Monday, December 10, 2007

From the Ends of the Earth store specializes in fair-trade crafts

By Minnie Payne

Wendi Medling, owner of From the Ends of the Earth, 839 W. Davis, Dallas, is well traveled. She has been to:

• Africa

• Canada

• Mexico

• Guatemala

• All Central America countries, except El Salvador

• Argentina

• Sri Lanka

• Hong Kong

• Japan

• Sierra

• Turkey

Medling, 42, a former English teacher and English as a Second Language teacher, with a double B.A. major in English and psychology, first started traveling for vacation, fun and life experience. Now, she travels to as many countries as possible on business, visiting cooperatives and meeting new vendors.

She is also an artist, using her home as a studio and her store, two art galleries and art shows to display her paintings.

“From the Ends of the Earth sort of came about by accident,” she said. “I took a year off from teaching to stay home with our 3-year-old daughter and ended up opening my store instead.”

Medling explains that she wasn’t looking to start a store. The way that it came about was when her masseuse asked her to be on the lookout for a new salon location for her.

“The very next day I was driving down Davis Street in Oak Cliff, not too far from my home, and I saw a rent sign and thought ‘What the heck! I’ll stop and see what the price of the rent is,’” she said. “The price of the rent was amazingly low, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

She said her masseuse wasn’t interested, but she kept thinking about how she could combine all her interests - art, multiculturalism, traveling and teaching - and use the space as a store.

“I signed the lease in November 2004 and opened the store Feb. 1, 2005.” she said. “I first thought I would open an import store, but decided on a fair-trade store in order to help the people I had met in my travels and to bring in arts and crafts.”

What is fair-trade?

Fair-trade is an agreement between a producer and a seller that stipulates that branded merchandise will be sold at or above a specified price.

“I contacted the Fair-Trade Federation that has a listing of fair-trade cooperatives all over the world as well as small businesses like mine,” Medling said. ”I also contacted people whom I had met in different countries who were doing crafts, and I started gathering merchandise.”

After contacting artisans in Asia, Mexico and Central America, she said she used resources from the Fair-Trade Federation to stock her store.

“As an English as a Second Language teacher, I had students from all over the world,” she said. “I feel that that this store represents all my interests, because it pulls together all the aspects of art and the goods that people make.

“I’m also teaching when I tell my customers about fair-trade on a daily basis; customers want to know the story behind what they buy.”

Medling said that sometimes at the end of the day when everybody is gone and she stands in the middle of the store, she can feel the creative energy and love that went into her merchandise.

“It gives me great pleasure to know that I’m helping to complete a cycle for artists all over the world by giving them an opportunity to sell their products at a fair price,” she said. “Also, young people will see their parents making a fair price, and they will want to carry on those traditions and crafts.”

John Butler, a regular customer of From the Ends of the Earth and an Oak Cliff resident, said that there was an eclectic mix of products from around the world and an organic atmosphere throughout the store.

“I buy all my coffee here, so I come in often,” he said. “I also buy gifts, and I bought one of Wendi’s paintings.”

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