“More Than an Art Store”

Standing outside the 17,000 sq. foot store, it’s hard to believe this art company started in

1920 from a pushcart on the side of the road. I look up at the yellows, reds, whites and blues of

the Mondrian themed building and can tell you that this is not your typical art supply store.

There are ideas behind this store. I am talking about the relocated Sam Flax art store in down-

town Orlando. After 25 years of business in Orlando, the store moved to a much larger location

a few blocks down from the original location. This was my first time back since the store relo-

cated.

Before I can make it into the doorway of Sam Flax, I am mesmerized. My eyes are glued

to the three beautiful murals on the side of the building. I see an interesting character of different

blues and whites, a grayscale elephant, and an exotic landscape of an ocean. The subjects in the

murals look so real that I can imagine them walking out of the wall and onto the Sam Flax park-

ing lot. At the same time, I get lost in their beauty, and forget that I am still standing on the out-

skirts of downtown Orlando.

I open the front door of Sam Flax. I know what is inside, everything an artist needs, but at

the new store, it’s probably even more. I walk in and all I can see are aisles and aisles of art sup-

plies. Maybe it was a bad idea to bring my wallet into the store. A friendly employee asking me

if I need help finding something interrupts my gaze. Still flabbergasted, I answer “Oh, no thank

you,” even though I probably should have said yes. I walk myself through the paint aisle, then

the spray paint aisle, then the watercolor aisle and so on. By the time I walk through the art

medium aisles, I find the custom framing section. Mounted on the wall are hundreds of frame

templates. The selection beats Joann Fabric’s by far, and every color and style of frame is avail-

able.

After I examine all of the painting, sculpting and drawing tool to man’s kind, I find an-

other wing to the building. This store is like the Toys R Us for artists. This wing of the building

is different from the other, though. The store has much more than just art supplies. To my left is

a section full of different gizmos. I see uniquely painted holiday plates, pin-up girl shot glasses, a

card display, and an unusual game called “The Man’s Trivia Game.” One customer, Kyle, ex-

plains how his girlfriend dragged him to the store so she could buy paintbrushes. By the time

they left, he almost had all of his Christmas shopping complete. In his cart was a kit to make

candy liquor shots, a book about Wookies from Star Wars and a recyclable robot. Even though

the store specializes in art supplies, it has something for everyone. Past the unusual gift ideas, I

see a section for jewelry making, a wall of fabrics, scrapbooking supplies, photography gadgets,

and a room for custom furniture. In the corner of the wing is a hot pink and black desk with

baby pink feathers and rhinestones glued onto the edges. There is also a stand for children’s art

books.

It amazes me that the founder, Sam Flax, started the business in 1920 selling art supplies

from a pushcart in New York. Flax immigrated to the United States from Europe when he was

seven. To help with the family income, he worked as an apprentice in an art shop for 11 years.

He wanted to raise money to help his relatives immigrate to the United States. Once they arrived,

he started the business and hired family members to help. In a few years, they opened the first

store in New York City. Once the company grew in revenue, Flax let family members open

stores across the nation including San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta and Orlando. Flax died in

1969 and passed the family business down to his three sons.

After two hours of wandering the store, an older man with glasses stops me and asks if I

was finding everything okay. I noticed that he had been watching me circle the store. “Oh, yes,

but I have a question about these oil paints,” I reply. He introduces himself as Michael Pendleton

and kindly spends the next 20 minutes explaining the differences in the oil paints to me. He even

elaborates on a story about his first painting class in college. The man knows what he is talking

about when it comes to art. Therefore, I get the impression that he’s worked at Sam Flax for a

while. I ask him if Sam Flax offers any art classes, especially on oil painting. “We have an art

class for everything, and I teach oil painting, so you’re in luck,” the employee says with a grin. I

thank him for his time and ask him if he is the owner of the store since he knows so much about

the art supplies. “Oh, no! I am just the general manager. Sam Flax’s son, David Flax, is still the

owner of the store. He is about 75 years old and still makes it to the store about six times a

week,” he says.

Before I left Sam Flax, I had one last question for the manager. At the old store, a beauti-

ful mural of graffiti covered the east side of the building. The entire side of the wall was spray-

painted to perfection, and no one assumed the graffiti meant that they were driving through the

bad part of town. Anyone could tell the design took time to sketch out before the spray paint can

was even cracked. Spray-painted on a baby blue cement wall, the graffiti intertwined with colors

of lime green, raspberry pink, yellow and black. Edgy words swarmed within the mixing colors,

and an angry spray can cartoon character was alongside the graffiti chaos. The mural made Sam

Flax easily recognizable, and I was glad to see the new store carried the tradition with a new mu-

ral on the side of the new location.

“Sir, what is the story behind the graffiti wall and the new mural painting? Who paints

them?” I ask. “Oh, well we loved the graffiti mural at the old Sam Flax, and on the grand open-

ing day of the new store, the first thing we did was paint the new murals,” he explains with a

twinkle in his eye. The artists that painted the graffiti mural were good friends of Pendleton and

he immediately rehired them to paint the new mural. One of the artists, Andrew Spear, even

helped with the building design of the Mondrian theme. Although Pendleton was not a fan of

modern art, he liked the simplicity and brightness of the Mondrian art design. “I want everyone

to know we are here,” says Pendleton, “and with a building built in 1959, I wanted the store de-

signed as uniquely as possible.” The Mondrian style, invented by Piet Mondrian (in the early

1900), is usually white, yellow, red and blue rectangular boxes divided by skinny black lines.

The Mondrian theme has even inspired Nike to incorporate the design into their shoes.

On the grand re-opening day of the store last May, three mural artists, Spear,

Swamburger and Marklin had set up outside the store. They painted the murals while customers

visited the new Sam Flax. There are viral YouTube videos of the artists at work on the murals,

which hit Facebook the day after the grand re-opening. Food trucks, such as, the Yum Yum Cup-

cake Truck and the Treehouse Truck gave out snacks and refreshments to customers as they ex-

plored the new store. Sam Flax raffled off art items, gift cards and other prizes to celebrate the

rebirth of their family owned company.

At the end of our conversation, I shook Pendleton’s hand, thanked him for his time, and

walked out of the store. I took once last glance at the murals and left the store in awe at what I

learned about Sam Flax. This store is not just an art store, but more so a creativity box. Even

though the store is enormous, it does not feel like a franchise such as, Joann’s or Michaels. The

Sam Flax Orlando store has an organic vibe to it, and any customer can visit the store and feel

that the Flax family loved their business. The history, ideas, legacy and creativity behind the

store make it unique – maybe this is why the store stands out to me. The store was built from the

ground up with love and a dream, and the once small dream by Sam Flax is now a huge reality.

“What makes [Sam Flax] unique from other [art] stores is that it keeps up with the latest digital

art technologies, but keeps in mind its original service to sell basic art supplies,” says Pendleton.

They do their research on what products to sell, and a visit to the store certainly shows that. Any

artist in Orlando is lucky to have a creative outlet, like Sam Flax, right in their backyard. Sam

Flax is like the primary colors for artists: it’s their basis for creating any masterpiece. No wonder

the store is painted yellow, red and blue.