|
|
    |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Welcome to Mingei World
Arts, direct importers of antiques, folk art and fine craft, mostly from
Asia.
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 chosen by readers of Access Atlanta as Best Place to Shop for the Person Who Has Everything! Thanks, everyone! *** THIS SUNDAY:! June 28, 2009 Staycation Sunday: Get Local on Church Street! Sunday,
June 28, 1-4pm Live music,
street entertainment, kid activities, free refreshments, and prizes
on Church between Ponce and MARTA! Betsy Hall: creates beautiful adornments in a natural, meditative style. Come welcome Betsy for her first show at Mingei and decide which of her wonderful jewelry pieces, bags or corsets will go home with you! Patty Rollins: makes really
happy jewelry! Her bright, gorgeous Lovebead necklaces have 108 different
hand-chosen beads, like Buddhist prayer malas. Come choose the right
one for you! *** of La Union Tejalapam,in Oaxaca state, 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/. 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.
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 still taking donations, and we are still selling figures! 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! Library opens in La Union!
Thanks to the tremendous generosity of the enthusiastic crowd who attended that evening and the folks who came by the store to donate and buy reading folk art figures, we have now raised enough money to maintain this library for the next two years. On August 20, the town celebrated the inauguration of the library, and Ann was there on behalf of all of you to cut the ribbon. For the next hour, children and adults poured in to browse the shelves, dig through boxes, and choose their books. The children were eager to read aloud to each other and to the visitors, and every child left with at least one book. As we headed away from the library, we passed many groups of children walking home along the gravel road carrying their first library books. One group couldn't wait and had stopped beside the road to share a picture book together in the late afternoon sun. After the festivities, we walked up and down the hills through corn fields in the waning light to visit the carvers of the village who had pieces ready for us, laughing and collecting bags of wonderful folk art along the way. It
was a truly magical day.
Atlanta
Magazine's Best of Atlanta issue December 2006 And included in Sunday New York Times Travel section January 7, 2007 "36
Hours in Atlanta"
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, 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,
Decatur's most unusual gift shop and gallery! 427 Church Street Mingei's current hours:
Click here for links to other interesting sites . Would you like to be on
our email list so you can be notified of special events
or when new shipments arrive? Mingei World Arts,
Inc. |
