Julia Rush, owner of the area's premier fine crafts gallery and gift shop for 30 years, is closing her store on downtown's Union Square.
The closing process will begin Tuesday with a going-out-of business sale.
"These years have been wonderful, but now my 'things I want to do' list is growing longer and longer," Rush said.
"I've made the decision that it's time for me to officially retire. I'm excited about the new adventures ahead, but also very sad to make this announcement."
Rush said the weak economy played a part in her decision to close the store.
"It's been tough these past several years, and I'm ready to go in a different direction," she said.
" I really want to work more in the community. There are so many things I'm anxious to do."
The -julia rush- Fine Crafts store is the second veteran Union Square retailer to announce its closing this month.
The Spainhour Gift Company, a gift and home accessory retailer with 80-year-old family ties to downtown, announced Feb. 15 that it will close because of the weak economy.
The Spainhour Gift Company is in the lower level of a building at 246 Union Square. Rush's store is at 216 Union Square.
The closing sale at Rush's 2,000-square-foot store will begin at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and continue for several weeks. The inventory, which includes pottery, jewelry, metal, glass, incense, cards, lotions and more, will be reduced 20 percent to 75 percent.
"Above all, I want to thank my manager of 14 years, Lana Ruffini, and my staff, Gail Ruffini, Missy Jordan and Lindsay Barrick," Rush said.
"I cannot give them enough credit for the wonderful work they have done over the years. We have become a real family, and I will miss working with them day after day."
Rush will continue making custom jewelry by special order. Her former store will be available for rent.
An Indiana native and former teacher, Rush was living in Atlanta in the late 1970s, throwing pots and aiming at a recording career, when she married Hickory architect Beemer Harrell, now deceased.
With Harrell's encouragement, Rush opened her first gallery in a rented facility in Mountain View, then in 1981 built Julia Rush's Center for Crafts a few miles farther south on N.C. 127.
In addition to selling crafts, Rush rented studio space in the rustic building to other craftsmen. She also became active in the local arts and crafts scene, hosting Celebration of the Arts activities, publishing the Center for Crafts Reporter and founding the Catawba Valley Guild of Craftsmen.
By 1983, the Center for Crafts had outgrown its original space, so Rush and Harrell bought the old A.A. Whitener Building on Union Square. Built in the 1890s, the former Cole's jewelry store was renovated into upstairs offices for Harrell's architectural firm and street-level space for Center for Crafts II.
Rush soon sold the Mountain View building, then changed the name of the downtown store to -julia rush- Fine Crafts.
She launched a couple of other business ventures, including a Charlotte craft gallery that lasted six years, but it has been the downtown store that proved her mainstay.
Rush can be reached at (828) 244-3776.
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