Monday's Press Register featured a wonderful article on Marty and Rex Leatherbury, importers extraordinaire and Windmill Market permanent vendors! Marty and Rex source beautiful antiques, each with a fascinating story that the Leatherburys are happy to relate any time you stop by their booth or their expansive store/warehouse space on HWY 98 in Fairhope.
Read the story behind their gorgeous antiques and jewelry on display as you enter the market- article copied below.
Baldwin to Beijing: Leatherburys label themselves a 'nation of two'
by Roy Hoffman, Mobile Press Register, Monday, November 7, 2011
http://blog.al.com/live/2011/11/in_china_fairhope_couple_marty.html
BEIJING, CHINA -- For Marty and Rex Leatherbury, China feels like a second home.
The Leatherburys lived in China from 2003 until the 2008 Beijing Olympics and have returned regularly since to buy jewelry, furniture and art objects for their Asian import shop in Fairhope, M-Art Imports.
This fall, the Leatherburys spent six weeks in China.
Ni hao!” they said — hello, in Chinese — friends answering back, “Ni hao.”
In Beijing, a city of 20 million, as they made their way through neighborhoods to talk to furniture suppliers, and to wholesalers at the pearl market, they were like locals, catching up with Chinese friends.
The city of Beijing — sleek skyscrapers, ancient Buddhist temples, hectic streets — pulsed around them.
For Marty, who designs jewelry using pearls from China and precious and semi-precious stones from India and Thailand, the visit inspired artistic expression.
At the Beijing pearl market, some of her designs are on display in a store owned by a Chinese jeweler, Joe Zhao.
Those include a necklace with maroon jewels — garnets and rubies — to symbolize the couple’s alma mater, the University of Alabama.
In 2003, the Leatherburys had moved to China as investors in a sports venture related to promoting the Olympics.
They knew little Mandarin — the most common dialect of the Chinese language — and found themselves struggling through a maze.
Throughout Beijing, many families at that time still lived in “hutongs” — narrow alleys lined with small dwellings, many occupied by several generations. Bicycles crowded the walks.
For the first year, they met only Chinese people.
But, says Marty, recalling that period, “We loved that every day was an adventure.”
Around them, as the country readied for the Olympics, they began to witness dramatic change: hutongs replaced by apartment buildings, bicycles by cars.
Still, there was a sense of loss, what Rex calls “the destruction of a living museum,” the old China making way for the new.
As a hobby, the Leatherburys had enjoyed jewelry design and seeking out Chinese antiques.
After the Olympics, they decided to make their hobby their new business.
They learned more about Chinese history, art, and antiques. Rex became ever more adept at Mandarin.
They started to market their jewelry and furniture at home and developed business associates, such as Chinese antiques dealer Tracy Feng, a Beijing native.
This fall, the couple visited with Feng, heading to her warehouse situated on blocks where men cook dishes on burners set up on the walk.
Schoolchildren passed by, calling out, “Hello, hello!” practicing their elementary school English on the couple they recognized as Americans.
Mothers on motor scooters zipped down the street with kids — no helmets — holding onto the back.
Beijing, says Marty, sprawls over more acreage than Connecticut.
Once a provincial, slightly backward capital of Chinese communism, it is now a pulsating capitalistic economic zone. “This is not your grandfather’s communism,” Marty says.
Through Feng’s warehouse, the Leatherburys walked past antique trunks, ornate boxes, enormous baskets, choosing objects to purchase for their Fairhope store.
“The Chinese people are the best thing about China,” says Rex. “They are the most loyal and loving friends.”
They have made a loyal friend in Feng.
After the visit to Feng’s warehouse, they were invited to her family’s two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise.
Feng and her husband live there, with their bright-eyed, inquisitive son, and her husband’s father and mother.
Feng welcomed them in, while her mother-in-law finished the dumplings. Crowding around a small table, they conversed in Mandarin and relished the food.
Afterward, Marty and Rex headed back to central Beijing, near Tiannamen Square, by way of the sleek metro transit system.
Rex’s cell phone rang — a call from friends making plans to meet up the next night at a Peking duck restaurant. The group would include professionals in the world business community, new friends from Taiwan, from Japan, from Hungary.
The Leatherburys call themselves “a nation of two,” who delight the international back-and-forth.
They give a portion of their sales to the White Oaks Foundation, which they started, and that helps educate disadvantaged youths worldwide. Locally, they have sponsored summer art programs in Baldwin County and a music camp in New Orleans.
Marty says she looks forward to the day that her Chinese friends will bring their children and visit the U.S. It will be an experience, she says, “that their parents’ generation could never have dreamed of.”
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