Workshop helps local tribal artists with marketing

Patrick Matt, Jr. has been an artist since he was a child.

His skills have helped him generate income “even as I’ve held professional jobs,” he said Tuesday, Sept. 20. at The People’s Center in Pablo.

Matt attended a workshop along with about 15 other tribal members held by the U.S. Department of Interior. Representatives from the Indian Arts and Crafts Board were present to help artists learn to market their authentic, hand-made goods against growing competition.

He said he had hoped to get more understanding about different laws as well as to learn more ways to make his artwork more marketable.

Lonie Stimac, manager of business development with the Montana Office of Tourism from the Department of Commerce, said that the workshops are to help artists make the most of their product.

“The reason we’re doing these workshops here are exactly for Pat, because we want to help him have a viable market and not be ripped off,” Stimac said.

Multiple tribal artists shared personal experiences of consumers opting to pay for mass-produced items that are marketed as tribal, but in fact, are not.

Fake beads and other non-traditional components are used to create keepsakes, which is taking artists, such as Matt’s, livelihood away, Stimac said.

During a round-table discussion, one artist shared that tourists have chosen to pay a fraction of the cost for a similar item she offered, not taking into consideration the material cost or her own time it took to make the item.

Artists are competing with merchandise produced in China, Stimac said.

Leading the workshop was Ken Van Wey, a program specialist with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, which is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Each of the workshop participants received a folder complete with pamphlets and printed slideshows containing information about various federal and State laws that protect Indian arts and crafts.

Van Wey explained that the board receives complaints about art and craftwork that are falsely sold as Indian-made.

“We also included information about the Native American Made in Montana program, and undertook a series of presentations to promote the brochure and bring information about the laws and other assistance for Indian artists in Montana,” Van Wey wrote via email.

Workshops were also held at the Crow Agency and Browning in addition to Pablo.

Stimac said that the Made in Montana program has a sticker that help a consumer identify a product’s authenticity.

“It lets them (the consumer) know that the items are made by a Montana Tribal member,” she said.

Matt added that the Made in Montana sticker lets Flathead Reservation visitors know that the merchandise they are purchasing is genuinely from the reservation and has a meaning or story behind it.

“That’s what I like to do (use authentic products.). I would never make anything and try to market something like that if it wasn’t authentic,” Matt said, referring to a breast piece he made.

A member of the Pend d’Orielle tribe, Matt said he began learning Native American traditional art at the Agnes Vanderbug cultural camp in Valley View in his youth.

He used the example of buffalo pipe bone that he used, noting he would not use a plastic bead and try “passing it off” as authentic.

“That to me, adds value to it,” he said, adding that the genuine materials adds to the product’s authenticity as much as him, a Tribal member, making it.

“There’s going to be a story behind that piece and there’s going to be a story behind the person that made that piece,” he said.