By: Messenger Staff
If you missed the Space Queen’s open house on Saturday, March 23 — well, we feel a little sorry for you, because it was a blast.
Click or tap here to see an album of pictures from the opening.
Together they own Tropico Photo, an advertising company that seems to challenge the edges of what that means.
There was appropriately loud music and there were free drinks. There were kids playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, as dozens of adults rolled in and out and around the building at the corner of McLendon and Oakdale, sampling free glasses of cocktails from Wonderbird Spirits, taking in the spruced-up place that is now both a shop and an event space.
The biggest joy of the day, though, was experiencing the presence of perhaps the sweetest and most stylishly colorful couple in the galaxy.
Introducing, then, Forrest Aguar, 35, and Michelle Norris, 32, business partners and life partners. They got married a few years ago, after meeting at the University of Georgia, in, guess where: an arts class.
Back in Candler Park, they are tackling the space formerly occupied by the Gilded Angel. You might say it’s got a cosmic thing to it after the explosive paint job, inside and out. It practically beacons you inside.
In the front, the Space Queen is a “vintage store, with clothing, accessories and home goods and handmade items,” said Michelle. And the back, added Forrest, is, “an event space that will be available for artist workshops and appropriately-sized private events as well as a tattoo artist operating out of it.”
Candler Park is familiar territory, especially for Forrest. He and the building’s owner, Apollo Gott, were pals at then-Grady High School. He was born and raised in Atlanta. Michelle grew up elsewhere and went to high school in Savannah.
After leaving UGA, she has been in Atlanta ever since. They live almost in Candler Park, just across Dekalb Avenue to the south. Still, we are going to count them.
Out on the edge of the crowd on Saturday, taking in the sights and sounds and the offerings at the Space Queen, was Karin Dusenbury, a long-time resident from a block over.
There was no denying the joy the place brought to Little Candler on Saturday, she said. “I’m excited to see that corner have energy and come to life,” she later wrote.
But she also echoed others who worried about the challenges of making a go at a place that is so small.
That’s something, however, the two new owners plan to overcome by making maximum use of the square footage they do have: the event space, the tattoo artist, the arts classes.
“We think the size of the space is perfect for what we need,” Forrest later said.
So what does the Space Queen mean for Candler Park and Little Candler?
“We hope this means there will be an outpouring of art and energy from this corner,” Michelle said. “We have always thought this building had so much potential. … It’s really fun to think that we might be able to activate that.”
“We feel like this building has so much character already, but after renovating it for the last four months and the different people who have stopped in and talked to us,” Forrest added. “There is just such powerful energy at this intersection. We just want to try to continue to contribute positive vibes to it.”
It’s a small space they have at McLendon and Oakdale, but if anyone has the rocket fuel to get it off the ground, it’s these two.