Indian art sales slow, but not dead

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — The recent downturn in the nation’s economy has not bypassed the Indian arts and crafts industry.
Everyone in the industry is seeing an effect, with many saying that their business this year has decreased by as much as 40 or 50 percent as people try to cope with spiraling prices for the necessities and massive problems in the home-buying market.

“Some dealers have told me that they are down 50 percent this year,” said Ellis Tanner, a fourth-generation trader among the Navajos.

Tanner, who does both wholesale and retail, said his business has not been hurt that much but he added he can’t explain why that is. His wholesale is down, he said, and he has noticed his buyers are becoming more and more selective. As a result, Tanner said he is more cautious in what he buys from the Native craftspeople who show up daily to sell their wares.

“It’s a scary time,” he said.

Mid-October is the end of the wholesaling season in the Indian arts and crafts industry. By now, retailers who rely on Gallup wholesalers for the stock they need to sell to their customers this Christmas season have purchased what they need and wholesalers will have to wait until February or March for the retailers to start stocking up for the summer buying season.

There are a number of theories on why retailers are buying less this year.

Some clients may have gone out of business. Others may have reduced their orders expecting that the demand for Indian arts and crafts will be soft this Christmas because people will be saving their money to buy necessities and an Indian bracelet is something that can be postponed for later purchase.

John Hornbek, who owns and operates the Red Shell Jewelry, said he thinks the slow buying this season may be due to many retailers having a large inventory of merchandise on their shelf and therefore are not in any major need of new stock for this Christmas season.

His business in recent years has been brisk because of his sale of spiny oyster jewelry but even that’s down a little bit this season, he said.

At Yazzie’s Indian Arts, things haven’t been that bad this season but one of the co-owners of the store, Colina Yazzie, said that may be due to the fact that the store started out small some 14 years ago with a total investment of between $2,000 and $3,000 and has been building slowly each year.

One of the few Navajo-owned arts and crafts stores in the country, Yazzie’s deals in individual sales rather than massive buying by retailers.

Somewhere between Yazzie’s and those companies that rely on tens of thousands of sales during the Christmas season is Native Hand Co-Op that operates out of the Catholic Indian Center.

Sales at the co-op are down about 20 percent this season, which is making it hard for some of the organization’s 504 members who need the Co-op to continue doing a little better each year so they know they will have a buyer for their product.

“What’s affecting our members is inflation,” said Dee Touchine, head of the organization.

Its members are affected, she said when gasoline prices soar — making it more expensive to travel to town — and when silver prices go up.

The good news this season has been the fact that gasoline prices, after reaching the $4.00 a gallon level, are now sinking to the $2.50 a gallon level and silver prices, which reached a high this year of $17.90 an ounce, are now back at the $11 level.

As the market shrinks, she said, the co-op is following the same path that some of the other dealers do in bad economic times — accepting merchandise on consignment rather than buying it outright.

Craftspeople, however, hate consignments, knowing that it may be week or even months before they get paid for the item, leaving them little money in the meantime to buy their bills, much less get the materials they need to make more products.

While things are bad right now, most dealers believe that the Indian arts and crafts market is cyclical.

“I’m looking at it being better next year,” said Tanner, echoing a hope that is almost universal in the market these days.