Soulfire Unlimited

Ask Jake Ryan what he does for a living and he keeps it simple.

"I'm an artist. We have a shop and a studio downtown."

The full answer takes longer. Soulfire Unlimited, at 614 N Last Chance Gulch, is a thrift boutique, a recording studio, a screen printing operation, a custom clothing workshop, an airbrush tattoo station, an event venue, and once a month, a praise and worship revival. On paper it reads like too many things. Stand inside for ten minutes and it all starts to make sense.

"A lot of people say you do a lot of different things," Jake says. "But for me, it's always just been art and entertainment. These are all just aspects of the art. It seems like a lot, but really, for me, it's just art."

The name came first. Jake started Soulfire in 2012 as an independent record label — a way to release his own music, produce for others, and make merchandise to sell at events. He found the word in the work of artist Alex Grey, who defined soulfire as creating with acts of passion in accordance with divine law.

"Whatever that spark is within you that makes you feel good when you're doing something you really enjoy — I want to harness that," Jake says. "And the people that come to me, I want to light that flame in them."

For years, Soulfire ran alongside the day jobs. Jake hung drywall as an independent contractor for over a decade. Kaelianna — Kae — worked as an airbrush tattoo artist, traveling Montana's fairs and festivals in a big yellow van, painting faces and selling sunglasses and tie-up dresses. The couple first met outside the Staggering Ox, kept bumping into each other at the library and around downtown, and got married in 2012. They've been together for seventeen years.

"We've always worked together," Kae says. "From the moment that we met each other. A couple weeks later, we got that big yellow van, and we were off."

The road to the shop on Last Chance Gulch ran through the hardest years of their lives.

Kae carries the BRCA1 gene. Facing a family history of breast cancer, she underwent nine surgeries over several years. During the long stretches at home, she went back to something she'd learned in high school — fabric dye. What started as batiking evolved into ice dyeing, a technique where dye powder sits on ice and melts downward, splitting colors into patterns that can't be predicted or repeated.

"It was very therapeutic," she says. "The only thing to grasp onto was creating different pieces, trying to connect with the kids, and just having something to do with my hands. Because I felt like if I wasn't doing anything, then I was just sitting there. And that was the hardest part — not being able to be a part of everything."

While Kae was healing, Jake was making a change of his own. The building that now houses Soulfire used to be Set Free Ministries — the place where Jake committed to sobriety.

"This place is where I decided to quit drinking," he says. "My sponsor was a part of this place. I started playing with the band here, which filled that void of, hey, I'm not playing out in the bar scene anymore."

When the church bought a new building, the joke started circulating: are you guys going to move in and set up a recording studio? Jake had always recorded people at home, but a home studio has limits. Kae had been looking for a space to open a boutique for her custom clothing. The pieces fit. Two years ago, they got the keys.

Then, Kae had another unplanned surgery almost immediately.

"That was our first, like, oh man, did we make the right decision?" she says. "And just being like — okay. Blind faith. Keep going."

Art builds slowly in a town like Helena. Jake is honest about where they are.

"We're surviving," he says. Kae nods. "We want to get to thriving."

But the foundation is setting. Jake has produced four albums through the studio so far, with artists ranging from first-timers to a nationally touring Christian musician who recorded in the old church space and told them it wasn't what he expected — in a good way. The studio brings in about a quarter of their income. Jake wants it to be half.

What he offers isn't the biggest mixing board in Montana. It's two decades of music production and a unique musical perspective.

"You need somebody to bounce ideas off," he says of the production process. "You need somebody to be critical sometimes and say, no, that was not good — you can do better. And you need somebody to say it's done. Because if you're doing it by yourself, you might always be like, it's not good enough, I'm not ready yet. You need somebody to say: this is the finished product."

His favorite moment in any project is the one he can't manufacture.

"Let's experiment, because that's when we're really going to find something that gives you goosebumps. And when you get the goosebumps, that's when you know you're onto something."

On the boutique side, Kae's work fills the racks — one-of-a-kind ice-dyed pieces, vintage finds, old rock and roll shirts cut up and sewn onto flannels, broken jewelry repurposed into necklaces, custom airbrushed shoes. Jake calls it upcycling with a purpose.

"When she takes a secondhand good and gives it new life, I feel better about giving somebody something new," he says. The aesthetic, in his words: "A little grungy. It's not perfect. It's a little artsy, multiple eras. It's the freedom to express yourself with no limits."

The people who walk through the door are as eclectic as the inventory. Regulars who come like clockwork. Out-of-towners hunting rare finds. Workers from nearby stores. Medical professionals popping in on lunch breaks in full scrubs. High schoolers and college kids looking for a style they can't find at Target.

"Thrifty people are thrifty," Jake says. "But the ones I'm trying to reach are the ones looking for something unique. The ones trying to create their own style."

On the second Saturday of every month, the back of the shop transforms. The Soulfire Revival started as a youth event — hip hop praise and worship — until adults kept asking if they could come too. Now it's all ages, with food sponsored by a local business, games, and music. Jake is clear about who it's for.

"The people I'm really trying to reach are the ones that need something. They're looking for something," he says. "At Set Free, the word is: the least, the last, and the lost. Those are the people I'm really trying to connect with."

His conviction comes from experience. Recovery reshaped everything — his music, his friendships, his mission. A painting accident a year ago that landed him in a hospital and a profound near-death experience sharpened it further.

"Something I learned in recovery is you feel so unique in your own story — nobody understands me, what I've been through. But everybody's been through something similar," he says. "When you hear people share their stories, you can always find something you can relate to. You don't feel so alone."

He was at an AA meeting the morning of our interview. He goes regularly. The people in those rooms — law enforcement, lawyers, doctors, veterans — taught him something the rebellious skateboard kid from Great Falls never expected to learn.

"All these people have problems, just like I do."

Kae's version of letting go looks different but rhymes. The thrift shop itself was born partly from what she calls working through the hoard — years of accumulated projects and possessions from the seasons when her health took choices away from her. Selling it, donating it to foster closets, releasing it — that was part of the healing too.

"It's not that I'm failing these projects I wanted to succeed," she says. "It's allowing room for the things I'm working on right now."

Ask them what's next and the list unspools the way you'd expect from two people whose business card could just say "art." More DJ services — Jake is booking weddings now, including one for another downtown Helena business owner. More art parties — tie-dye birthdays, "Bob Ross" paint-alongs, seasonal events where kids sew patches onto game-day flannels. Kae hopes to host another tie-dye party in the park with squirt guns full of dye. The revival picks back up in September.

Seventeen years in, the vision hasn't changed. Only the address has.

"It's always come down to who you're surrounding yourself with," Jake says. "Sharing your experience, strength, and hope — your story. It's unique to you, but people can definitely relate."

On a street called Last Chance Gulch, two people who got their second chance are keeping the lights on and the wheels in motion — and holding the door open for whoever needs to walk through it next.