SPOKANE, Wash. — Our story doesn’t start in the Garland Theater, it starts in a small print shop next door with a man who won’t let go of the past.
Chris Bovey from Vintage Print and Neon said, “For the most part, I try to capture people's memories with local Spokane icons and different places and things like that. We put them on shirts and put them on art.”
Bars, hotels, restaurants, and businesses that closed long ago are immortalized on the wall of Bovey’s store. Bovey likes to tell people that he is in the nostalgia business.
Ten years ago, Vintage Print was a side-project that he ran out of his kitchen. At the time Bovey was working a full-time job as the Art Director for The Inlander. When it was time for his work to grow, he was left with a difficult choice. He said, “I either had to quit doing art or I had to quit The Inlander, so I just took a leap of faith.”
Bovey has seen his business grow from hand-delivering his prints one-by-one to opening a brick-and-mortar store in the Garland District. Bovey said, “I’ve always had kind of this love for this area, you know. This is a neighborhood that seems like kind of frozen in time you know what I'm saying, with all the neon and the theater and everything like that and one of my first jobs was at the Garland Theater."
Earlier in 2023, the owner of the historic theater next door, who by chance, was also Chris’ landlord, let him know some bad news. Bovey said she told him she was going to close the theater for good citing the dire financial state right now.
Throughout its 78-year lifespan, the Garland had always found a way to survive. It outlasted vaudeville theaters, drive-ins and multiplexes. But now during the streaming era after barely making it through COVID, it was in danger of shutting down entirely.
Bovey told KREM 2, “I don’t want it to be just one of my posters, you know what I am saying?”
Since 1988, when it was converted to a dollar theater, the Garland has consistently kept ticket prices low, aside from one small exception, when admission is free. At 9:30 a.m. on summer weekdays, the theater opens its doors to hundreds of children.
Bovey said, "I think it’s the heart and soul of not only the neighborhood but the city in my opinion.” He continued, “I felt like I had to do something. With my sons help, I put together a video. I just tried to speak from the heart and communicate what I love about the theater.”
Alongside the video, Chris started a GoFundMe page which quickly raised over $45,000 from hundreds of other people with love for the old theater. Later, Bovey received a matching $45,000 grant from the State of Washington.
More importantly, because of the fundraiser, Bovey met Tyler Arnold, someone else with trouble letting go of things from the past.
Arnold said, “Watching things that you care about be thrown away, it is like if no one else is going to save it, maybe that is my job.”
Tyler Arnold started rescuing arcade machines 15 years ago. Eight years ago, he bought an old building with the hopes of opening an arcade. Arnold said, “The city said if you want to use that building for anything other than a house, it has to be a church, so we went yeah, we can make that work.”
When the Arcade Church got too big, he moved into an old Thai restaurant with twice the space. Arnold said they are running 105 arcade games and about 50 pinball machines.
In 2022 Arnold quit his tattoo job to focus entirely on running the Jedi Alliance.
It is a bizarre, yet familiar story. Arnold said, “I realized I am in the nostalgia business, he’s also in the nostalgia business. The two are like-minded individuals who share the same philosophy that some things are worth passing onto the next generation. They said when they finally connected it was like stepbrothers!
They said, “We would say the same idea and be like dude, that is what I was thinking and then he was like I was thinking that. We would be like, did we just become best friends? Yup!”
The duo also has love for the theater, and they don’t want to see it die. Arnold said, “Everything is in danger of becoming a strip mall and it’s a very sterile environment and sterile environments are very boring to me.” He added that movies are one of his biggest escapes and one thing that he loves most in life.
This is evident from the lines tattooed on his fingers to his massive poster collection to his museum of movie props and costumes located above the arcade. He said, “I have been training my entire life for this.”
Bovey says Arnold has an affinity for movies, especially weird movies. Chris brings something else to the table, however. His work in vintage print has made him one of the most sought-after artists in Spokane.
Now he has an entire theater as a canvas and a chance to put his other passion to use. Restoring old neon. Bovey said, “This is such a unique theater that they had neon on the inside and not just on the outside on the marquees which got added later.”
Sitting in theater seats, Arnold said, “You could make the same exact popcorn, drink the same soda, eat the same candy at home, but somehow it just tastes better being in this environment.” " I totally agree," added Bovey.
It's another weekday morning and before the children file in, the future Creative Director is sitting next to the future General Manager, talking about what else? Movies.
The two say, “To be able to team up with someone who, you know, completely sees the future for this theater and wants it to last forever, you know, and be able to creatively team up with someone like that is pretty exciting to me. We are going on this crazy journey together. We will see what happens.”
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