Meet Haley Wilhelmsen | Small business owner and artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Haley Wilhelmsen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Haley, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I’m an anxious person. I’m scared of almost everything, and I’ve been that way since I was a little kid. I’m anxious in most social situations, in traffic, at the grocery store… I’m constantly fighting this feeling that everyone I know secretly hates me and I’m not actually good at anything I do.

All of my life, as far as I remember, I’ve felt this way and eventually I just started to figure out ways to live with it. When I was 17 I fell in love with rock climbing. Not because it’s fun, per se, anyone who climbs will tell you you spend most of the time suffering, physically and emotionally, but I think because it makes you a better person. It teach you to see the world from a totally new perspective for one, but it also literally forces you to do things scared. There are a lot of instances in rock climbing where you may be totally frozen with fear but you have no option but to keep moving because you don’t have any way out but up.

Learning to do things scared changed my life. When I realized that being brave didn’t mean I had to move past my fear, I just had to move with it, a lot of opportunity opened up.
Risk is funny because it’s such a spectrum. There is a risk if you go to the party people won’t like you. There is a risk if you get on your mountain bike that you may go over the handlebars. If you open a new business there is a risk you may go bankrupt.

Making peace with risk and fear is a huge value that guides my life and my career, but I try to be very conscious that the risks I take are not reckless. Ultimately, I’m inspired by risk, in my career risk has led me to open Still Life, which is an accomplishment I am wildly proud of.
In my personal life risk has taken me up and down mountains, built beautiful friendships, and allowed me to look back on my years and say that while I took risks, and I failed often, I lived fully, and I’m proud of that.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I am co-owner and operator of Still Life Coffee and Botanicals, a specialty coffee shop, that is also a house plant and floral shop, in Durango, Colorado. One of the core values of Still Life is to do things better than they need to be done, and I think that’s really what sets us apart. We take so much pride in everything we do, the coffee, the baked goods, the plants, but we also care a lot about the little details, like having a cool bathroom where the soap smells good and the lighting is so nice you have to take a selfie, or having comfortable furniture with access to plugs and tables big enough to spread out all of your work, or bring a few friends together.

Still Life is about an entire experience and not just a single product and that is something I am really proud of. Of course, it is a work in progress, and there are so many ways I would like to grow and change the shop, but overall I am proud that now, for almost a year and a half we have been providing the community a place to take some space for themselves, to treat themselves, and come together with the people they love.

How did I get here… was it easy. Jeez, no, not really. The short timeline is that I came up for the idea of Still Life after hiking the Colorado Trail in 2020. I started writing the business plan, and pitched the idea to my mom who ultimately decided to join me in the project and became my business partner. We found our location in the spring of 2021, and got approved for a SBA loan. Started construction on the building in September. Wrapped up constriction in January of 2022. Hired and trained our staff, and opened our doors March 1st, 2022. No part of it was easy at all. The hurdles were constant, daily really. But I don’t want to bore you with the details, and I don’t want to complain. At the end of the day we were supported so fully by our community, our friends, our baker Rachel, our consultant, our roaster, the coffee community… it took so many hands on deck but it all came together and it turned out so beautifully.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you have to keep sight of the big picture in anything you do. There will be so many demoralizing days through the whole process and if you don’t have a really bright fire, a really sincere passion for what you’re trying to accomplish it’s not worth it. If you can’t remember the ‘why’ of the whole thing you’ll get lost in all the tedious details.

The thing I want people to know about Still Life is that it is a space inspired by a long line of hard working, care-taking women.
Still Life is woman owned, and partnered with Odd Bird Baking, a woman owned bakery that shares our space.
There’s so much I could say about the lineage of women I come from, but simply put they were/are artists of the domestic. Masters of designing beautiful homes and cooking delicious meals, they are talented bakers, and gardeners, and painters. They made homes that were welcoming beyond measure. Threw parties and hosted guests and took the details so seriously. Still Life is an extension of this family tradition. Our hope is that the entire experience pays homage to all the women who came before us and does them proud.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Lucky for me my best friend does live here. So we get to do these things all the time. On a perfect long weekend we would start with brunch at Lola’s Place. We would get mimosas and breakfast tacos from Cuevas. Afterward we would walk down to the farmers market to get some fresh produce from Morgan at Long Table Farm, and on the way we would stop for a pastry and new record from Josh at Toast.
We would spend the afternoon on the river, boating or just taking it easy and reading a book down at Oxbow Park. When it finally cool down in the evening we’d go for a ride up in Horse Gulch and grab a beer at Anarchy on our way down.

The next day we’d head up to the high country, and grab a coffee from Matt and Brice at 81301 on our way out of town (because if you’re not getting coffee at Still Life you have to go to 81).

There are so many beautiful spots to enjoy driving north of town, when we’re in the mood to drive all the way up to Silverton we stop to say hi to Holly at the Coffee Bear and get some fuel before spending the day giggling and breathing hard above tree-line.

On our way back to Durango, we’d stop at Baker’s Bridge to cool off in the perfect blue water before grabbing dinner at James Ranch. Because we’re both suckers for a margarita we would stop at Frieda’s on our way home.

Durango is the perfect spot for a weekend getaway. So many pristine trails, delicious restaurants, and fun shops to explore downtown.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Of course, there are so many people in my life, past and present who have shaped my success, my supportive family and my extremely talented and driven friends to be sure.

But to pick one person to dedicate my Shoutout to I would pick the poet, Noah Eli Gordon.
Noah was my thesis advisor at CU Boulder, I took poetry workshops with him from my freshman year all the way through my senior year, when he allowed me to take a graduate level poetry course while I wrote my honors thesis, a book of poetry.

He taught me so much about the history of poetry, how to write in forms, and without them, how to read voraciously and appreciate every poet. He taught me to believe in my work. He taught me how to read other people’s poems in workshop, and how to give them valuable and kind feedback even when they were absolute garbage.
He taught me to go to the gym and do core because someday I’ll be 45 and I’ll regret it if I don’t. He taught me to eat garlic everyday for my immune system. He taught me to write poems everywhere I went. Like the notes app on my phone. While I’m at the gym. He taught me to find a poem everywhere I went, in everything I did. He taught me there was a place for the moon in every poem I wrote.

But most importantly, he taught me to show up for my poems. What he meant was that so much of what you write will be terrible, but if you show up day after day and put in the work, because poetry, like any creative endeavor is work, you will be rewarded. If you show up for you poems and write every single day, eventually something magical will happen.
I try to take that mindset into everything I care about. I try to show up for my job every single day, show up for the people I love, show up to the gym even when there are a million places I’d rather be. Because he was right, every place you decide to show up, and really be there consistently day in and day will reward you.

Noah died a year ago today, on July 10th, and every day since I’ve tried to come to terms to what it means to be a poet without him here in the world. I still ache for his loss every day. I admired him deeply and I wished I’d ever taken the time to really tell him that.

Website: www.still-life-coffee.com

Instagram: @still.life.coffee

Other: info@still-life-coffee.com

Image Credits
Ri Ganey (for the photos of me with the orange background) Marina Neal (for the photos of the shop, plants, coffee)