(birds chirping) - [Joni] Okay.

Hi.

Welcome, everybody.

It's our first concert of the season.

Yay!

- Here's a river song for you.

(spirited music) (spirited music continues) ♪ Forty days in the canyon ♪ ♪ Forty nights waiting on daylight ♪ ♪ Far away and long abandoned ♪ ♪ Forty days by the riverside ♪ (spirited music fades) - Spray has a very unique, can do, let's-support-each-other vibe.

They will fix just about anything, even if you have a broken heart.

(spirited music continues) The building itself has been beloved for many years as a general store.

There is kind of an unspoken rule here that we leave all of our differences outside.

It's really quite wonderful to see people coming together through art and music.

(spirited music continues) (attendees cheering and clapping) - I've been coming out into the area for my whole life, and it's something really special, so I stuck around.

(birds hooting) - I'm just really glad this place is here.

It enriches my life in Spray, and I think that's true for a lot of people here.

(water swishing) - I remember my mother said, "Swim in the John Day River and you swallow some of the water, you grow roots."

(birds chirping) I remember a time when, if your light switch quit, you could come to the General Store and get what you needed.

Candy pop, ice cream, ingredients for your supper, that kind of thing.

- I saw this building and the roof was falling down.

The bathroom was disassembled.

I'm like, "But maybe that's a big open space."

I thought, "Hmm, that might be a good place to have a studio," but it told me to do something much more.

(bell tolls) This is what I've been working on.

If I don't want these to be real prominent, I just go like that... - When my mom was older, her friends all got together once a week and crocheted and knitted and drank tea.

And I said, "We should do that."

Joni said, "Well, you can do it at the General Store."

We get together, we visit.

If anybody needs help, there's always somebody say, "Well, I can go help with that."

It's not something we may have thought we needed, but it has evolved into an important space.

- For about nine months before I opened the doors, I started to attend city council meetings because I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something that would upset the town.

- I don't want to see Spray change, I want to leave it the way it is.

But what Joni is doing, it's great.

(chuckles) - There's some kind of artistic talent here that if I created some kind of space where they come together and get grants to bring some pretty notable artists here to teach, we might just really have something here.

And so, that's what we did.

- Hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey.

- I came out here to do an interview and see what the General Store was all about.

And they were doing these art classes, like community events, and I was just sort of intrigued, and I thought, "There's something really interesting going on out in Spray."

I got to know Joni a little bit, and got to know some of the people here in the community.

And about a year and a half after the story came out, I was ready to retire and I landed here, and I couldn't be happier about it.

- For the first art show here, I wanted it to be centered around home.

I lost my home when I was young.

And so, for me, I've always been searching, searching, searching for home.

It's a place where I can welcome people who I love into and let them feel embraced by it like I feel embraced by it.

(lively music) - I think what this place does is it makes connections for people.

You know, you might come here for a concert or for a crop pop-up farmer's market kind of thing or, you know, maybe a class.

You start meeting other people with similar interests, and it just really helps cement those personal ties, and it really nurtures a sense of community in this place.

(birds chirping) - [Joni] I did have a lot of people say, "What in the heck are you doing?

You're going to be out there for two years, three years, and you're going to be back in Portland."

And I did think about that.

Will I want to go back?

It's been around 13 years and I can say that it felt like I was advancing more than retreating from the city.

I get a lot of my very serene and quiet time up at my house, which is three miles away, but I love seeing people coming together from different walks of life.

(dramatic music) (eager music) - Yeah, we all go through like turmoils and troubles, and I started fighting wildfires out here, and kind of got sucked into the community in Spray and in Wheeler County in general.

(eager music continues) ♪ Down the line ♪ ♪ Down the line ♪ ♪ Oh, down the line ♪ ♪ Rolling like a cannonball up through the pines ♪ - I've been on the road for most of my life, so home is like a pretty abstract concept to me, until I moved to Spray and I found somewhere I felt like I could settle down, put some roots in.

So I think that's what it's about, is finding that place that you can feel comfortable in and be yourself in.

♪ Only place that's meant for me is down the line ♪ ♪ Yow, pow, pow, pow ♪ (eager music ending) - [Musician] You guys have a really special thing here.

(attendees clapping) - [Vocalist] Cheers, Spray.

Thanks for all the good energy, you guys.

We appreciate you.

Thanks so much.

(attendees clapping) - [Attendee] Half the town came out for you.

- [Band] Aw.

- You guys.

(vocalist chuckles) (attendees cheering) (water swishing)