ArtWorks Spokane Inc. owner Nancy Jones has worked professionally in paints since 1985. The kinds of paints, the products painted, and the ways it's sold have changed dramatically through the years, and Jones has adjusted through each trend and industry shift.

"I'm still here because I'm diversified," Jones says.

Located in a 5,500-square-foot space at 15310 E. Marietta in Spokane Valley, the company serves as a faux-finish contractor in both homes and businesses, offers faux-finish classes, and distributes a paint used in the craft.

The company currently employs 13 people, including a mural painter, interior designers, and graphic designers, among others. While not all of the employees are craftspeople, all of them are cross-trained to be competent in at least one of the finishes the company provides.

"Whether they're using it or selling it, they have their hands in it," Jones says.

Due in large part to its growing distribution business, the 16-year-old company's sales are on pace to double this year, Jones says. She declines to disclose revenues, but says sales doubled last year as well.

The contracting portion of the business generates about two-thirds of the company's sales, but distribution, which started in earnest last year, has grown quickly to account for a third of the company's sales, Jones says. Classes, she says, aren't as popular as they once were and contribute a negligible amount of revenue.

The contracting side involves services ranging from wall treatments to concrete-countertop overlays to faux-stone fireplaces. Jones says about 90 percent of that business is residential work and typically is part of remodels of existing homes. Most of the time, the company is working directly with a homeowner, but she says it's a member of the Spokane Home Builders Association and has developed relationships with some members of that organization's Remodeler's Council.

While such finish work might be associated with high-end homes, Jones says, "That's never been my market. That's not Spokane's market. It's always been Spokane's median-priced home owners."

Currently, Jones says, many of her residential customers are in their 50s and 60s. In some cases, she says, they are making improvements to their homes with the intent of selling them as the home market improves.

Commercial projects ArtWorks has been involved in through the years include finishing furniture for the Davenport Tower that Walt and Karen Worthy developed in downtown Spokane in the mid-2000s and concrete finishes at the Lincoln Center event facility, north of downtown, among others.

While commercial work currently accounts for only 10 percent of the contracting part of the business, Jones expects that percentage to grow in the future. She says she hired an employee recently who's tasked with landing more commercial projects for ArtWorks.

"I've never gone after it in the past," Jones says. "They have come to me. Now, we're going after it."

ArtWorks' quickly growing distribution segment involves Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, a line of paints for furniture and cabinets that's marketed as sticking to any surface with no need to prime. Jones says ArtWorks is a certified trainer for the Pacific Northwest and the exclusive distributor of the specialty paint for Central and Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and western and central Montana.

She currently has three employees dedicated to the distribution operation and expects that to continue to be a driver of growth for the company.

While the classes aren't what they once were, Jones continues to have an active teaching career. In addition to teaching painting techniques to Inland Northwest craftspeople—both at ArtWorks and in the past, at North Idaho College and Spokane Community College's Institute for Extended Learning—she says some of the paint and other supply makers bring her in to teach the teachers in other parts of the country and world.

Jones has been a national teacher at the International Decorative Artisans League Convention since 2003, and in the past has instructed at the national Decorative Arts Show/Faux Event and at the national Concrete Decor Show.

In recent years, she says, she has taken six trips to Europe with a decorative painters group, where she and other accomplished craftspeople have painted in castles, studios, and other venues.

"We drink a lot of wine and use a lot of paint," she says.

An occupational therapist by training who became a stay-at-home mother, Jones started taking classes in tole painting in the mid-1970s. In vogue at the time, tole painting is a folk art that involves decorative painting on tins, coffee pots, and similar household items.

By 1978, Jones says, she was hooked. She and five friends from church started a home boutique called Santa's Helpers, which was only open during a three-day weekend at the beginning of November.

After a few years, she says, "I could paint all year long and sell everything in three days."

By the last Santa's Helpers weekend, Jones says, 50 consigners provided goods, and 2,000 people came through during those three days.

After that, she says, her husband implored her to open a retail store.

Jones opened Homestead Handcrafts in 1985 in Spokane Valley, at 1301 N. Pines. Riding a trend of growing demand for homemade handcrafts, she carried items on consignment for other Inland Northwest craftspeople and taught tole painting classes.

Homestead Handcrafts grew to two Spokane-area stores with 25 teachers in the late 1980s, but by the mid-1990s, the market began to shift, Jones says. Internet sales started to gain traction, and some of the craft suppliers began selling directly to consumers. In 1996, she closed the stores.

As Homestead Handcrafts wound down, Jones says she noticed that the faux finishes were becoming more popular. The finishes that were popular in the mid-1990s, such as sponging, or using a sponge with paint to create a distressed effect, are no longer in vogue, but learning them and teaching them got Jones started on the path she's on now. She started ArtWorks Spokane within a year of winding down Homestead Handcrafts.

For a number of years, Jones concentrated on teaching.

"They could take away retail, but they couldn't take away my knowledge," she says.

In the early 2000s, Jones says she did one faux finish project for someone, and once word got out, demand for those services grew. As a result, the contracting side of the business began to flourish.

The company moved into its current location about 2 1/ 2 years ago and has grown from two employees at that time to the 13 it has now.

"What we're producing now is exponentially better than what I can do myself," she says.