve been painting on Clorox bottles and the containers the wipes come in. We’ve been using so many during the pandemic. I started painting them and hanging them in trees in clusters. A little recycled art and a little nod to the pandemic.
And sticks. I love painting on sticks.
If you weren’t a business owner and artist, what is another career you think might have been fun to try? Being and artist is the only ‘career’ I’ve ever wanted. It sort of seems to be more than a career. It is part of who I am. Owning a coffee shop seems to be an extension of my identity. I didn’t know it for decades, that I would end up with a coffee shop, but the coffee shop allows me to express my vision as an artist. It is a great space for me to share myself as a painter. And it keeps me motivated to do more!
What is a change you would like to see in Lexington? I don’t think I am alone in loving environments that are visually inspiring. Look at all of the murals painted in Lexington in the past five years! And how we love Gallery Hop and the Horse Mania projects. And we still love craft fairs in Kentucky. I don’t really hope for changes so much as that we keep moving in the direction that we are moving. I love what the Carnegie Center has become; I love the changes to the Living Arts and Science Center. And I love the removal of the Confederate statue at the downtown park and the renaming of the park from Cheapside Park to the Henry A. Tandy Centennial Park. These changes are so positive in my view. And then all of the murals that PRHBTN brings to Lexington!
How has your business handled the pandemic? The coffee shop was truly walloped by the pandemic and continues to be stressed. Very fortunately I was able to get help from the federal small business loans. It seems we are continually challenged by the changing virus and how it affects all of us.
Tell me about your artistic process. What inspires you? I just want to make people’s mouths fall open when they see painted spaces and painted objects – even to frown a little is OK. Paint can be like caffeine in many ways. The brain can get jazzed up.
I am inspired by other artists! I follow many artists on Instagram. And I am always inspired. Seeing art at museums and galleries is an even bigger gift than it was before Covid hit. It’s an energizing inspiration and nice to realize how important it is to see the actual art in person.
What’s something about you that people would be surprised to know? I like to paint anything and everything. When I am very tired and just brain-fuzzy, I paint the paper bags we use in the coffee shop. I paint all of those bags these days. It’s very relaxing. And I listen to audio books while I paint all of those bags.
What is a creative project you’d like to work on next? I get to paint a horse for the upcoming Horse Mania! I am so excited about this. I painted two horses for the first Horse Mania; and as they are life size, it is so much fun. I love horses – the warm, breathing animals – they are not in my life at this time, but I’ve spent a lot of years riding and caring for horses. Such a beautiful animal. Painting a horse for Horse Mania is such a treat.
My horse is about community, specifically the North Limestone community. I love this part of Lexington and a local business is sponsoring my horse. They are part of this community too.
From her walls to her wardrobe, Third Street Stuff owner and artist Pat Gerhard exudes funky, colorful and whimsical self-expression. Photo by Mick Jeffries