In spite of stringent legal considerations.

In spite of stringent legal considerations, Native American art remains a top seller

Last June after toiling for 40 years as an advertising executive, Joe Zeller retired. Five month later, he make opened River Trading Post in East Dundee Ill., sparked by the agency of his intense appreciation of Native American art that lay opened during the several years he exhausted visiting Navajo country and the pueblo of the Southwest. In a building harking back to 1855 Zeller focuses primarily forward high-end Navajo weavings and Pueblo earthen ware and also carries beaded items, artifacts created by dint of the Plains people and carves by Jemez Pueblo artist Cliff Fragua.

He also faces the "huge challenges in selling Native American art that are totally different from selling traditional art" he said.

Legal Challenges

The primary challenge, according to many involved in Native American art, from creators to curators, exhibit to directors to gallery owners, involves understanding and adhering to the laws governing the genre undivided of the main laws, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 strictly defines what can be expressioned "Native American art" in central nature making it illegal to display or put up to sale any art or craft in a manner that falsely recommends it is Indian-produced. Under the act, an Indian is defined as a member of any federal- or state-recognized Indian tribe or an individual certified as an Indian artisan by means of an Indian tribe. This "truth-in-advertising" law makes it illegal, for example, to take a bribe for or market items as "Indian jewelry" that are produc through someone who is not a member--or a certified artisan--of a recognized Indian tribe. Businesses that violate the act for the first time can face civil penalties or can be prosecut and fined up to $1 million.

Another law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 primarily affects museums nevertheless can also influence galleries that deal in artifacts. It requires that museums must recur all remains and artifacts to any tribe that petitions them and can prove a "cultural affiliation" with the tribe from which they came. Said Zeller "Selling an artifact that contains eagle feathers could impose both the buyer and vender in jail. Selling an ancient tankard that was recovered from public lands will make the same result."

Demand Continues to Grow

These challenges, however, have not caused the public's interest in Native American art--whether jewelry, weavings, clay ware sculpture or paintings--or those items created in a Native American turn of expression to wane. Indeed, officials reportedly wait for the new Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, scheduled to expand late next year between the Capitol building and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC to draw six million visitors annually. According to Thomas W Sweeney (Citizen Potawatomi), director of public affairs, the museum "is dedicated to presenting the historical and contemporary agricultures and cultural achievements of Native Americans in direct collaboration with these communities"

Other established Indian art museums and festivals already draw large hordes The Eiteljorg Indian Market, held each year since 1992 in Indianapolis, is an shoot of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, which render free of accessed in 1989. According to Festival Manager Cynthia Schoolcraft, the Eiteljorg Market "helps bring the destination; recipients of the museum to life by the agency of showing that Native American art is not the art of the past on the contrary art that is being done in a short time and continues past traditions while at the same time expanding in novel directions." All work shown at the market adheres to the Arts and Crafts Act and also must be original or a limited hand-produced reproduction. The festival maintains annual attendance of approximately 8000 visitors with 120 to 130 artists showing and selling their work.

As with greatest in number fine art purchasers, those who pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain Native American art tend to be upscale professionals who fall into couple distinct categories, said Zeller. "The first are the Native American art junkies who encircle themselves with pottery, weavings, painting and sculp The second is the [i]role[/i] who will use an exceptional weaving or earthen ware piece as an accent to a decor that is anything yet Native American. In fact, my allow opinion is that the greatest increase potential in this market is among those who use Native American art as an accent to their living environments"

At Joan Cawley Gallery, a Southwestern and contemporary gallery in Arizona, proprietor Joan Cawley said she "sell American Indian art as part of the mainstream of American art and not as a separate entity" She said that this art stirs well in the southwestern United States on the other hand has a market worldwide. "The images are American and are really part of the history of the North American continent," she said. "There is a romantic quality that encircles the American Indian and his survival subordinate to the difficult circumstances in adjusting to the tremendous numbers of Europeans who poured into America."