by Meg Krugel

Antonio Lopez is sitting at a striking table and chair set made of bright orange suede and hand-shaped wicker. Before he takes his seat, he takes a moment to honor the origins of the piece. “This is from beautiful Jalisco,” he explains. It’s the kind of artwork that seems more for looking, less for touching – but so do a lot of the quality handmade crafts Lopez sells at his new home interior store, Aztlan Home Décor, on the edge of tourist-central Pike Place Market. Here, surrounded by artisan handiwork from all over Mexico, Lopez, a new-business owner at 39, couldn’t look more at home.

Born in Mexico City and raised in the state of Veracruz, Lopez’s path didn’t always lead straight into small-business ownership. After graduating with a degree in economics from the Universidad Veracruzana in Jalapa, Lopez headed straight into international finance through a position at Bank of America. The young banker came to the United States in his mid-20s, joining his family in San Diego. But he didn’t stay long in Southern California. “It was too hot,” he remembers. “Mexico City gets cold in the winter.” Not long after, in 1995, he opted for the Northwest, and “it was beautiful here.”

“I had the idea that I wanted to be a business owner, ever since I was in college, but I didn’t know exactly what it was I wanted to do,” Lopez says. So it was during a trip back to his home country that the path became a little clearer. When he stopped in at a local artist’s shop, he was immediately drawn by the quality of the work. “You never see this type of art in the United States,” he explains. And the few crafts that do make it back to the Northwest are “usually at the bottom of the line” – noting that tourists in Mexico rarely have the opportunity to bring back quality pieces of art that represent the best in Mexican artisan tradition.

However, for Lopez, there was a bigger goal in mind. Beyond bringing gallery-quality Mexican artistry to the U.S., he wanted to do his part to support artisans from his home country. Through the Mexican government’s Office of Social Development (OSD), Lopez uses his business to participate in a federal fund that helps local Latino artists grow economically while developing their varied crafts. The mission of the fund, as well as Aztlan Home Décor, is to “contribute to the improvement of the artists’ living standards, stimulate production, preserve values of their traditional culture, techniques and designs, and secure the position of quality artisan products in the national and international markets.” Lopez adds that the fund also focuses on helping the artists develop environmentally sustainable “green” techniques to their production processes.

“When I heard about the program, I thought ‘this is great,’ because I wanted to bring to the United States something different,” he explains. “But at the same time, it’s going to fulfill a personal need – that I wanted to help somehow. Being Hispanic, I wanted to help and give something back to my community.”
And, Lopez adds, the effects of a successfully run Latino-owned business like Aztlan Home Décor on public perception in the United States can be powerful, too. About a year before he would open his store in February 2007, Lopez was one of 25,000 marchers in attendance at a massive immigration rally in downtown Seattle. During the April 2006 event, “everybody was talking about Hispanics – how they come here illegally and just bring crime,” Lopez remembers. “I thought doing this sort of venture (Aztlan Home Décor) would show to others that Mexico has more to offer than just illegal immigrants. In fact, we have a long history of artisans who deal with traditional techniques that many in the U.S. would find beautiful.”
Lopez’ interest in art and history, coupled with his professional experience in banking, served Aztlan Home Décor well during its start-up stage. He was familiar with the basics of securing a bank loan and a business permit but he needed a mentor of sorts, which he found in several regional business development organizations, particularly the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of Seattle, the Bellevue Entrepreneurial Center and the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA).

Before opening his store last year, Lopez worked with the SBDC to develop and execute his business plan, and received marketing exposure from the GSBA, an organization that provides business development and leadership to expand opportunities for lesbian and gay business owners. As a result of Aztlan’s success this past year, the GSBA honored Lopez with the “New Business of the Year” award at its recent Business and Humanitarian Awards Dinner in April.

Despite the support of these organizations, Lopez acknowledges it would have been useful to have a professional mentor who shared his experiences of being Latino in the Northwest business arena. In the future, he sees potential in starting up, or at least becoming a part of, a Hispanic mentorship program to help guide new Latino business owners through the initial development stages of entrepreneurship.
In the meantime, he’s making it a priority to incorporate minority-owned business principles into his own leadership at the store. Of his two employees, one of whom is Latino, the other who is gay, he says, “I have been able to reach out to my own communities and create opportunities for minority populations, and that is something I will continue to do.”

As with all new (and many old) business ventures – especially in the current economic climate – Aztlan Home Décor has seen its share of ups and downs financially. Shortly before its one-year anniversary in January, profits took a deep dive. “February wasn’t so good either, and March and April were both pretty slow,” Lopez says. But, with the upswing of the tourist season that began in late spring, he’s seeing the business make a turn for the better. Ten days into the month of June, monthly revenue has already surpassed the entire profits made just one month earlier.
His sales pitch is pretty simple: “If you want to get something unique, something precious, something cool – you come to Aztlan!”

So, here Lopez sits, on his gorgeous orange wicker settee, surrounded by ornate Mexican vases, hand-woven fabrics, carved gourds and more. But for the quality of the art, the prices are very reasonable. Plus, with every purchase, customers get a story. Every piece inside Aztlan Home Décor – even the store’s hand-painted flooring and homemade shelf displays – are one of a kind (Lopez created them from recycled materials before opening the store to the public).

He likes to think of the space as a small gallery unto its own. “Mexican handicrafts can be very colorful,” he explains, waving his hand across a tapestry of bright blues, pinks and yellows. But interestingly enough, the more he has developed the store with intricate, colorful art pieces, the simpler his own home has become. “My home is actually pretty plain now that I am surrounded by beautiful Mexican art every day.”

AZTLAN HOME DECOR
1427 Western Ave.
Seattle, WA 98101
206.621.8989

www.aztlanhomedecor.com
jantoniolv@aztlanhomedecor.com

[Thanks: http://colorsnw.com]