SANDPOINT — Never underestimate the power of a creative mom. With just one of them, a good idea can take flight. Add several more to the mix and you’ve got an honest-to-goodness movement on your hands.

That, in a nutshell, is an abbreviated history of Creations for Sandpoint — a community art space on the Cedar Street Bridge.

Creations started out as an art gallery, opened in 2009 right on the heels of the great recession and meant to act as a traffic driver for the downtown marketplace. But art sales were slim, so owner Shery Meekings added art classes in hopes of pulling people in. The young mother with a new baby was winging it, she admits.

And sometimes that kind of improvisation delivers unimaginable results.

“I started meeting other moms who didn’t know what to do with themselves and their kids,” she said. “Next thing I knew, we had 30 moms and all their kids — it was like a miracle.”

As the economy slowly began to improve, the upstairs space on the bridge was needed for a new boutique, so Meekings and company moved downstairs to concentrate on the art classes. They started out with a couple of homemade picnic tables and all the art supplies they could round up.

At the time, Meekings was trading out rent for janitorial duties on the bridge. So one can imagine how happy she was, turning the corner after a long day of cleaning, to find someone else had straightened up and organized in her little corner of the bridge market.

“Angels started showing up,” she said, mentioning artist Anna Protsman by name. “Once I found Anna, we just started plugging away.”

Creations quickly outgrew the main floor storefront and moved to its current location at the back of the bridge. The magic picked up momentum as she arrived one morning to find a volunteer carpenter building an archway entrance for what would become known as the discovery area for kids.

“I just thought you needed an arch,” he told her when asked what he was up to.

The episodic kismet continued after she posted a sketch of her mental image for what the interactive playground might eventually look like. On impulse, she added a sailboat in the middle of the drawing. Soon after, she got a phone call from Sandpoint’s Capt. Dan Mimmack, announcing that he was in Seattle preparing to trailer up the sailboat he had just found for her. Within days, Creations had its visual centerpiece in place and Meekings had Capt. Dan to thank for it.

“He was definitely the wind in our sail,” she quipped.

As the physical side came together, the volunteer staff grew to keep up with the increasingly popular thought of gathering in this climate-controlled, covered place to — of all things — create together.

“We had about 20,000 visitors that first year,” said Meekings, noting that some were what she calls “repeat offenders” at Creations. “People would happen upon us and sit down to start creating with their families. Tourists, locals — all of it.”

Hop forward to 2018 and the art space is on pace to hit more than 35,000 visits, according to the owner.

“We’re now growing about 30 percent every year,” she said. “The tourist piece is incredible. We get people who come back every year to see what new things we’re doing. People who travel all over the world love coming to this simple, little space to create.”

Affordability, combined with the attractive option of exploring art and discovery in one location, has helped spur growth. Admittance to the Discovery Play Area — the one with the sailboat — is 75 cents per person. To get into the Community Arts & Crafts Studio to create on your own will run you $1 per person. Art classes for toddlers through adults start as low as $3 each.

Creations for Sandpoint can keep those prices low because of its non-profit status and its designation as a “museum.” Funding, then, comes in part through the adjacent museum store — also called Creations and stocked with educational toys, art supplies, new and used children’s clothing, as well as jewelry, cards and gifts.

The second funding vehicle has been grants, the owner noted, with the skills of grant writer Kate Mansur recently bringing in more than $14,000 from the Inland Northwest Foundation to reconfigure the 3,300-square-foot space to accommodate higher levels of visitor traffic and to engage older kids.

“It’s where we need to go — we need more space because we get so busy,” Meekings said, pointing to the Discovery Play Area. “At times, we have 20 children in here.”

Apart from financial considerations, Creations depends on volunteers to keep this artistic juggernaut moving ahead.

“We all have special gifts,” the owner said. “I encourage people to share those gifts with children.”

By way of including things for older kids to do, she also envisions enlisting local retailers and employers to design and donate new “discovery panels” as part of the update. Creations currently has panels geared for younger ages, but Meekings would like to see discovery stations that concentrate on things such as science, engineering, math, music, literature and technology.

“I’d love to see what the employees of a business like Quest, for instance, might come up with,” Meekings said.

You’d almost have to be an insider to see how much this project has changed Meekings’ own life since she first supported it by vacuuming hallways and cleaning restrooms in trade. At the time, her husband, Scott, was ill and their daughter, Grace, was a baby. Both father and daughter are now part of the Creations for Sandpoint volunteer team, along with a host of other volunteers, two paid employees and four young people who help out as part of work skills training programs.

“We all watch little miracles happen here every day,” Meekings said. “We get to watch the community come in and hug each other. I pinch myself every day and ask, ‘How did I get to do this?’

“I think it’s called a purpose-driven life,” she summed up.

For more information on Creations for Sandpoint, volunteering or donating, call 208-304-7384 or go online to creationsforsandpoint.org.