You can tell a good artist by their stories and Leo Fried has plenty of gems.

Take the time in the late 1960s when he accidentally ended up on the streets of Berkeley just as student protests were breaking out into an ugly and infamous riot. Or the time he serandipitously met up on the Russian River in California with John Bagley of Bagley and Hotchkiss, before Bagley became a household name in the jewelry design business.

Fried, the easy-going owner of Blue Heron Jewelry Co. in downtown Poulsbo, has lived the life of the classic starving artist, crisscrossing the country for adventure, Jack Keroauc-style, with little money in his pocket and few, if any, permanent plans, all the while pursuing his craft wherever opportunity presented itself.

Sometimes those chance encounters occurred on the streets of San Francisco, other times in the deserts of Arizona, and later on in the noisy artist’s kiosks of Pike Place Market in Seattle.

Fried and his wife, Terry, now a school teacher in the North Kitsap School District, settled their business in Poulsbo 13 years ago after Fried spent 10 hair-raising days as a vendor at the Alaska State Fair in Fairbanks, Alaska.

He was staying in a tent near his exhibition booth when a series of fierce wind and rain storms bore down on the place during the course of his stay and wrecked havoc on the fairgrounds, sending planes flipping over at the nearby airport and causing Fried to reconsider his future.

“I said, ‘I’m tired of this. Maybe I’m ready for a store,’” he recalls musing to himself as he observed the beauty of the Northern Lights in between ragging storms. “A month later I ran into the owner of the (Blue Heron) and he asked me if I’d like to take over the store ... I was in the right place at the right time.”

Ironically, the Frieds had moved to Poulsbo in the late 1970s to escape Seattle, but Leo continued to commute to the Pike Place Market where he sold his wares and further honed his craft.

“It was a place I could go everyday and sell something,” he says. “I had to learn to talk to people, sell myself and make enough jewelry to stay ahead.”

The road from Pike Place street vendor to independent shop owner and entrepreneur wasn’t easy. Operating on a shoestring budget, Fried worked both sides of the water, splitting his time between the market and his new store.

At one point, he worked 17 weeks in a row without a day off, then turned around and worked another 11 weeks without a break. “Finally, it got better,” he says.

Today, Blue Heron is one of only a few custom-design jewelry shops on the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas. Indeed, someone could walk into Fried’s cozy, green-colored shop next to Boehm’s Chocolates on Front Street in Poulsbo and order almost any piece of jewelry they wish, from diamond rings to 14-caret gold necklaces.

“We’re a niche business,” Fried says. “Our market is not directed to mass audiences. We can’t compete on that level. We don’t have a big inventory on hand or a big overhead. What do have is good sources (of gems) and people who trust us. We want you to understand what you’re buying.”

Fried designs about half the jewelry sold by Blue Heron, which also repairs jewelry, with the remainder of the store’s inventory coming from designer jewelry manufacturers from around the country, such as DeBeers Diamonds.

Fried attends national shows once a year to keep his gem supply up to date and his design eye fresh. And every couple of years he makes a pilgrimage to Pakistan, India and other exotic spots in search of diamonds, rare stones and new ideas.

“I approach jewelry from the eye of the designer and goldsmith,” he says. “It allows me to make better choices on what we buy and have in the store.”

Fried’s attention to detail and market changes has paid off. Over the past five years, his business has tripled, and over the past two years he’s seen dramatic changes to Blue Heron’s bottom line with the addition of designer jewelry lines.

The company’s improved cash flow has allowed him to add two veteran sales people, a repair person and a well-known Peninsula wax carver to his payroll.

“It’s allowed us to expand the depth of our custom work and do if faster,” Fried says. “And it leaves me freer to go into new directions and be fresh and stay on top of the competition.”

Fried enjoys working with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, gold, and these days in particular, platinum.

“I have a feel for metal and love to manipulate it,” he says. “I have designs that just pop into my head and I have to stop what I’m doing and draw them out. We just sold a $3,000 piece that was like that. ... (But) I enjoy working in platinum. It takes high heat and polish. I love to mix diamonds and other stones with it and use older techniques like granulation, which is fusing tiny little balls of gold in place, especially with color stones.”

Blue Heron’s typical customers are retired people who live in the area and tourists who discover the store while shopping on Front Street. But when pressed Fried isn’t afraid to pitch the masses, “We cater to anyone who wants a quality piece of jewelry or the one piece they know they want in their life.”

(Editor’s Note: Kevin Dwyer is Bainbridge Island free-lance writer).