CanvaScape bid adieu to Mesa Mall, seeks permanence in downtown GJ 

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Ray Kinnick knows from experience that people rarely understand what he means when he says his business, CanvaScape, prints people’s personal photos on stone.

“No one really knows what you’re talking about,” said Kinnick, who also prints photos on canvas and metal.

So, he advises customers to come to his store and actually see photos printed on stone. Then, the comprehension commences.

“When they see it and they feel it, everyone falls in love with those,” he said, adding prints on stone make great gifts.

They’re also wonderful for memorializing loved ones, and the permanence of the stone hits home with people when customers see the finished product. Kinnick has seen it firsthand.

“People get emotional here when they see it,” he said.

Kinnick is able to witness those moments again because CanvaScape is open again, now in a new location – 455 Main St. in downtown Grand Junction – after about a 15-month hiatus.

It’s Kinnick’s third try at making CanvaScape fly, but he thinks Main Street solves the primary issue that cut his previous two attempts short.

He said he first opened CanvaScape in the Pueblo Mall, but after six months he was told JD Sports is coming to Pueblo Mall and will take his space.

That led to Kinnick moving to Grand Junction, where he said he had resided for 15 years before he went to Pueblo.

Kinnick then opened CanvaScape in Mesa Mall in August 2023, but he had a specialty lease, which is for one year, and about halfway into that term he said Mesa Mall let him know a new tenant will be taking his spot when his lease is up.

That tenant? JD Sports again.

Kinnick said Mesa Mall offered him a different commercial unit, but he wasn’t interested. When his lease expired in Aug. 2024, he moved out.

This spring – Kinnick thinks it was May – he signed a lease for the store at 455 Main St.

Then, he needed to renovate.

“It took me a few months to get this built out,” he said. “There was a lot that had to get done in here. We wanted to give it a new look with better displays and stuff, so it took quite a bit to get it ready.”

Kinnick also had some issues with inventory that delayed opening the store, but he finally opened the doors to the public in late October.

What customers need to know about CanvaScape is they can bring Kinnick their photos, “and I turn them into custom canvas prints. I can print into any size, really, that people are looking for.

“People can bring me stuff even just directly from their phones. So, if you have a cool picture or something you’ve taken on your phone, you just bring it in.”

What Kinnick does from there, he said, is what separates him from many similar businesses.

“I’m really, really good at cleaning images up that are lower resolution and making sure that everything that leaves here is high quality,” he said. “I personally will not let anything leave this shop if it doesn’t look good.

“And I make a point to let people know if they’re trying to give me something that I know is going to turn out bad, I let them know we may want to find an alternate picture, encourage them to do something else. I take a personal stake at making sure that everything in here looks really nice. And you can see it, all of this stuff that I do here, I have really high-end equipment to make sure that it all turns out really good.”

In addition to the custom prints, CanvaScape does retail sales.

The showroom floor is stocked with a large variety of pre-made art on canvas and metal in various sizes. Wildlife and landscapes are popular.

“There’s so many different types of people out there with different tastes, so I’m trying to do everything I can to get as many different categories for whatever people are looking for,” Kinnick said.

He was able to open CanvaScape in time for the Christmas shopping season, which is a good time to be open. But he thinks his store would have benefitted from gaining familiarity by being open a few months earlier, and he admits he’s a little leery about how willing people will be to spend this holiday season.

Still, as an owner of other retail businesses over the years – Kinnick had High Tides Wireless in Grand Junction for 15 years, still operates High Tides Wireless in Pueblo Mall and ran a few other mall businesses – he knows what December traditionally means for retailers.

“From what I understand, December down here is really good,” Kinnick said of Main Street’s retail stores. “I’m hoping that’s the case, because in the mall that’s kind of where all your money comes from is December. You kind of go through all the bad months just holding your breath till December, so hopefully this will be a good December, and everyone down here says it is.”

Beyond the holiday shopping, Kinnick said he’s excited to be part of downtown Grand Junction.

“I wanted to be on Main Street,” he said. “Main Street is such an incredible place to me as far as what Grand Junction has to offer, and I just wanted to be a part of the culture down here, you know?

“I hope that it works out really well. And we’ll see … You have less impulse buyers down here, so I’ve got to get more direct buyers, like people who are coming there for the destination of coming to CanvaScape, right? They’re actively coming here for that purpose.”

Kinnick also anticipates benefitting from the events that Main Street frequently hosts, and he said he will be active next year in downtown’s Market on Main.

“I’m going to be building new displays that we’ll be able to wheel out,” he said. “So we’ll have a 10-by-20(-foot) display out there for farmers market each week when that’s going on.”