fig® - Downtown Lancaster

“What’s better than an organ in a jar?” Mommalicious owner Alicia Byler poses this quirky question while reminiscing about a shark suspended in a jar of fermaldahyde, a favorite “oddity” that she recently sold in her shop of funky items.

“It’s amazing what people make,” she marvels. How true this axiom is, too, for Alicia and My Aunt Debbie’s proprietor, Debbie Serdy, who together in four short years have made collaborating a tangible way to bolster the local art scene, to model for downtown retailers how they can help advance Lancaster artisans, also. How they do it ranges the gamut from the pair’s shared building, allowing them to save on expenses and remain open seven days a week; to lending knitters and crocheters the poles outside their store to “cozy up” with their fabrications; to offering a local artist, each month, the front window to design with an original installation. Or spearheading events, like the 300 block of North Queen Street’s “Rock the Block.” The party started as a way to say “thanks” to their customers, but now the yearly bash—featuring local bands, foods, and artists—closes the street for a day. And opens the doors to new patrons for the entire neighborhood. “I like to look at it as a community event,” says Alicia. And though challenging, with monthly meetings of core shop owners, it’s another aspect of community service. “Everybody’s busy, but we still do it.”

What Alicia and Debbie also do is use their facade, itself, as a means to showcase their creativity and to inspire their fellow store owners. It was simply “meant to be,” claims Alicia, about landing the Mommalicious building. She thought it would be way down the road, but it turned out to be right up the street, a coveted spot on North Queen, where she fashioned a hip, eye-grabbing tile mosaic. “Now THIS is what public art is all about,” praised local artist Jerry Hershey, after having been stopped in his tracks while walking by.

And in front of the shop? Every first Friday they have events out on the sidewalk. And on these First Fridays, they let budding artists as young as eleven years old display their work. Every artist needs to be encouraged, they believe. Forward motion requires guts. It’s propelled by doing, at times, the risky, but inevitably rewarding, thing. About this notion they each have something pertinent to say. Alicia on the Mommalicious plus My Aunt Debbie collaboration: “It’s grown so much, it’s actually scary.” Debbie on the same: “If you want to move on, you have to do something different, you have to be scared.” The motivating aspect, however, is that Alicia and Debbie have the fire to do it. This is how they are confident that they can both say yet another thing to their downtown comrades, both shop owners and artists: “You can do it, too”