If you've driven the stretch of Route 88 where Point Pleasant Beach meets Bay Head, you've probably noticed Dean Fengya's colorful collection of ceramic pots at Globetrotter, the import store he's been running for 17 years.

What you may not have noticed is the religious statuary that grounds the carefully arranged field of blue, green, and beige. Fengya doesn't import it for its religious significance, but that hasn't stopped customers from turning some of the artifacts into shrines.

"My criteria is beauty. I see something that's beautiful or I meet people that I know can make something that's beautiful, perhaps with a little bit of my guidance and direction... and we work together," said Fengya. 

The pursuit of beauty has led Fengya to over 100 countries and he has integrated goods from close to 30 nations into Globetrotter and a second location that is set to open on Route 35 in July, he said.

Take those brightly colored ceramic pots that surround the flagship store, for example. They are handcrafted in Vietnam in the Anagama technique, which involves baking the clay in wood heated earth kilns for 7 days. Because of the care with which they're made, these pots can survive New Jersey winters without having to be covered, emptied, or turned over, Fengya said as we sat and talked at a ceramic table behind his store.

"The business has thrived, not because of my business acumen, but because I'm different enough to be informed by beauty and the customers that come in here get that and appreciate it," he said.

Their practice of leaving offerings in and around the religious figures began spontaneously and the money is donated to charity, said Fengya. Even so, it reflects an organic personal journey that began when the conceptual artist was 20.

Two friends were going to England for a work study program and invited Fengya to visit. What was supposed to be a 2-3 week trip turned into a 9 month backpacking adventure through Europe, and a life-long love affair with the cultures of the world.

For the first 15 years, Fengya worked as as a lifeguard and waiter in the summer to finance travel the rest of the year. 

"I got hooked and never looked back," he said.

"It's not sitting on a bus and watching the people go by. It's fully immersing myself in the culture, staying in the guest houses that they stay in or living in their homes, eating the food that they eat, sleeping the way they sleep," said Fengya.

When the globetrotter was 35, he decided he needed more financial security. A friend suggested that he become an importer. Fengya bristled at the idea, insisting it would be like prostituting his way of life.

Then, on a trip to India, he met a family of  Kashmiri rug weavers, bought a group of carpets from them, and eventually filled two large containers with furniture and other handcrafted merchandise, he said.

"At that point, I was collecting things I found. As I began to evolve over time, I began to do a lot more where I worked in villages that I had been in previously and started using their indigenous handicraft and adapting it to both American sensibilities and use forms," said Fengya.

"I work with people that are almost like family to me," he said about his change of heart. "There are villages where when I walk into the village, everybody comes out and smiles and waves and knows me."

For instance, he imports the work of a Thai artist who employs societal outcasts who have some form of disease, deformity, or disability.

"This artist uses cast off objects ... and he's also working with cast off human beings. It's a really beautiful place that he's created for himself, his wife, and these six people that work for him. It's just joyous and wonderful artwork," said Fengya.

The importer works directly with artisans to make sure they're getting a fair wage and that their lives are being improved, he said. He has also learned to involve whole communities rather than just individual families.

"What happens is if you do it on a broader scale and spread it out, you find that all of a sudden there's a medical clinic. Now I didn't put the medical clinic up, but the village has enough money coming into it that medical clinics are there," he said.

Through his travels, Fengya was introduced to the work of American mythologist Joseph Campbell.

"He was a brilliant man and had such a great knowledge of all the world religions and was able to weave the story of the different religions to say that they're very much the same, that religion is a tree and the different branches of the tree are the different religions," said Fengya, who was raised Roman Catholic, but said he has been immersed in cultures that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Jainism, Animism, and Zoroastrianism.

"What I tend to do is find the aspects within the religions that resonate with me. My worldview is a bit of a tapestry of both religious and philosophical ideas, but I would say more than being religious, I tend to be spiritual," he said, but he also identifies with the Animism of the tribal groups he's lived among.  

"The spirit of the tree and the spirit of the river really resonates with me because ... I feel a connection and feeling of oneness in the whole of the universe. It sounds corny, but that's what I believe," said Fengya.

"Even when I see evil, I know there are some people that feel that vengeance is a way to deal with that evil, but I celebrate no man's death because that's a part of me. It's a part of me that was amplified and that I chose to go no further with," he said.

Globe trekking has not soured Fengya on his home at the Jersey Shore. He said our beaches are some of the most beautiful he's seen, and what he appreciates about people from New Jersey is that we tend to "shoot straight" and "you generally know where you stand with someone."  

But make no mistake. Dean Fengya feels equally at ease sleeping on a dirt floor in a remote Asian village as he does anywhere else.

"That shared sense of humanity is the thing that gives me sustenance and I thrive with it," he said. "I really believe we're much more alike than we're different, and if we could learn to build bridges to our alikeness and celebrate the little differences we have, it would be a happier and healthier world."