Bluestem celebrates 25 years of retail teamwork

Time flies for downtown veterans

When Bluestem Missouri Crafts opened on Sept. 8, 1983, founding partner Sue Luger was terrified.

“It was really very scary,” Luger said. “We each invested a small amount of money. But from day one, we started selling things. We actually purchased baskets from one artist and were afraid we wouldn’t be able to sell them. Funnily, enough, the baskets sold really well.”

Luger is one of five women who started Bluestem Missouri Crafts, which turns 25 next month. Ceramic teapots, handmade jewelry and soap made from goat’s milk are just a few of the items you can expect to find when you walk into the three-room gallery. It didn’t always used to be so spacious.

The gallery’s look is effortless. But Bluestem’s beginnings were labor intensive. Along with Luger, original partners Marilyn Vernon, Mary Benjamin, Barbara Overby and Sandy Litecky ripped through two ceilings to convert the structure from an optometrist’s office to a one-room art gallery. “We basically gutted the building. I never expected that it would evolve to what it is today,” she said. “It’s something that started out so gradually. We’ve come a long way in 25 years.”

Overby and Vernon are no longer partners but still showcase their work at the gallery, and have since been replaced by Cynthia Messer and Laura Bullion.

The original partners were selling their work in different art shows when they got together and decided to establish a place where they could sell their own work and other artists’ at a permanent location.

The partners started out with 10 artists, Luger said, and have grown to represent over 300 today. Every woman on the team has a role she plays within Bluestem. Luger handles the consignment artists. “We take their work and try to turn it over and sell it within six months,” she explained. Benjamin is in charge of wholesale. She buys artwork, and the women sell it in their store. Messer deals with the administrative side of the business, doing everything from paying bills to finding a repairman if anything breaks down. Litecky does the bookkeeping, and Bullion is in charge of advertising. In addition to their assigned duties, the partners each work one day a week and every fifth Saturday.

Today, the three-room gallery primarily represents artists from Missouri, with one room devoted to artists from the eight neighboring states. “We try to focus on local artists,” Luger said. “We started with artists in Missouri, but eventually went on to include the neighboring states gallery.”

Bullion remembers coming into Bluestem Missouri Crafts not long after it first opened. She went from being a customer who enjoyed the gallery, to retiring and working at the store, to finally becoming a partner in 2006.  She said the place is much larger and the crafts are more extensive when she remembers her first memories of the gallery. Bluestem’s 25th anniversary excites Bullion. “There are a number of stores around town that were also established the same year. It’s pretty amazing to realize Bluestem has been around for 25 years,” she said.

Luger can’t believe Bluestem has reached this milestone. “I think it’s fantastic.”