Scyretta Hawkey fashioned this dish, available at Rooted Art Gallery. Gallery owners Alysia Love and Erin Paysse believe buyers prefer to spend money on the artists and stories they know.

Rooted Art Gallery is more than a name for the newest gallery in Seaside. It also describes a transformation in the lives of the gallery’s owners.

Three years ago, cousins Alysia Love and Erin Paysse lived pretty conventionally. Love, who has a civil engineering degree, worked in a tech start-up in California’s Silicon Valley. Paysse, who studied architecture, built high-end custom homes in Seattle.

But when Paysse gave birth to a baby with medical challenges and also went through a divorce, Love left everything in California to help her cousin.

A year ago, they bought a house and workshop in Naselle, Washington, and began creating art collaboratively.

“We started making art from found driftwood, and we had all these ideas about all the things we wanted to do, so we decided to start a business,” Paysse said. “We wanted to feel really rooted and grounded and earthy, and I think that’s where the name came from.”

Paysse takes eye-catching pieces of driftwood and applies a small loom, while Love weaves a fabric design on the loom. They also attach polished rocks to some pieces. In addition, Paysse creates bronze, brass and copper mushrooms to stand on their driftwood.

Making art was easy, but selling it was difficult. They offered their creations online and at vendor fairs, but that proved to be discouraging.

“When you do vendor fairs — even if you make your booth fee back, and even if you make a decent rate for the hours at the fair, you’re never getting paid for your art. You’re getting paid for your hours selling your art,” Paysse said.

They sought other venues, including Riverside Gallery, a cooperative gallery in South Bend, Washington, where access to those producing art and purchasing art was easier. This gave them the incentive to open their gallery and share space with other artists.

Rooted Art Gallery opened in December on Broadway in the Desler Building.

“The goal is not to make money off of selling other people’s art. We just want to sell our own and to promote other artists so they can sell their art at the rate where they actually get paid something,” Paysse said.

Now the cousins’ driftwood art mingles with pottery, watercolors, oil paintings, wooden bowls and other works by Oregon and Washington state artists.

Artists abound on the North Coast, the cousins have discovered, and they hope to create an artists’ hub, where artists from throughout the region can gather.

“We would really like to take over the whole building, and I would like to get more artists engaged, and the community engaged,” Paysse said.

A pop-up market filled with artists’ works also may be set up in the vacant space in front of the gallery during the monthly Seaside Art Walk, Love said.

Beginning knitting and basket weaving classes are planned in March. Watercolors will be taught in April. Eventually, Love hopes to include art classes for children.

“I think people who are spending their money would rather spend their money on something that was made by someone they know. I think we want to connect like that. I want to bring it down to the community level. I think other people want that, too,” Paysse said.

During their journey from corporate life to a community for artists, the cousins learned something about themselves.

“We do not fit in with the status quo in general,” Paysse said. “The structure that society has for us neither of us takes to very well. We’re very good at doing our own thing and bucking status quo.” Paysse thinks they’ve landed in the right spot.

“Every time we come back to the name, it fits. It still fits. It’s being grounded.”

Rooted Art Gallery

Rooted Art Gallery

810 Broadway, Seaside

Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday

www.rootedartgallery.com