[IPSM] Native art 'Made in China'?

[Devin Butler Burke]

Native art 'Made in China'?
Mon, 14 Feb 2005
CBC Arts


WINNIPEG - A Manitoba company is touring the country,
hoping to convince Native artists to provide designs
that will be used for mass-produced trinkets made in
China.

Leonard Linklater, head of the First Nations Trading
Development Corporation, says native souvenirs are a
multimillion-dollar industry, but aboriginal
communities are not taking advantage of it.


Using a hotel gift-shop mug as an example, Linklater
pointed out that "it has a picture of a chief on it
and it says, 'Around this camp, there's only one
chief' and when I turn the cup around, it's made in
China."


"Everyone is prospering except the First Nations
themselves," he said.


The problem facing aboriginal artists is the uphill
battle selling original artwork, Linklater said. He
believes he can get more money into artists' hands by
buying their designs and having them reproduced in
China.


"Right now, [artists are] running around trying to
sell one for $250 or whatever they can get for it,
because [they] need the money today to feed their
children," Linklater said.


"If the [manufacturer] buys 5,000 even at $5 a piece,
as an example, then the individual can make $25,000
with just the one product and, you know, $25,000 is
above the poverty line," he said.


Support from band leadership is critical, so
Linklater's company is pitching the idea to them at
workshops across the country.


Jerry Primrose, chief of the Nisichawayasihk Cree
Nation at Nelson House in northern Manitoba, is
already onside with the project.


"We've always been confined to a small, boxed area,
and this is more or less like getting out of the box,
you know, and looking at what's out in the whole
world," Primrose said.


Linklater has found an Asian trade house to work with.
Later this month, he plans to take band leaders to
China on a scouting mission, touring tradeshows and
manufacturing plants and viewing the prospects first-hand.