We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elizabeth Hsia. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elizabeth below.
Elizabeth, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I love the natural world. Visual harmony and chaos tend to play back and forth in my mind when it comes to creating work. I enjoy deconstructing items and repurposing them into something else- giving it new life. Contrasting elements and medias are something that I find myself drawn to the last few years. I try to evoke the same feelings that I get when I look at something fascinating, in my art. A little modge podge of emotions and fragments of memories. My art is a reflection of the different facets of my mind and how I visualize things day to day. Some days it flows easily and other times I’ll look at pieces I made and wonder what in the right heck was going on there?
Ive always been a creative and creating art in any media and form is an outlet for me. It’s meditative and therapeutic and although I didnt realize this til much later in adulthood, its a reflection of the struggles or accomplishments that happen in my life.
After losing my medical to fly, I really dove into my creative endeavors. Time stopped, and all those emotions just left as I would create. I would wake up before my early shifts at the clinic and make jewelry, and bonsai terrariums and after my long shift, id come home and create until I was almost falling asleep at the workbench.
This was my way of reclaiming what I had lost. it was empowering and I wanted others to be able to feel the same. That feeling poured into my work and eventually pushed me to open RECLAMATION.
Reclamation in a nut shell: locally made gifts, goods, art and plants! We focus on featuring and helping WOC and BIPOC artists/ makers that don’t have storefront exposure and giving them an audience to help grow their business and brand. We make terrariums, jewelry and skin care in house and items that we bring into the shop many times will give back to a charitable organization. Giving back and community love are huge for us. We are curators and collectors. Most folx that come into the shop are in awe of the amount of tiny things we carry. (We love miniatures!) We carry a little bit of this and that. Our front window is packed with plants (we will take as much natural light as we can get, with it being dark most of the year in Portland) so most folx expect the shop to be a plant shop. We have more gifts than plants. Lots of unique, random, eclectic pieces. Just some of the items we carry:
Uncommon and unusual plants, locally made ceramics, gender fluid beauty and skin care, handmade jewelry, nail polish, natural specimens and other curio (pre- atomic era nails are way cool if you enjoy a good geek out) Okinawa star sand, mini figurines, mushrooms, blankets that give back, silly and offensive greeting cards, and so much more.
Elliot is our shop tortoise and over the years have become one of our main attractions. He is social, not scared of anything, loves butt scratches. We like to joke that he is our quality control manager. He will go through and push things out of the way and take chomps out of select leaves, and does laps around the shop on the hunt for things that aren’t to his liking.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Oh, this is pretty much my entire working career. I dive all in, 1000% into my career. It could possibly be my upbringing or watching my father work 2 full time jobs and sleeping less than 4 hours a night for my entire life. Or watching my mother work two jobs, raise my sister and I and act as a caretaker for my grandmother on top of all the other duties mothers handle. I come from a background where the mindset is very much revolved around work.
Prior to opening Reclamation, I was in the aviation industry for 10 years. After losing my medical, I decided to go back to to the veterinary field where I worked until I opened Reclamation. Losing the ability to fly was a huge blow. It was everything that I poured myself into for so long. I felt I didn’t know anything else and was too old to learn and or change. I went back to something I knew- vet med and that transition took time. Eventually, I moved my entire focus to the shop. As the business grew and we faced new challenges (pandemic, burglary, harassment etc) I found the little balance I had disappeared over night. It’s tough when your livelihood is dependent on your business. A business that is still a fledgling learning to turn those wobbles into full flight. As a small business owner (with no business background) I handle anything and everything that arises. Inventory, receiving, hr, buying, quality control, creative director, merchandiser, community outreach etc and adapting and being able to triage and pivot when things inevitably do not work out as planned, has become a life saving skill. If there is one thing I would say is guaranteed in life as a small business owner, it is that 1. taxes are inevitable, you will never escape them and they are the bane of my existence. 2. over 50% of your plans, will result in you pivoting and adjusting based on the climate and audience. Being flexible with outcomes and consistently expecting that plans will need adjusting have made my set in stone events, ways, rules etc, much easier to navigate when they don’t go the way you thought they would.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
community love. support. being able to ask for help. I was raised in a way that we didn’t burden others by asking for help. If you wanted something done, you did it yourself. If you didn’t have the means to do xyz and handle it completely, then you didn’t start it.
after opening the shop, we had a rough patch, our beloved great dane went through significant hospitalizations, and racked up enough vet bills that could have paid for a down payment on a house. Some lovely folx in the plant community started raising funds and donating and it was nothing short of incredible. Folx I didn’t know from states and shops I’d never been reached out to help. Losing him was incredibly tough because of the guilt I felt. We had received and taken so much help from folx and the in the end he was put down on his 4th birthday. I felt I could never repay anyone that had helped out, and it was this daily nagging anxiety that grew with in me so much that I sought therapy for it. Learning to sit and navigate through the feelings of folx wanting to, and showing up to help has been a challenging feat. It also has brought me so close to certain folx and realizing that I am a part of a community still gives me strong feelings (who is cutting onions right next to my computer!?) The support received is something I had never had growing up. I felt like my life was about surviving and having a community of folx showed me a glimpse on how to thrive. I still grapple with accepting help, and asking for support, but having that sense of community and actually knowing that people inherently want to help gave me so much hope in such a tense time (which was more than necessary considering all that was going on in the world and our country)
There are still times when someone offers to help me and my stomach goes into a knot. My memorial ring for Groot (my dane) was made by a local jewelry maker in portland (her work is nothing short of incredible! check out Faye.Woods on insta) and I had her imprint the words “We are Groot” on the back of the ring. It is a reminder to myself that I am not alone. I am reminded of the love and support that a community holds and how we look out for one another. It’s a reminder to thrive and not just survive. So much is possible when there is a community of support that surrounds you. I am still unlearning mindsets that I’ve abided by my entire life, but it’s becoming easier each day.
Contact Info:
- Website: shopreclamation.com
- Instagram: @reclamationpdx