Urban Alchemist
343 5th Street
(718) 499-0758
www.urbanalchemiststore.com

There really is something kind of magical about Urban Alchemist. I was on my way to another shopping destination when I passed by the pink and purple window and caught my eye on something in the display, a skeleton made of cloth. I'm a big time bone lover, but I'd never seen anything like it, and had to go in.

The shop glows. You can see why it gets a lot of regulars; everything is fun to look at and touch. Everything is interesting, from the jewelry, clothes, dishware, and sculptures, to the displays that house them. One case is filled with dried black beans and neck pieces strung with feathers and diamond-cut plastic beads. Clusters of porcelain pins sit beside a vase of giant feathers and a bottle of messages. Soy candles in the shape of pineapples hover next to an antique case full of milky glass teacups and saucers. It makes you want to make things.

Turns out my meandering find was no anomaly. According to partner Imaan Selim, who with Rebecca Shepherd founded the collective, converting the space from an old toy store, a lot of people somehow just stumble on in. Even while interviewing her for this piece, a woman, who turned out to also be a jewelry designer, came into the shop, saying she was "just passing by" and "had to check it out."

This kind of traffic is necessary for any retail business, and all the more fortunate for a business that opened only a year and a half ago, in the midst of troubled times. Certainly part of the magic comes from the shop's distinct co-op structure: a core collective of 5 artist-members, carrying work from a constellation of consignment designers, as well as rotating exhibitions and evenings by Brooklyn artists.

"We wouldn't have been able to make it so far if we hadn't been a co-op," says Imaan. "It's not only easier, but more interesting."

She cites one of her favorite exhibits put on at Urban Alchemist. They had decided to recreate a show called Dirty Laundry, where strangers wrote and sent in secrets which were then strung from clotheslines, but they hadn't gotten the volume of requests they expected from a Craigslist post. To make things really exciting, the New York Times had written the show up a few days before the opening, so with free publicity from the Gray Lady herself, the last-minute pressure was really on. Imman and Rebecca did what any clever, collective-minded artists would do: they begged their friends to spill the beans. Like an Amish barn-raising of champagne and creative honesty, the group pulled it off.

"One thing that's really cool is that it's always changing with who's a part of it and what ideas they bring to it," says Imaan. Most of the co-op members and consigned artists all have other full-time jobs, so the whole group makes it happen. Imaan's dream is to put a jeweler's bench in the shop, so that whoever is working the store gets to be in the studio at the same time.

"We're all designers more than business people, we learn as we go along," she says.

Some of Imaan's current favorites include dishware by Xena Verda Pesta, who puts antique designs on earthily-shaped pottery, pillows by Andy Culpsa, who embroiders brightly colored details onto vintage prints, and clothes by Led Thread, a master of the elegant silhouette.

The place is full of perfect gifts. They'll be having a Christmas sale Sunday December 13, where everything in the store will be 10-60% off. Even if you don't buy anything, spending some time in Urban Alchemist may well give you a real treat: seeing so many human touches makes you want to make things.