My beaded valentine: one couple’s story
By Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
Jo Merkle and Phil Berry just left their homestead to head west, seeking treasure.
This isn’t the first time. The couple plans such trips each year.
Leaving behind their off-the-grid, self-built, country cabin and in-town business in an older home situated near the ghost of railroad tracks (which once brought bustling activity to the west side of Athens), the good-natured duo will return with a temporarily-satiated travel bug. The round trip to warm, sunny Tucson, Arizona and the 2009 Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase provides Merkle and Berry with necessary revitalization and stock, readying them for the beginning of a busy season at their co-owned 8 N. Shafer Street shop, Beads and Things.
But, as their travels have taken them all over the world, they say they always happily gravitate back to Athens, a place that, for them, suits who they are best: as a couple, business partners, and individuals.
For Merkle, the reason is simple: “The magic of Athens and living here is that when you are doing something that you are meant to be doing, it just comes together.”
The result of that “magic” is revealed in gained respect as a business, highlighted by earning Ohio Magazine’s vote as the best bead store in Ohio in 2006 and 2007.
Watching her own mother’s lifelong talent as a beader, Merkle picked up the trait herself in childhood. “I love beads. They are little treasures, beautiful pieces. Each bead is a little piece of art from everywhere in the world,” she says.
In 1990, after years of traveling to acquire beads and lamenting the lack of nearby vendors, Merkle opened Beads and Things with an agreeable Berry.
The store is lined with row after row of such treasure: colorful variations of beads – seed beads, Rudraksha tree prayer beads, Czech glass, Japanese delicas, lampwork, bone, wood, and metal beads - fill glass cups, racks, and shelving alongside tools, decorative rocks, and beaded wall-hangings and accessories.
After filling a tray with beads and supplies, the customer is urged to sit at one of the ready antique wooden tables to test the depths of his or her learned creative genes. With genuine mirth, the couple says their patient instruction is aimed to put a customer at ease.
Berry comments, “It’s a place where people come and will often spend a lot of time - they might spend hours here. We tend to make relationships with our customers.” He continues, “The best part is seeing what kind of creative things they are doing. Many people get in here say, ‘Oh, I’m not that creative, I can’t do that.’” He jokes, “So, we kind of bully them into being creative, ‘Yes! You can! Sit down!’”
Merkle, laughing, explains further, “No, we help to facilitate the creative process, because everybody is creative. They get to imbibe it with their energy. It’s not really expensive - under five dollars. To provide the space and having the supplies here is a good thing to be able to do, and let them be creative.”
But it is the final product that brings the most satisfaction. Says Merkle, “As they try it on looking in the mirror, you watch their eyes and their face and they are illuminated!”
The current economic recession has slowed spending worldwide, but Berry says it hasn’t affected their business. “When money is tight, people can make things for a lot less and get a lot more value,” he notes.
As if the couple’s life and pursuits together could be explained as coming together one bead at a time on a string, Berry says, smiling, “It’s just evolved into what it is.” Merkle agrees, saying, “Everything just fell together.”
Berry began visiting Athens in the early 1970’s, and he “fell in love with the place.” Merkle, separately arriving in 1971 as a student, then felt the urge to move to the country, and began to farm organically. Though they had met, they would not start dating until years later, in the mid-eighties. “We both take things pretty much a day at a time; we don’t make long term plans,” she says.
They had only been dating for a short time before Merkle was offered to purchase nearby property. Because she was familiar with the land and adored the location, she felt she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. She asked Berry if he’d like to go in on it with her. He agreed. “We didn’t know it would manifest into being a long-term relationship,” says Merkle.
Though they have often had to live hand to mouth, and for much of the time slept in evolving-sized tents on their property, it is a lifestyle they have chosen. They have built their cabin – complete with a shower that pumps water from their pond – by periodically affording one board at a time for nearly ten years. “People who say they have to wait until they have money to do something,” says Merkle, “will be waiting forever. You never end up having enough. You don’t wait.”
They consider themselves to have everything they need, especially each other.
“I love working with Phil.” Merkle says. “I always wanted a partner that I could work with, build with and have a lot of fun with.”
He agrees, “I couldn’t imagine not working together in some fashion or other.”
Merkle relates a story of when she first knew Berry was “the one”. On a trip out west, she had seen a strand of black tourmalated quartz and debated purchasing it. As they drove away, she kept musing out loud that she would like to have it, but resisted when he offered to drive back. Finally, at least one hundred miles away, she announced she’d decided: she wanted the beads. With no hesitation, he turned round. “He didn’t skip a beat,” she remembers. “I knew how much I liked him before, but then I knew.”
In all the years together, the duration of the 18 they have been able to keep their store open surprises them. They attribute it to the community. “The community support is just fabulous,” Berry says.
Merkle agrees, “That’s why we are in business.”
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