About Teal

What began as a small group of local artists looking for somewhere to sell indoors during the cold and rainy winter, has turned into TEAL, a co-operative gallery. Every year Teal transforms an otherwise vacant and lifeless store-front into a world of color, light and beauty for the holiday season. For more than two decades TEAL’s November opening is greatly anticipated in Corvallis. TEAL has the reputation as “the place” to shop for unique, high-quality hand-crafted gifts by Willamette Valley artisans.

A Bit of Teal History
Corvallis artists Marti and Gary Spehar were newly married and looking for a way to finance their artistic lifestyle. They began selling jewelry at local Oregon festivals from the back of their VW van. They couldn’t have guessed that Oregon Jewelry would still be a presence more than three decades later, flourishing and supporting the successful jewelry making careers of them and their children. Integral to their success, has been their involvement in the TEAL Art Gallery since the beginning of the gallery’s inception.  

Fellow artist, Ken Pate, a potter and another of the founders of the
TEAL ART Gallery, invited the Spehars to be a part of the gallery.  The first year was a success, and what began as a small cooperative gallery of local artists looking for somewhere to sell indoors during the cold and rainy winter seasons, has turned into TEAL, a gallery that for over two decades has opened its doors every November to many shoppers whose idea of a great gifts is something hand crafted as well as pleasing to the eye.  

For the Spehar’s, TEAL is about art and family.  Their daughter
Sarin works with them, and their son, Chaum, and daughter-in-law
April also show their soap in the gallery. But all of the artists, many
of whom have been involved in the gallery for years, feel a sense
of family and renewal that is so much a part of TEAL.

Teal gallery is reinvented in downtown Corvallis every year and is
always showing the work of new artisans. From fine leather goods,
to handmade soap, to sparkling new jewelry, to beautiful
woodwork, TEAL showcases the talent and creativity of the
Willamette Valley artisan community.