HANGOUTS: SANTA BARBARA : Artful Coffee : The Green Dragon’s proprietors encourage their patrons to espresso themselves.

Edwin Germaine, a sculptor, is lanky, contemplative and inclined to drape himself over a chunk of Douglas fir and pronounce it “my baby.”

Tiffany Lach, inclined to watch and grin as he does that, was most recently a retail consultant.

But since last October, both have trained their attention upon the creation and sustenance of the Green Dragon Art Studio and Espresso Bar at 22 W. Mission St. in Santa Barbara.

The idea was to create a place for coffee, conversation and aesthetics, building upon the tradition of the original Green Dragon coffeehouse in Boston, which is said to have served revolutionaries and others from 1697 to 1832.

The reality is now open daily from 7 a.m. to midnight, an organic coffeehouse that offers cappuccino and espresso without traces of pesticide, a gallery that puts new artworks on display every Saturday and a performance schedule that includes Nigerian drummers welcoming each full moon. Coffee costs 75 cents, cappuccino is $1 and Argentine mate is $1.50.

The Spanish-style building has high, beamed ceilings and an eventful history. Early in this century, it housed the Flying A movie studio; later, an Episcopal church. On a Wednesday afternoon early this month, the walls were crowded with watercolors, oils and photographs, representative and abstract, by 14 artists.

One of the artists, encouraged by the proprietors to hang around while his work was doing the same, sat sketching on the floor.

“We’re about pushing the creative edge for people,” said Germaine, “so that they’re personally transformed out of the experience.”

On a more practical level?

“I wanted to cut out the middle man.”

Until late last year, Germaine was living in rural Bucks County, Pa., and selling his wood sculpture through big city galleries that he said took commissions as high as 50%. Now “people see my work, they touch it, and I see them,” said Germaine. “It feeds me.”

Germaine, 35, and Lach, 23, met at the Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles in February, 1989. She was from Boulder, Colo., but within three days they were nosing around Santa Barbara together, contemplating an alliance that would marry her entrepreneurial background to his aesthetic sensibilities.

They went back to Pennsylvania, subscribed to the Santa Barbara newspaper and, in September, found a classified ad for the building on West Mission Street.

“I knew it was a unique space,” said Gregg Petty, the Green Dragon’s landlord. “We had a children’s symphony orchestra that wanted to take the space on for the sound quality, so I considered them. And there was a meditation group. But if you’ve talked with Edwin, you’ve picked up that there’s a persuasiveness about him, and it’s not subtle. He loves what he does. I just sensed that there was a tenacity about him.”

In October, Lach and Germaine signed a lease. In January, they weremarried, in a non-commercial sense, beneath redwoods in Northern California.

By the end of the month, Germaine was “networking” at Santa Barbara Rotary breakfasts. His brown hair cascaded far beyond his collar, but he had a tie around his neck.

The two opened the new Green Dragon to the public in March. They had one part-time employee, who poured drinks into paper cups because they couldn’t afford anything else. A month later, they scraped up money for glasses and mugs.

“I was receiving his rent in $1 bills from espresso coffee,” Petty said. “They were handing me two-inch stacks of bills. He’s one of these guys who doesn’t believe in living beyond his means, so he didn’t want to live on credit. . . . This month was the first check I’ve received.”

Now the part-time staff has grown to five, and a rented piano stands ready for impromptu performances. The operation is not in the black yet, Lach said, “but it’s moving in that direction.”

The next challenge, she said, is luring more art buyers into the Dragon’s den. Lach and Germaine, who take a 20% commission on art sales, estimated that about 30 works have been sold so far. To enhance the space’s studio feel and attract the best artists, they said, they need more customers with both art savvy and disposable income.

It would take a fair chunk of disposable income to buy a piece of Germaine’s own work, technically accomplished carvings, many of which began as remainder wood from lumberyards. His prices begin at about $1,200, too much for any of the Green Dragon’s clients so far.

But Germaine offered no complaints on the aesthetic front. After 10 months at work in the world of commerce, he announced he finally found time to start his first West Coast work.

It was a hunk of Douglas fir, about 3 1/2 feet high, roughly carved in the shape of a man cradling a precious object, the way a fullback cradles a football. It needed, the artist said, another 20 hours of work.

Germaine draped himself over it. “My baby,” he said. Lach watched and grinned.