Mingei World Arts is a retail store in downtown Decatur, Georgia. We travel and buy directly from artisans, artisan cooperatives and other like-minded importers to bring you a variety of treasures including jewelry, textiles, furniture, folk art, fine craft, folk toys and other unique items from all over the world.
We began with a dream and a duffel bag during the fall of 1994, when one of our first partners headed to Indonesia on a pleasure trip lugging an extra bag which she soon filled with textiles, jewelry and assorted other wonders. That December, we hosted a home sale and were bitten. We repaid each of us our initial $500 investment and sent all the rest of the money off to a silversmith in Bali, asking for an assortment of jewelry. A few weeks later, a small box arrived, and we hosted a second party for Valentine’s. And so it went– 18 months later we were unloading 18 crates in front of one of our homes! For the next several years, we hosted a few home sales a year, converting one of our homes to a store for the event.
When we outgrew home sales, we moved to a cool renovated warehouse where we kept limited hours, and then in November of 2003, we became full-out retail.
Please visit us at 427 Church Street, right across from the MARTA station in Decatur.
Hours: Mondays- Thursdays, 10am-6pm; Friday and Saturday, 10am-7pm; and Sundays, 11am-6pm
404-371-0101
Email us at mingei@mindspring.com.
I’m so glad to see you started a blog! I’ll make sure to keep up with it!