Fair trade and travel business moves to smaller Village space

An art gallery has closed and the fair trade shop/travel business that shared its space on Underwood Avenue has moved into another Village business' space.

After a year in the building, Allen Gallery and Authentic Journeys have moved out of the old fire station building, 1430 Underwood Ave. The space formerly housed Underwood Gallery.

The fair trade and environmentally friendly items carried at Authentic Journeys will be sold at Arté, the paint-while-sipping-wine business that opened in December at Harwood Avenue. Lisa Allen, owner of Authentic Journeys, partnered with Karen Wilman Salituro to bring Arté to the Village.

"My efforts have been focused on Arté for the past couple of months as it is very time consuming to start up a new business and concept, but my intention is to continue to offer my travel planning services and fair trade products to the community in some capacity," Allen said.

She will operate the travel planning services as Authentic Journeys Travel.

The economy has forced her to "react quickly and be open to new ways of doing things in order to thrive." So far, Arté has brought people from around the Milwaukee area down to the Village to create art, Allen added.

She and Wilman Salituro - owner of Go Green home design studio and the Harwood building where their businesses are housed - remain committed to the success and growth of the Village. Allen participates on many of the Village Business Improvement District's committees and that will continue, she said.