Astarte Studios
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Blue Moon Books and Video
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LewAllen Jewelry

Take a quick stroll through this small downtown shop and see for yourself. Something is different. Something about this jewelry can't be found anywhere in town, and probably nowhere else on earth.

"I dream them. I touch things and take the feelings into silver and gold," said Ross LewAllen. "Once I woke at four in the morning and thought 'What would happen if I made an earring that slipped on the ear.'"

He made six that morning and that day at lunch ran into Judy Margolis, the owner of Origins, and showed them to her. "She said 'This doesn't exist anywhere.'"
And in 1978 the Earcuff was born. It attaches to the rim of the outer ear and some come with dangling feathers and droplets of gems. He started an intensive marketing program and the Earcuff was a world-wide phenomenon, garnering him 650 accounts.

When it comes to jewelry, LewAllen is an innovator. His daughter Laura also designs jewelry and being a rock climber came up with what she calls "the next Earcuff."

"I took a piece of climbing rope and designed silver beads for it," she said. "Now people can design their own and use as many beads as they want." She calls her bracelets Ascents.

Charla Lee of Texas is a great fan of the Ascent bracelets and dog collars. "My husband and I just stumbled into their store in the mid '80s and just feel in love with the Climbing Rope jewelry. It's so clever," she said. "Everywhere we go people comment on them and they make perfect presents."

The store, LewAllen and LewAllen Jewelry is located on East Palace and teems with distinctive pieces, each one solid and with a substantial feel. No matter if it's a ring, earring, bracelet or necklace, LewAllen jewelry comes close to wearable sculpture.

Ross LewAllen opened his store 26 years ago. For 19 of those years it's been in the same location.

He began his art career in Chicago when he attended the art institute, majoring in painting and jewelry. While standing in the lunch line one day, he met a woman named Arlene. They eventually married and embarked on a life of art and travel. When Ross wanted to attend graduate school, he applied to three and Highlands University accepted him.

"In those days it was a great school. All the great working artists today went there," he said, citing Jerry West as one of many.

While living in Las Vegas, N.M., Arlene LewAllen taught school and when they finally moved to Santa Fe, they both taught. Then Ross opened his shop, and Arlene LewAllen became one of best-known art dealers and gallery owners. She died not long ago, and in a few week, Ross plans to display nine pieces of jewelry to commemorate her passing.

"I want people to know you can get divorced still loving each other," said LewAllen, who spends much of his time in San Diego on a sailboat named Friendship. "It's where I design and write."

LewAllen can remember opening shop with "300 bucks, a MA degree and a pair of pliers." He says it's never felt like a business, and doesn't see "bottom line" as being all that important.

"As Joseph Campbell says, just follow your bliss," LewAllen said, "and the money has followed."

Then 13 years ago he had what he calls a mid-life "evaluation" and began studying healing practices. He and Laura traveled and taught all over the world, including Africa, Egypt, Russia, Peru and the Galapagos Islands.

Ross LewAllen says he doesn't take vacations, he takes journeys and can now say he's studied core shamanism with indigenous healers all over the world.

"Those experiences are now in my jewelry," he said, showing a medallion of two whales. It had always been a childhood fantasy of his to touch a whale; and one time while following the gray whales from San Diego to the San Ignacio lagoon in Baja California, he actually got to touch one.
"It was like touching an ancestor, who millions of years ago chose the sea over the land and is now waiting for me to see how I might communicate that moment," he said.
One of his innovative jewelry designs is what he calls "Rule Changers." Each piece has some moveable part and is connected to an idea from the Huna-or Hawaiian shamanism-that says: To change some behavior, some kind of action needs to accompany the decision to imprint it in the mind.

Pendants of power animals such as whales, eagles, owls, horses and buffalo all have some kind of mechanism that slides or flips to help change inner rules.
Matt Davis, another customer from Texas says a friend took him over the store about three years ago. "I love the Rule Changers. I buy them for all my friends and family. The LewAllen work is the best I've ever seen. If you can't get it there, there's no use looking anywhere else," he said.

Another item Davis likes is the Ewop. Similar to the Climbing Rope bracelets, the Ewops are on thinner cordage with smaller beads. Ewop, coined by Ross LewAllen, is an acronym for "every thing's working out perfectly."

"There's no other way things can work out but perfectly," he said. And it looks like this is holding true on the business side of things, too.

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Blue Moon Books and Video

An e-mail came in this week that easily expressed how a lot of Americans are feeling these days, especially those of us who garden. In the face of this war in Iraq the utter helplessness so many of us are experiencing is just too much.

Diane Moreno, who lives in South San Isidro, NM wrote: “I have had the TV
going for days and for relief this morning, I stepped outside. Even with all this war business going on, I cannot help but catch loving glimpses at the two stunted, brave tulips blooming at my front door.”

She went on to describe her delphinium and the tiny purple flowers on the vinca vine. "It gives you hope for the near future," she wrote.

And then to further this idea, in an interview with Bill Moyers, the author Alice Walker also talked about gardens and how we have to know the “absolute truth in the goodness of the earth.”

Whether you’re for the war or not, the agitation of late can’t be ignored. And it just feels right to turn to the earth and watch how it responds to spring.

We’ve had more moisture than last year around this time and the plants are feeling the difference. They don’t know a war is going on. They don’t know that recent events are making people feel like putting their lives on hold. The buds on the lilac bushes are ready to burst. The daffodils are coming up stronger than ever, and the forsythia is just stunning. For those of us who have gardens we can take refuge in this.

Like Diane, I took timeout in my garden recently and besides seeing bulbs poking up, I was heartened to see three species of early spring butterflies flitting about. They don’t know, either, that so many of us are fretting. They were going about their
butterfly business.

Suddenly, butterflies and purple vinca flowers have become something to aspire to. Their way seems best right now: to go about our lives peacefully in this time of upheaval.

So I stooped to inspect a little closer the new rosemary bushes that I put in last fall. Then I poked my finger into the soil. None of it is frozen anymore. I peered at the ornamental grasses, then at the mullein that showed up a year ago as a weed that I let stay. I saw the new leaves on the iris; I saw some teeny tiny leaves on the thyme plants in the herb bed I put in last year.

And this is what else I found: I emerged from my first spring scrutinizing thoroughly contented, relaxed. For a good half-hour my body forgot the tension that the headlines cause now. The fretting I’ve been prone to dissipated. It’s hard on us to
continuously contain tension, and in the end being in my garden was truly a miraculous experience, and one that’s so easily within reach for gardeners.

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “...nothing can befall me in life--no disgrace, no calamity, which nature cannot repair." For many of us our gardens are as close to nature as we can get on a daily basis.

So take to your gardens like never before. Get down on your hands and knees and squint right up close to those tiny leaf buds. Get your hands dirty. Get mud on your shoes, your cuffs, and share the wonder that Diane experienced in seeing those stunted and brave tulips pushing up through the ground. And for a few mintues completely forget this is a time of war.

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Astarte Studios

It's one of those Santa Fe stories. Two women arrive in town the same week. Both get a job at the same place. Both being artists they connect immediately and believe in each other so much that five years later they end up owning the business they began working for.

"This was something I could invest in," said Astrid Uryson. "I've always wanted ceramics to be my livelihood."

Her partner Anna Schoel said, "For me, I've always wanted to bring a business to success."

A year ago the women took over Astarte Studios, a 12 year old business, and from the amount of determination and creativity pouring into the business it's clear both are living out a dream.

Astarte Studios produces tableware-plates, bowls, cubs, mugs, pitchers, butter dishes, tea pots and creamers-with a Southwestern flare. The pottery sells locally and across the country. When they took over the business, a good client base was already established.

"But from the beginning we had to make changes," Schoel said. "Customers wanted smaller items that sold quicker so we added a gift line."

The new owners also decided to increase promotion and advertising. They changed their marketing direction, too. They lowered prices to move items quicker rather than staying in a slow moving high-end market. It seems to be working. Orders are coming in steadily.

Locally their dishware can be found at Gift and Gourmet, The Store Different and Cookworks. Assistant Manager at Cookworks, Barbara Maclellan confirmed that "the dishes are a fine product and have an ethnic look." She also said Astarte Studios is the only locally made dishes they carry because of the high quality.

The dishes are made with reddish micaceous clay, which is native to the New Mexico area. The flecks of mica add strength to the pottery as well as produce pleasing sparkles. In expanding their business, the women have added new styles and colors to their line of dishes.

Every piece is done by hand using molds and slip casting, a time consuming process. But Uryson, 39, and the mother of a nine year old daughter, said she finds the rhythm of production work " a joy." It also helped that in revamping the business, the partners developed a better production process that has streamlined a few of the steps. One was to re-figure the ingredients in the glazes so larger amounts could be mixed at one time.

Still, Schoel says producing each piece is hard. "I've had to make the separation that this isn't my art. This is business." On the home front things changed for her, too. Her husband decided to stay home with their two year old daughter so she could work fulltime.

Astarte Studios credits success to the help they received from SCORE, the Service Corp of Retired Executives. SCORE volunteers walked them through every aspect of business planning from financials to marketing.

"By the end of four months, we shopped the loan," said Schoel. "We applied through the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District, and we were just what they look for. We had an established client base and a studio already up and running."

They received a government funded business loan of $25,000 at four percent interest. They are now at the end of that loan and at the place where the Astarte Studios needs to "kick in and become a business."

For the two working moms it's been both scary and exciting to see what they can do with a business. Schoel said, "If we'd known we'd be without a salary. If we could have seen the fear and the unknowns that we've faced, we probably wouldn't have done it. But one day at a time is livable."

When they began, they worked out of Uryson's garage. Nine months ago they moved into a space off Second Street. It's that kind of continued forward motion that what the two women are counting on.

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