Fake Indian Art
lenapelady
didn't include that in the excerpt)
GALLUP, N.M. (AP) - Bob Lawson keeps a vial of hydrochloric acid behind the
counter at Navajo Trading Co. When an unknown artist wants to sell him
jewelry, he splashes a drop on each piece to determine if it's sterling
silver or nickel.
When dropped on silver, it dissolves without a trace. But when the acid is
applied to nickel, the metal turns an aqua color, an indication that the
jewelry he has isn't the real thing.
Next door to Lawson's shop, the owners of Richardson's Trading Co., who have
been in business for 86 years, have begun purchasing fake Navajo rugs to
show customers who want to be sure what they're buying is authentic. Their
own weavers are now instructed to tag their creations with photographs and
biographies.
Other crafts people, such as Zuni Indian silversmiths Jan and Wilda Boone,
are branding their pieces with initials and symbols - anything to prove that
their work is indeed their own.
In the town renowned as the retail center for authentic Native American arts
and crafts, shopkeepers and artisans are going to battle against a growing
threat: the importation and sale of impostor products.
It is a foe as old as the Indian arts trade itself but one many who work in
the industry have only begun to take on, driven by the government's failure
to enforce laws meant to protect their products and livelihoods.
``It has gone unaddressed for so long that it is taking a very strong hold
on our ability to put out authentic handmade products,'' says Andy Abeita, a
sculptor in New Mexico's Isleta Pueblo who has become a leader in the fight
against the misrepresentation of Indian-style wares.
``We're talking about artists who may not have the opportunity to teach
their children the trade that their fathers taught them and, possibly, their
fathers before them.''
Albeita was talking about artists like the Boones, who make earrings and
bracelets in a makeshift workshop at their home in the Zuni Pueblo, south of
Gallup. Jan's parents were silversmiths, as were his grandparents before.
Wilda's made animal carvings, as the couple's 22-year-old daughter does now.
Although their trade has been passed down from generation to generation, the
Boones would prefer their two youngest children find another way to make a
living. The imitations have changed their business forever, they say,
causing buyers to be more wary of their own creations, which like most
Indian jewelry can run anywhere from $10 for a pair of small earrings to
several hundred dollars for large necklaces.
``It's hard to go into a store and try to sell something that you've worked
so hard on and they're like, 'Uh huh.' It breaks your heart,'' says Jan
Boone, who is studying construction and plans to get out of the jewelry
trade.
The imitations, he says, are ``cutting right down into our way of life, let
alone our way to make a living, and taking food out of our kids' mouths.''
Gallup, a borough of 20,000 people between the Navajo and Zuni Indian
reservations in western New Mexico, was a product of the Indian arts
industry. Trading post entrepreneurs were among the first settlers here in
the late 1800s, and quickly found fortune purchasing Indian-made goods.
Items ranged from guns, saddles and buckskins to turquoise jewelry, blankets
and carvings.
Even in those days glass beads made to look like turquoise were being
produced in Czechoslovakia and Japan, says Martin Link, publisher of the
Indian Trader, a monthly industry newspaper in Gallup, where more than 100
trading posts and galleries still line a two-block stretch of downtown. But
back then, says Link, ``the look-alikes and the fakes were obviously
look-alikes and fakes.''
As the popularity of Native American-made jewelry grew in the 1970s and
'80s, the copies became more sophisticated and retailers less candid about
whether their wares were indeed authentic. Soon imitation Navajo rugs, Hopi
kachina dolls and other crafts were being sold as handmade Indian products.
Today up to half of the Indian-style arts and crafts sold in the United
States - an industry that generates $1 billion annually - may not be
authentic, according to the Albuquerque-based Indian Arts and Crafts
Association.
Some 80 percent of the jewelry pieces sold in Gallup are thought to be cast
reproductions rather than authentic handmade, Abeita says.
Fed up with the influx of impostors, Native Americans persuaded Congress in
1990 to rewrite a decades-old law to stiffen penalties against those who
misrepresent a product as Indian-made.
Complaints are reviewed by the Interior Department's Indian Arts and Crafts
Board, which can then forward cases to the Justice Department for
prosecution. Violators face a fine of up to $250,000 and a possible
five-year prison term, while businesses can be fined up to $1 million.
Since the law took effect in November 1996, no cases have been referred for
prosecution.
Acting IACB director Meridith Stanton says several cases are pending
referral, and blames the failure to prosecute on a lack of viable complaints
from artists and retailers. The board has received 46 complaints, including
20 in writing, over the past three years. Only written complaints are
investigated.
``People are quick to complain about their neighbor down the block, but to
actually sit down and formally accuse them of breaking the law, that takes a
commitment,'' she says.
Ten states, including New Mexico, have statutes similar to the federal law,
although prosecutions in state courts also are rare, says Abeita, who last
year worked as a consultant to the New Mexico attorney general's office,
coordinating investigations of impostor goods.
His work culminated in six civil lawsuits earlier this year against
businesses in Gallup, Santa Fe and Taos. Four cases resulted in fines
ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 and one business, a repeat offender, was shut
down for two years. The other two cases are pending.
Prior to those, however, cases against unscrupulous retailers were rare,
admits Bennett Cohn, head of litigation for the New Mexico AG's office,
which periodically performs ``buys'' at some of the more than 500 Indian
arts and crafts dealers in the state and tests the products to ensure they
are authentic.
Abeita admits artists and retailers are hesitant to turn in their own
because of fears the bad publicity will negatively affect the entire
industry. However, he also insists authorities are ignorant about laws
designed to protect Indian goods and, therefore, lax on enforcement.
Over the past few years, Abeita has traveled to U.S. Customs ports in New
Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and California to teach inspectors how to spot
Indian-style products, which must be indelibly marked with the country of
origin in order to be legally imported. Items not marked can be confiscated.
``The problem is that once a product has been identified and an exporter has
been made aware, they simply port-shop somewhere else,'' Abeita says.
With such efforts failing to stop the flow of impostor goods, the front-line
in the battle has shifted to the communities and people whose existence
depend on success.
In Gallup, stores such as Richardson's post signs warning customers to
beware of imitations. In the Zuni Pueblo, an art museum prominently displays
plastic stones and imitation jewelry made in ``Zuni, Philippines.''
Abeita is working with the Zuni, Navajo and Hopi tribes to patent their own
trademarks, but the work is slow-going. He and others admit the best weapon
in this fight is an educated consumer.
``This is the livelihood of Gallup,'' says Link, of the Indian Trader. ``If
the laws aren't eventually enforced and the situation somehow controlled,
the impact will be nothing but adverse.
``When it gets to the point that the last store sells the last piece of
Indian-made jewelry, I think our whole culture, not just the Indian culture,
will be the worst for it.''
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Pauline Arrillaga is the AP's Southwest regional writer, based in Phoenix.
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LL
--
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wicakpi
and Crafts Act is finally growing some teeth. I believe,
however, that the statistics are way too low that say 50% of
Indian crafts may be bogus-- I think it's way, way higher
than that.
Wic
lenapelady wrote in message ...