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Keeping it local, simple, and fun

“We have anything, anything funky, cool, urban,” Aus said. “It’s all about keeping it local, keeping it simple, and keeping it fun. We try not to be too serious.”

He said his store has a community-oriented approach.

“[We’re] kind of like an umbrella for all these other local glass artists,” he said. “There’s a real community-type vibe, and that is only going to keep growing because of the gallery and shows.”

Arlyn Bement, employee and long-time friend of Aus, looks forward to the change in atmosphere that the gallery will provide.

“I think it’ll make it a lot more lively place,” Bement said. “People will want to come in and check out the artwork. It’ll add to the environment of the store, especially with the style of the store.”

Bement, a Hamline graduate, has worked at Sunsi for about three-and-a-half years, he said. He now works in the retail end of the store.

He also blows glass and, though independently contracted, remains loyal to Sunsi.

“I thought it would be something cool to do,” Bement said. “It’s a job where I can be creative and I can pretty much just do whatever I want. I don’t have to go to an office and sit behind a desk.”

Fellow Hamline graduate and friend of Aus and Bement is employee Austin Dufault. Dufault works in the store and helps Aus with plans for Sunsi. He enjoys his job because of the laid-back environment and the opportunity to work with friends.

He is currently invested in two projects. The first will introduce more of an musical influence into the store.
The second is a Sunsi clothing line that he hopes to brand in a skater or snowboarder fashion genre.

Giving the people what they want

The customers are what makes the days worthwhile for Aus and his workers.

“We get so many really wacky customers,” Dufault said. “You’ll at least have a story to tell. We get to have some interesting banter with all of the customers.”

Bement and Aus are intrigued by the interactions with their customers and contracted artists.

During high-school prom season last year Aus helped a young artist create a piece that asked a girl to go to the dance with him, and then invited her to the store to see his art.

“That was really cool,” Aus said. “We got some great art into the store and helped the kid get a date for the dance.”

But the job does have its setbacks, Bement said; the lack of structure is the hardest aspect.

“Normal jobs, you have somebody forcing your hand,” he said. “Here you have to force your own hand. It’s really easy to slip.”

Trying to make ends meet is another challenge for Bement. The industry is expanding, he said, and with more artists working to peddle their merchandise, he has to work that much harder to keep up.

Keeping the operation legit

Another challenge for Aus is making sure the store maintains a reputable business. Because of Sunsi’s specialization in selling glass pipes and tubes, it has been characterized as a head shop, a store that sells drug paraphernalia. Aus has made it his mission over the past couple years to correct that assumption.

“One thing that concerns me is being stereotyped into this head shop deal,” he said. “Anybody that calls it a head shop is just wrong, because our goal is not to cater to a bunch of stoners. Obviously we sell glass pipes, and they could be used for something icky, but I don’t go out of my way to provide a product that is going to be explicitly used to harm someone.”

The pipes were the moneymakers when the business started, but now the artists hope to add more variety to the inventory.

Aus and others first considered the change to an art gallery after the federal government initiated Operations Pipe Dreams and Headhunter, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Operation Headhunter began in 2000 with the investigations of several retail merchants in southern Iowa selling drug-related merchandise. Shortly after, Operation Pipe Dreams was launched to shut down such merchants. Over 50 people were indicted and charged.

Aus had little reason to be concerned with the launch of the operations because the only jurisdiction the federal government had was with stores that sold across state borders. Since Sunsi was dealing within Minnesota, Aus shouldn’t have had to worry. Except, he said, for the web sites.

Sunsi had created two web sites, sunsiglass.com and createapipe.com. At createapipe.com customers could design their own pipes to be made by the stores artists.

“We put a lot of time and money into that web site,” Aus said, “but ultimately it just became an issue because I didn’t want the feds having a hand in my business.”

The government-led operations did not last long, Aus said, and didn’t greatly influence his customer base, but did influence him to get away from the head shop feel.

“That was kind of the whole catalyst for turning it into a half-gallery space,” Aus said. “We don’t want to be a store where 100 percent of our sales are glass pipes. I want to treat it as a gallery.”