Your Creative License opens on 400 block

Contributing to the Bohemian feel of the 400 block of North Last Chance Gulch, Angie Susag recently opened Your Creative License, a studio in which she'll teach a variety of artistic disciplines to both kids and adults.

Her business is in the space formerly occupied by Moon River Goods. A grand opening is scheduled for the first of next month.

Susag, 29, taught art at Helena High, her alma mater, for the past several years before deciding to strike out on her own.

";I guess I got tired of teaching the same things over and over, and really wanted some variety," she said this week, shortly before leaving town for her wedding and Hawaiian honeymoon. ";I always wanted to own my own gallery, and I didn't want to wake up one day and say 'Woulda, coulda, shoulda.'"

Susag holds bachelor's degrees in both fine arts and art education as well as a master's degree from the University of Montana School of Fine Arts.

She claims her favorite medium is clay, but she plans to teach a variety of different media, from drawing and pastels to eventually stained glass, paper-making or sculpture.

Susag plans after-school classes for kids and other offerings for adults. She's currently a sole proprietor but hopes to grow the business to add teaching staff.

Chop wood: Tough times continue for Montana's forest products industry, according to a quarterly report compiled by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.

While the second quarter of 2009 saw increases in employment, wages and production over the year's first three months, those first months were so weak that just because things got better doesn't mean they're good.

For instance, lumber production increased 33 percent in the second quarter -- but the first quarter's production was the state's lowest in half a century. Lumber production remains 35 percent below year-ago levels, and total production for the first half of 2009 was lower than in any three-month period of 2005, when the national housing boom was at its peak.

E-mail your Open for Business ideas to john.harrington@helenair.com.