Stolen Art Alert

The University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver has reported the theft of 12 works of art by Native artist Bill Reid, including a gold box with Haida designs, surmounted by a sculptured eagle.

Reid died in 1998 after years of renown as a Haida artist. He was considered one of Canada's most significant artists, with four of his works appearing on the Canadian $20 bill.

(An earlier issue tribalartery featured works by Reid that were on exhibit in Santa Fe at the time of the Indian Market.)

If you hear or see anything about these stolen works, please contact the University of British Columbia or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

These are not just national treasures. They are world treasures. They must be found and returned before their gold content encourages the thieves to melt them down.

Thank you. William Ernest Waites.

Santa Fe Museum bulletin, by Waites

Here's a list of Museum of Indian Arts and Culture doings in Santa Fe that you might find helpful.


May 26, 2007 (today): It's not too late if you live inthe SAnta Fe area (or traveling there this weekend) to take advantage of the MIAC Native Treasures-Indian Arts Festival. 120 excellent Native American artists will be offering their creations for sale. Call 505-476-1250 for more information. Or visit nativetreasuressantafe.org


May 27, 2007: Native Treasures-Indian Arts Festival continues.


July 27, 2007: The Joy of Cooking Pueblo Feast Food will feature the cooking and enthusasm of Serina Hena, one of Tesuque Pueblos best traditional cooks. She will show and discuss how to make five feast day dishes, from horno bread to stew. For information, 505-476-1250. Ask for Penny.


September 14, 2007: Archaic Pictographs and Structures near Las Vegas, NM. will visit spectacular, virtually unknown Late Archaic sites on a large private ranch near Las Vegas. According to the MIAC, this land has sites that are from the 500 BC to 500AD period and are not accessible to the public.


This bulletin is brought to you by William Ernest Waites of Tribal Artery on a when-the-spirit-moves-him schedule. Waites also is the co-owner of websites at Native-JewelryLink , Native-PotteryLink , TribalWorks and ZuniLink.


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Speaking of Prices – What’s going on in downtown Santa Fe?

We used to chuckle when people would visit our Sanibel gallery, Aboriginals: Art of the First Person, and comment that they loved our art but would wait until they visited Santa Fe, where the prices would be lower.

Obviously, those people had never been to Santa Fe. We have, and return regularly. It is a special place.

There is a certain cachet to buying tribal art in Santa Fe. But price isn't part of it.

We know that our prices, even when we had the physical gallery, were never higher than those in Santa Fe and usually lower.

We understand. Santa Fe is a high-rent district. Galleries there, as with all galleries everywhere, must pay their rent and their staff.

The money to do that must be baked into the price of every object of art they sell. There is no other way to do it.

Now we read in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper that galleries and shops in downtown Santa Fe are in a crunch. Rents remain high but traffic is down, largely because of extensive construction downtown.

One gallery owner is quoted as saying, “Downtown Santa Fe has lost its vibrancy.”

We don’t want to dump on Santa Fe. We love the place. Its art, its culture, its dining and its climate truly make it “The City Different.”. We sincerely hope it recovers and quickly.

But rest assured that you don’t have to go to Santa Fe or even shop online with Santa Fe dealers to get quality, authentic, Native American jewelry, pottery, folk art and fetish carvings at excellent prices. And with service that you will tell your friends about.

Local retailer hawks “Internet Pricing”

There are certain occurrences in life that tend to represent "tipping points" in the human consciousness.

Without placing too much importance on it, William Waites, co-owner of Aboriginals Gallery, considers that the use of the term “internet pricing” by a local retailer may be one of those benchmarks.

When Aboriginals closed our physical gallery on Sanibel Island in Florida to operate exclusively online, we commented on how it allowed us to reduce our prices because we had reduced our overhead.

(As it turned out, the overhead reduction was not as dramatic as we had anticipated, what with other business costs replacing those that were eliminated or reduced. But that is another story.)

Generally, we have been able to reduce our prices by about 30% averagely across the board - before including special sales such as our recently ended April Foolishness reduction of 30 %.

Now, we hear that the concept of lower prices on the internet has permeated other merchants and businesses, including some with massive bricks and mortar cost structures. Hence, a local jeweler is running radio and television commercials claiming the prices in its stores are "internet prices."

So, I guess it is now indisputable common knowledge that the same items cost less when purchased via the internet.

This leaves the only impediments to internet shopping being the reliability of the seller and the suitability of the item when actually evaluated in hand.

We attempt to solve both the problems by pointing out that we have been in the tribal arts business since 1979, 28 years.

Over that time, with thousands of sales, we have had very few returns from people who did not want the item once they had it physically available for inspection.

Sometimes it has been a size problem. Sometimes a color problem. (Both size and color information have limitations on the internet.)

Occasionally it has been that an item purchased for display purposes that was not perceived to look right in the intended space when it was “tried on.”

To be fully candid, we also had one item returned when the purchaser located an “expert” who claimed the item was not what it was purported to be. We took it back with a full refund – our standard policy on authenticity issues when we are notified within 30 days.

We researched the challenge and found that it was debatable as to whether the attribution was 100% accurate or not.

Nevertheless, we accepted the return. No big deal. Just the way we are.

If you are looking for authentic, guaranteed tribal art – at “internet prices” – may we suggest a visit to our Web sites at Native-JewelryLink.com, Native-PotteryLink.com, TribalWorks.com and/or ZuniLink.com?

We welcome your keen eye and your high standards.