About Us
The Sacred Source Story
Celebrating 45 years!
In 1978, Richard “Freeman” Allan, while serving with Mother Teresa in Kolkata India, had the idea to import clay statues to America in order to benefit the traditional artisans he met. He became friends with a Hindu couple, Rita and Debtosh “Bacchu” Bose, who offered to help organize the India/U.S. partnership, and so JBL began.
They sold a small set of Hindu and Buddhist “Murtis” or statues. The very first statue was a handpainted Ganges River Clay Hanuman, the Hindu God of service and heartfelt devotion.
In response to customer requests for western images, such as Lilith and Willendorf, they launched the JBL Statues catalog, one of the pioneers in building awareness of sacred images. You may still see JBL Statues referenced in older books, articles, and websites.
Freeman expanded the collection to represent a wide range of cultures and religions. Later he began offering images by modern artists, such as Abby Willowroot’s iconic Spiral Goddess, and Billie John’s detailed Archangels.
In 1998, JBL was renamed Sacred Source. When Freeman was ready to retire in 2001, he sold the business to Liana and Pete Kowalzik, who moved to Virginia from Wisconsin to learn everything Freeman had to teach them. Visits to India helped to grow a new friendship between the Kowalzik family and the Bose family and the artisans in India.
Pete and Liana continued adding images, both ancient and modern, including the works of Mickie Mueller, Christopher Orapello, and Jeff Cullen, as well as expanding methods of reaching new people, including email newsletters and social media.
Today, we remain a small company true to the original missions: supporting handcraft artisan families; offering a large selection of sacred images; and facilitating personal growth.
We know that without our wonderful friends and customers none of this would be possible. Thank you for your support!
Blessings!
from Liana, Pete, and all of us at Sacred Source
Who We Are
Sacred Source is a leading producer of ancient deity images in North America aspiring to bring affordable museum reproduction and folk-handcraft deity images back into Western culture. We offer online retail shopping and are also a wholesale distributor, Although we no longer print a paper catalog, we still welcome mail orders
What We Do
Through our artisan community and handcraft workshop in India, we produce over 350 separate statues in Ganges clay, polymer resin, gypsum, cold cast bronze, and pewter, as well as decorative jewelry of several kinds. Our sister company in Kolkata, JBL, supports a number of traditional artisan families
Where We Work
The offices of Sacred Source, located near Charlottesville, Virginia, are comprised of a lovely sunroom office facing the Blue Ridge, containing customer service stations, a packer's work station, as well as inventory; and a detatched warehouse for inventory with a second packer's work station.
How We Do It
We strive to give our artisans a year-round guarantee of creative work and income, a circumstance previously unimaginable in this notoriously impoverished part of the Third World. Child-labor, sweatshops & globalization have never been used by Sacred Source.
Our Mission Statement:
To nurture each individual's inner growth with the spiritual wisdom of ancient symbols and images.
Business Ethic:
We strive to satisfy our customers' needs by offering a quality product at a fair price with superior service.
Your Spiritual Statue's Story
We develop the design for your devotional image to reflect the intentions of the artist, whether it was created 300,000 years ago or today. Our master artisans sculpt the image prototype, the mold small batches of statues by hand your statue is lovingly hand finished for lasting beauty,
