A HAPPY
MAN, RICHLY BLESSED
JAMES AVERY

By JANIS TURK
Photographs by DAN DANIELS and JANIS TURK

Good things come in small packages, and even the biggest of dreams can start in small spaces. Famed Hill Country craftsman James Avery can attest to that — like Bill Gates, he started a highly successful business in a garage with little more than a dream and desire to create something meaningful. And each day he and his associates continue to create beautifully hand-crafted pieces from silver, gold and gemstones — delightful things that come in small packages and last a lifetime.

Known throughout Texas and the United States for his classic original designs, Avery built a workbench, set up shop in a garage outside Kerrville 52 years ago and went to work crafting charms, crosses, rings, bracelets and more. Although he began with only $250 in seed money and no staff at all, today James Avery Craftsman Inc., employs a staff of more than 1,400 and boasts 41 stores in five states.

As with so many things in life, Avery’s calling came not as a shout, but a whisper that he almost didn’t hear, and came in the form of a simple symbol — a cross. In 1951, while living in Colorado, Avery crafted a cross out of metal to wear around his neck . He was teaching design at the University of Colorado at Boulder in those days, when he spotted a Southwestern Pueblo Indian cross in a store called Kohlberg’s in Denver. “What strength and simplicity there was in that design,” recalls Avery, who hoped to create things with such classic qualities, so he got a book from the library on how to make jewelry, crafted a simple cross and put it on.

“I tied it to the end of a string because I couldn’t afford a chain,” recalls Avery of that time so long ago.

Soon others began asking if he’d make them crosses, too, so he made a few more ... and a few more … and a few more.

Little did Avery know how entirely the cross would change and shape his life — in more ways than one.

Today, more than five decades later, Avery’s crosses and other jewelry, both religious and secular in style, are popular worldwide and have made him a household name in Texas and much of the United States — not bad for a quiet man who loved working with his hands and had no grand ambition beyond feeding his family and flexing his creative muscles.

Avery’s pieces all have a unique style that is easily recognizable and highly popular with both men and women in all walks of life.

Creativity had always been important to Avery. When he was a boy, his mother constantly encouraged him to draw, build and craft things and made sure he always had little projects at hand to color, carve and create. She made sure he learned to play the piano, too, and nurtured all his talents. Avery learned perseverance and patience from her and came to appreciate talent and creativity in whatever form it could be found.

“My mother encouraged me and directed my education with such care. I was always drawn to structures and materials, and I liked to draw and build things. How parents direct their children is so important,” says Avery.

“Mother gave me Ivory soap to carve with a knife, and here in my office I keep those very same little figures I made for her. I later cast them in silver, too,” he says, taking out a small box that holds soap figures of a horse and an angel, setting them beside their silver twins on his desk. Surprisingly, Avery’s signature style of simplicity and form, so unique to his work, is apparent even in these childhood pieces.

Spending time with his maternal grandparents on their farm in Iowa, Avery also learned the meaning of hard work and the rewards of being in tune with nature. That, too, would play a role in the future he was to carve out for himself.

Avery, who was born in Milwaukee, Wis.,was raised in the Chicago area, and he spent a good deal of time with his grandparents. Although he was a Midwesterner by birth, Avery was immediately taken by the beauty of the Lone Star State and the friendly people he met here when he was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base during his service as a cadet in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After leaving San Antonio, he was able to see more of the state throughout his time in the service and would cover much of the globe as a pilot during World War II.

“When I had my first taste of Texas, I thought,‘This is great!’”Avery says.He was stationed in Fort Stockton, and people there took the cadets to dinner and to see the Marfa lights and were always kind to him. Everywhere he went in Texas — San Angelo, Del Rio, Lubbock, Dallas, San Antonio — he met the friendliest people. “I thought,‘Texans are great!’” he recalls, and he hoped to one day return to live in Texas. But first he had to serve his country.

As a pilot, he flew 44 missions over Europe. “I liked to fly low. It’s amazing that I didn’t kill myself on several occasions,” says Avery, who is flying high now with such grand success.

After the war, Avery returned to the University of Illinois, where he earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in industrial design. “I still really didn’t know what I wanted to do … I’d taken an aptitude test, and it said I either should be a surgeon or an architect,” he says.

It was then that Avery met Jim Shipley, a professor at the University of Illinois who would become his mentor and life-long friend. In fact, Shipley was so instrumental in encouraging him and his talent that Avery has endowed a chair in Shipley’s name at the University of Illinois.

“When I started, I thought I’d work on beautiful designs for important things like washing machines,” says Avery with a chuckle. “I was interested in product design … and, evidently, I was pretty good at it,” he jokes. But in those days he didn’t design jewelry.

“Jewelry,” he thought,“was for wimps!” Shaking his head and smiling at the irony of it all, Avery tells how he and the other students used to tease a guy who made jewelry in design class in school.

Soon after, Shipley recommended Avery for a position at the University of Iowa. “The big salary of $2,400 a year was too good to pass up, even though I really wanted to go to Dallas instead,” says Avery, who by then was a husband and father. He spent two years in Iowa teaching industrial design, but he still was interested
in doing bigger and better things, so he went to Wisconsin to meet with Frank Lloyd Wright to see if he could live and work at his compound there.

“I spent an hour and a half with him. He had a model of the Guggenheim Museum on his desk. We talked mostly about Japan — he was very upset about our bombing Japan,” recalls Avery. After the meeting, he left feeling a bit discouraged. “Wright told me, ‘You’re married, and you have a child — it’s too late. You should have married architecture first!’ So I didn’t go to work for him after all.”

Instead, he went to the University of Colorado at Boulder to teach design. “I was a defensive agnostic back then and leaned pretty much to my own understanding — I guess I still do sometimes,” says Avery with a wink,“at least, I still think a lot about the truth.”Avery soon learned a truth that would change his life.

During this time, nature, art, design and family were important things to him — but God wasn’t.To him, as it was to Frank Lloyd Wright, nature was the only god he needed. All creation was his cathedral. All beauty was his inspiration. That is, until circumstances in his personal life drove Avery to a time of despair so deep that he wasn’t sure where to turn. At his mother’s urging, he turned to an Episcopal priest on campus named Father Pat (who just happened to be a Texan).

“Father Pat embraced me — literally. I needed that. I think it’s important for a man to be embraced, especially when he’s so down. I just needed an arm around me and someone to tell me ‘You’ve got a friend.’ Father Pat did that,” says Avery.“I will never forget him.”

The priest did more than just offer a shoulder and a hug; he invited Avery to a chapel service and helped him see that, while God’s creation is beautiful and meaningful, the love and care of the Creator of the universe offered some-thing far greater and more satisfying.

The simplicity of the message of the cross resonated in Avery, and he especially took comfort in reading the words of the Psalmists who cried out in times of trouble and found peace and grace from a merciful God.The Book of Proverbs also meant a great deal to him — and it still does.

“I sat in the chapel looking at the prayer book, and read these prayers that talked about heavy burdens … and I understood and felt that too, and I thought,‘Wow, this makes sense!’” recalls Avery. “I liked the simplicity in the truths Christ teaches. He takes the Ten Commandments and simplifies them into two important rules: Love the Lord with all your heart and mind and soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself. So simple! So true! ‘This is good. This is right,’ I thought.” It was then that the cross came to have meaning in Avery’s life.“Then I was, as I am now, personally convinced that the cross is, for all people, the symbol of truth, hope, goodness and life everlasting.”

And so he made a cross for himself and began a new life as a Christian.

In the summer of 1954, Avery was ready to leave teaching behind and forge a new beginning in the Texas hills. So he began making jewelry in the garage, crafting little charms and necklaces for summer camps and making crosses and rings.

In the first year, Avery did $5,500 in sales, and he struggled to pay himself $2 an hour. By the third year, his business was grossing $10,500, so he hired a craftsman named Fred Garcia, who had been trained by an artist at San Antonio’s LaVillita to come and help him. Avery paid him $1 per hour instead of the 75- cent minimum wage. In 1968, Avery took out a small business loan to build a studio on the property and bought 12 acres near Kerrville

Today, James Avery Craftsman Inc. has two manufacturing facilities in Comfort, one in Hondo and one in Fredericksburg, besides the big campus between Kerrville and Harper, where mostly finishing, distribution and product development take place. A retail store and visitor center is also on that site. Avery’s office is there as well. Two of Avery’s grown sons, Chris and Paul, help to run the business, and wife Estela is also a source of support and encouragement.

Avery, who turned 85 last month with a big party in his honor at a “party barn” he built not far from Kerrville, is a sharp, articulate man who is happy to share ideas and stories with those he meets. Although clearly faith has been the cornerstone of his life,when he’s asked theological questions, he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. Not one to spend time worrying about the afterlife or what tomorrow may bring, he is grateful for every moment God has given him so far.

“Life is good!” he says with a broad, honest smile. “I don’t need a better life than I have. I’ve been richly blessed.” Standing in his little workspace, which adjoins an office filled with things he’s created and photographs of family and friends, it’s clear to see, James Avery is a happy man.

From such small beginnings, such a big dream came true.