Shop showcases diversity

The diverse shops lining the block of Broadway and Redondo Ave.  in Long Beach sell a multitude of interesting merchandise, sure to interest fans of the strange.

Since October of 1999, this location has given Gian and Shirley Temperilli a chance to offer their artistic talents to the Long Beach community.

Good Seed/Bad Seed is a retail store unlike any place you will find in Long Beach.  It claims to be the place where "Martha Stewart meets Marilyn Manson."

"The idea of the store came from the difference in personality between Shirley and myself as we were growing up," said Julie Gonzales, Shirley Temperilli's sister who comes into the store once a week to help out.

"The Good Seed is Julie's side," Shirley Temperilli said. "It has the Martha Stewart home and garden items."

"The Bad Seed has the dark things connected with my personality such as the gothic, medieval items."

Divided in half, the decoration and display intrigues customers the moment they set foot in. One half offers an eclectic blend of home accessories for indoors and outdoors decorating ? tile arts, lawn tables, cabinets.
Facing the opposite wall is the dark half of the store.

A dark purple wall is the background for shelves filled with items for the typical gladiator: swords, battle helmets, goblin statues, steel shirts and hoods.

The Temperilli's also offer the only custom-made chain mail fashion and traditional henna tattoo services in Long Beach.

Although they are considered new kids on this particular block of Broadway, they are involved in the two rarest and oldest forms of art.

Gian Temperilli is the person behind Brave Art, a growing Internet and retail chain mail fashion business.  He has been making chain mail fashions ranging from armors to necklaces and bra tops.

Shirley Temperilli, on the other hand, is the only traditionally trained Henna tattoo artist in Long Beach.  Henna is a 4,000-year-old art that uses a special Indian paste to place temporary tattoos on an individual.

But the store is more than a business to them.

"It is our home away from home," says Shirley Temperilli. "We come here and everything you would find at our house is here."