We began as a social purpose business in 1994, committed to promoting cross-cultural understanding through trade. On our buying trips, we seek lovely, old functional items for use in the home and beautiful, handmade objects from individual artisans and small family businesses, with an eye to fair trade practices.

Our inventory changes often, featuring everything from embroidered baby carriers from southwest China to old wooden offering platters from Lombok, Indonesia, to ceramic insects from Oaxaca, Mexico and hilltribe silver jewelry from Thailand. We invite you to come by our store during the hours noted below. We are located in downtown Decatur, Georgia, just to the east of the city limits of Atlanta, within I-285. Please click the showroom button above for a map to our place.

Please click to our gallery page to see a sampling of our current finds. Feel free to contact us for more information or for other pictures of what we have available. We have many more items than we can showcase here on the web.

Enjoy your browse! We'd love to hear from you.

Mingei World Arts, Inc.

Mingei World Arts -- bringing books to people

of La Union Tejalapan,in Oaxaca state, Mexico

Carmen Deedy and John McCutcheon will perform an evening of Latin Story and Song at the Decatur Library on July 29, 2008. The performance, sponsored by Mingei World Arts and the Georgia Center for the Book, will benefit Libros Para Pueblos, an organzation buidling libraries in the rural state of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Mingei World Arts is partnering with Libros Para Pueblos to create a library for the people of La Union Tejalapan in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. For more information on the Georgia Center for the Book, please vist their website at http://georgiacenterforthebook.org/.

This event is free and open to the public, but we ask that you please consider

making a donation to help the Mexican Library.

La Union, the most remote of the carving villages we work with, is home to many talented woodcarvers who rely on farming to feed their families, and who create wondrous, whimsical folk art figures. In order to involve the people of La Union in the effort, Mingei has commissioned reading figures from the carvers of La Union -- mermaids, demons, animals, farmers reading books. A percentage of sales of these figures will be returned to La Union for the library project. The first wave of these figures by four carvers in the village, will make their debut at a special benefit event at the Georgia Center for the Book in the Decatur Library on Tuesday, July 29 at 7:15 pm. That evening, Carmen Deedy , popular storyteller, children's author and former NPR commentator, and John McCutcheon, well-known folksinger, will be performing at the Georgia Center for the Book as a special benefit for the La Union library project. The plan is for an evening of Latin Story and Song! Carmen, who publishes through Peachtree Publishers, is also donating books for Libros para Pueblos.

Libros Para Pueblos creates libraries stocked with children's books near local schools, and encourages everyone in the community to come and spend time and to check out books to enjoy at home. There are 300 children enrolled at the school in La Union. Mingei has committed to not only helping to start this library, but to supporting it over time, including with an ongoing project in which storytellers will visit the library on a regular basis to perform for the whole community and help bridge the gap between oral tradition and the written word.

We are traveling to Oaxaca and La Union in August 2008, and will take funds raised by the sale of the figures, as well as direct donations and proceeds from the benefit event at the Georgia Center for the Book, directly to Libros Para Pueblos to begin building the library. More figures will be featured at Mingei World Arts during the Decatur Book Festival over Labor Day weekend, and beyond.

Donations to Libros Para Pueblos are tax deductible. For more information, visit their website at http://www.librosparapueblos.com. To earmark your donation for the La Union library, please donate through Mingei World Arts. Make checks payable to The Oaxaca Lending Library Foundation, with Libros Para Pueblos, La Union in the subject line. Please be generous!

Still showing at Mingei:

Home, Away from Home :
Photos of Karen people from the Thailand Burma border

An exhibit of photos taken by Gregory Scarborough
in refugee camps along the Thailand -Burma border in 2005.

The Karen, an ethnic minority group which comprises 1 in 7 of the Burmese population, has been fighting for independence from Burma for more than 50 years. As the fighting has intensified in the last 20 years, many Karen have fled to refugee camps in Thailand and hundreds of thousands more are displaced within Burma. Some Karen refugees are now being resettled in the metro-Atlanta area.

Gregory Scarborough is the founder and director of Cultural Cornerstones, an organization based in Decatur, Georgia which focuses on protecting cultural rights and cultural heritage for refugees and internally displaced peoples in emergency -affected communities. For the past eight years, he has worked extensively with Gypsy populations in Macedonia, with Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan and along the Thailand Burma border documenting life, musical traditions, and the struggle of these people against cultural assimilation and human rights abuses. This work has resulted in two collections of recordings of traditional music, "The Shutka Music Project," (2001) and "Chave Mini, You Are My Eyes: Songs from Turkish Kurdistan" (Cultural Cornerstones, 2002). Both of these are available for sale at Mingei World Arts.

And, of course, our usual recycled treasures such as
Coleccion Luna bags made from recycled women's blouses in Guatemala,
bottlecap earrings, pins and magnets from Mexico,
bags featuring recycled hilltribe fabrics from Thailand,
toys made from cans in Thailand, recycled aluminum bangles and hairpins from Karen hilltribe of Burma,
bottlecap baskets from Kenya, the fanciful trash art of Claudia Martinez of Oaxaca....
Come take another look at all of these!

Atlanta Magazine's Best of Atlanta issue December 2006
lists Mingei as the best shop in Decatur
for one-of-a-kind gifts!

And included in Sunday New York Times Travel section

January 7, 2007

"36 Hours in Atlanta"

Showing our usual eclectic collection of surprises and treasures

you'll find only at Mingei:

wood carvings of fanciful fingures from the carvers of Oaxaca, Mexico, animal bobbleheads from Guerrero, Mexico,

Chinese folk toys,Penzo hand-painted ceramics from Zimbabwe, ,terra cotta and black clay angels,

alapaca finger puppets from Peru, Old lotus shoes for bound feet from China, Ceramic Tibetan "endless knots",

bottlecap baskets from Kenya,Sarara Brazil beads!, Coleccion Luna bags from Guatemala,Afghan folk textiles, Thai amulets,

paintings by Costa Rican women's co-op, children's hats from China and Laos,unusual loose beads from around the world,

original and reproduction posters from China's Cultural Revolution, Chinese folk paintings,

old Indian coins, antique lassi cups from the Punjab, old elephant bells, tribal figures from Orissa,

hilltribe silver from Thailand,hand-loomed silk and cotton shawls and scarves from India, Thailand and Laos,

hemp and hilltribe silver necklaces, Ganapati greeting cards,vintage Rajasthani pendants, striking earrings based on tribal designs,

silver and semi-precious pandants and earrings from India,

strands of tiny semi-precious beads to enhance unusual silver-clad miniature painting pendants,

old and new beads and rings from Afghanistan, pocket saints and deities,

intricate ink drawings by Gond artist Durga Bai from Bhopal,

ceramic figures, insects and bowls by the accclaimed Aguilar sisters of Ocotlan, Mexico, filigreed Oaxacan silver earrings,

vintage Bollywood posters,
Cultural Revolution mirrors and memorabilia, little red books,
stools , headrests, jugs and bowls from the Turkana people of Kenya,
old rod puppets, boxes galore, Chinese children's chairs,  Mongolian cabinets,old Burmese lacquer,
old leather pillows, antique buddhas, low tables,
spirit houses for the garden,old tools and knives, reverse-glass paintings,
old Burmese chimes, rosewood spoons, vintage tins, framed photographs,
handmade mulberry paper journals, amulets,  tin candleholders,
hand-made cards by Nan Albertson, antique Afghani pendants,
old copper batik tjaps or stamps from Java,
embroidered textiles from the Gujarat region of India,
antique votive pendants from India, old Naga beads,
freshwater pearl necklaces, bracelets and earrings from China in more than 12 colors,
mirrored Indian bags, antique Indian photographs,
old wayang golek puppets from Java, folk toys from Laos and China,
Putumayo world music CD's,
old Chinese iron oil lamps, Chinese leather and lacquer boxes,
vintage Japanese kimonos and haori,
antique singing bowls, old yak butter pots,
wooden bowls from the Turkana people of Kenya,
stunning oil lanterns for India's festival of lights in several sizes,
tribal textiles, old Burmese animal carvings,
antique copper and brass holy water pots from South India,
beautiful round wooden pots from the Himalayas,
tribal metal sculptures and boxes, vintage sticky rice baskets,
hats and baskets from Nagaland, old carved Nandi figures,
and much more!  

Decatur's most unusual gift shop and gallery!

427 Church Street
next to Javamonkey
just south of Ponce de Leon
one block off the square  

Mingei's current hours:
Mondays - Saturdays
10-am-6pm
Sundays
12-5pm

Click here for links to other interesting sites .

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Thanks!

Mingei World Arts, Inc.
427 Church Street
Decatur, GA 30030
404.371-0101
Fax 404.371-0131
Email mingei@mindspring.com