The Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome was designed in 1935 by architects Enrico Del Debbio, Arnaldo Foschini and Vittorio Morpurgo Ballio. Many of the works in the exhibit are stored in this landmark government building. This file is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. ROME (AFP) – An armchair shaped like a flower, a sleek black Ducati and mirrors decorated with Italy’s flag star in a new Rome exhibition ased on a previously unseen collection owned by the foreign ministry.
“Farnesina and its collections,” now on exhibit in the capital’s Ara Pacis museum, gives visitors a rare chance to see masterworks of Italian design which are usually kept behind closed doors at the ministry.
The collection includes works by some of the biggest names in Italian design, from auto designer Pininfarina – which has worked with Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar among others – to Artemide modern lighting specialists.
On show is 5 in 1, a set of glasses that stack into one another to save space, designed by Joe Colombo, a Roman renowned for his innovative furniture, lamps and clocks made for contemporary firms Kartell and Alessi.
Michelangelo Pistoletto’s The Etruscan, a 1976 work in which a bronze Etruscan statue stands before a large mirror, contrasts starkly with Italia, a mirror by Mariano Moroni in the red, white and green of the national flag.
Nearby, Israeli designer Ron Arad’s Pizzakobra – a silver lamp made of a flexible pipe that can be wound or twisted to resemble a pizza or a snake – stands taut like a cobra primed for attack.
Japanese-born designer Makio Hasuike, who opened his own design firm in Milan in Italy’s northern industrial hub in 1968, pays tribute to the Italian love affair with ice-cream with his rotating gelato display case.
Maurizio Galante’s playful Tattoo sofa, its soft covers decorated with photos of prickly cactus plants, stars alongside a 160 horse-power Ducati Diavel motorbike and a multicolored anemone flower-shaped armchair by Giancarlo Zema.
A section is also dedicated to the imposing Farnesina building housing the ministry, which was built on the banks of the Tiber under Benito Mussolini’s – who in 1935 rolled up his sleeves and kicked off the construction in person.
The colossal travertine-clad building, with a facade measuring 554 feet, was originally designed as the National Fascist Party headquarters. It has been used to house the foreign ministry since 1959.
“The Farnesina palace is a key to understanding the Fascist era and the objects contained within reveal the development of design,” Umberto Croppi, Rome’s cultural politics director, told press at a preview Thursday.
From the 1960s onwards, the cavernous spaces inside have been gradually adorned with icons of Italian design from Art Nouveau to Futurism, Arte Povera and the New Roman School – around 100 of which are now going on show.
The Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome was designed in 1935 by architects Enrico Del Debbio, Arnaldo Foschini and Vittorio Morpurgo Ballio. Many of the works in the exhibit are stored in this landmark government building. This file is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
American painter Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930) depicted the ‘The Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718.’ RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – The work to retrieve an anchor from the wreck of what is believed to be the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship will began this week off the North Carolina coast, but what’s underneath that artifact is just as interesting to researchers.
The anchor is the second-largest item on the site of what’s believed to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge, outsized only by another anchor, project director Mark Wilde-Ramsing said Wednesday. It’s about 13 feet long with arms that are 8 feet across. The other anchor is about 7 inches longer.
“It’s a big, cumbersome, flat piece that’s going to require some good logistics and some good weather,” he said in a telephone interview after a news conference at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
The recovery effort is taking place in the Atlantic waters near Beaufort, where the shipwreck is about 20 feet underwater. The actual dive will begin Monday and continue through June 3, with only two days off.
The anchor is located in the central part of the shipwreck, and it’s on top of other items that the team hopes to recover. At the bottom of the pile is the wooden hull structure, the ribs and the plank – the only parts of the ship that survived the test of time, saltwater, currents and tides, Wilde-Ramsing said. Those parts of the ship survived because ballast was stored there to keep the ship upright and other items, including six cannons and four anchors are also in the pile.
But Wilde-Ramsing and his team hope other, smaller items are trapped inside, things that will tell the tale of how the men lived on the Queens Anne’s Revenge and the waters it traversed.
“We hope little things got stuck in there, which would tell us what the pirates were eating … micro botanical stuff so we’ll be able to tell where the ship traveled,” he said. “Most of the little things are gone, except for this one place, where hopefully they’ve been entombed.”
The shipwreck was located in 1996, and Wilde-Ramsing says the team hopes to recover all the artifacts by the end of 2013.
The largest exhibit of the shipwreck’s artifacts will be shown starting June 11 at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
In 1717, Blackbeard captured a French slave ship and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge. Blackbeard, whose real name was widely believed to be Edward Teach or Thatch, settled in Bath and received a governor’s pardon. Some experts believe he grew bored with land life and returned to piracy.
He was killed by volunteers from the Royal Navy in November 1718 – five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne’s Revenge sank.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites, has already yielded more than 250,000 artifacts.
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Online:
Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-18-11 2106GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
American painter Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930) depicted the ‘The Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718.’
The RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic were under construction at the same shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, circa. 1910. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. LONDON (AP) – A large-scale plan of the Titanic, prepared for the official inquiry into the ship’s sinking, is being offered at an auction in Britain.
Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers estimates that the 32 1/2-foot-long cross-section of the ship could fetch between $160,000 and $240,000 at the sale in Devizes in southern England on May 28.
The plan is being sold by an anonymous collector, the auctioneer said Thursday.
The ship sank on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage. The official inquiry opened on May 2, 1912, and nearly 100 witnesses testified during 36 days of hearings.
The inquiry concluded: “The loss of the said ship was due to collision with an iceberg brought about by the excessive speed at which the vessel was being navigated.”
Also offered for sale is a set of keys from one of Titanic first-class lavatories, estimated to sell between $65,000 and $80,000.
A plan of the ship made by draftsmen at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Titanic was built, is estimated between $48,00 and $80,000.
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On the Net: http://www.henry-aldridge.co.uk
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-19-11 1512GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic were under construction at the same shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, circa. 1910. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Opened in 2009, the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing has become a popular site of wedding parties. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. CHICAGO (AP) – The Art Institute of Chicago has caused quite a stir among some brides who booked summer weddings on an outdoor terrace at the museum only to find their coveted view of the city is being blocked by art.
Gabrielle Berger, who holds a degree in art history and formerly worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, booked the outdoor terrace months ago, expecting the lush greenery of Millennium Park and Chicago’s legendary skyline would be the backdrop to her June wedding. Instead Restless Rainbow, designed by artist Pae White for the terrace, will obstruct that view.
“I knew what risks we were taking in booking the space,” Berger, who thought the stark white walls of the museum’s modern wing would fit with her wish for a “minimalist” wedding, told the Chicago Tribune. “But what they’ve selected to display in the space during wedding season is absurd.”
Renting the terrace costs $5,000, and it’s $10,000 for the entire third floor, including the Terzo Piano restaurant, according to Art Institute spokeswoman Erin Hogan.
The artwork, which opens to the public Saturday, consists of colorful vinyl strips that wrap around the terrace’s glass panels and sweep across the floor. The panels on the north end of the terrace, which overlooks over Millennium Park, are 18 feet tall.
Hogan said that once White’s plans for the terrace were finalized in March, the museum informed those who booked summer weddings and other events. She said the museum is looking for ways to address the concerns of wedding parties that have expressed concerns over how White’s art will affect their celebrations.
“At the same time, we are an art museum committed to bringing contemporary art – and art of all periods and places – to our visitors,” Hogan said.
To appease unhappy couples, the Art Institute has been coming up with alternatives, including full access to Nichols Bridgeway, which connects the modern wing to Millennium Park.
Wedding planner Renny Pedersen says a client has decided to serve cocktails on the bridge, after a wedding in the museum’s Griffin Court, a sky-lit passageway that serves as the entrance to the modern wing.
“Whenever you are booking a modern space, you have to be OK with things that might be beyond your control,” Pedersen said. “You have to have a really, really good sense of humor.”
Anna Gonis reserved the terrace to serve cocktails for her wedding party on June 25. She has persuaded 10 other couples to join her in a formal complaint to museum officials.
“This isn’t against the artist themselves; it is an amazing opportunity for them,” Gonis said. “But in fairness, the institute needs to keep in mind the other individuals who have contracted the space.”
White visited the exhibit on Tuesday, as it was still being installed. She said she had just learned about the unhappiness of some future brides who planned to use the site.
“It is just news to me, so I am just kind of processing it,” said the artist. “My intention was not to be disruptive.”
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Opened in 2009, the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing has become a popular site of wedding parties. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
View of Fort Ticonderoga from Mount Defiance. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. TICONDEROGA, N.Y. (AP) – Fort Ticonderoga is opening its doors this week with some of the historic site’s most important artwork going on display in a single exhibit for the first time.
The private not-for-profit tourist attraction in the eastern Adirondacks opens Friday. The highlighted exhibit for the season is “The Art of War: Ticonderoga as Experienced through the eyes of America’s Great Artists.” Fifty of the museum’s most treasured paintings and other artwork will be on display in the fort’s Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center exhibition gallery.
The exhibit features a painting by Thomas Cole, considered the founder of the Hudson River School of American art.
Cole and other prominent 19th-century artists traveled to Ticonderoga to find inspiration in the fort’s ruins and the Adirondack landscape.
The fort, rebuilt in the early 20th century, is open through Oct. 20.
Victor Talking Machine Co. built this School House Victrola in a quartersawed oak case and stand. Auctioneer Bob Courtey estimates the scarce Victrola will sell for between $6,000 and $9,000 at his May 28 auction in Millbury, Mass. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers Archive and Bob Courtney Auctions. DENVER (AP) – Gary Stone pulled a 78-rpm record from its paper sleeve. He placed the disc, which weighed about as much as a Big Mac, atop a felt-covered turntable. Its mahogany cabinet boasted as much craftsmanship as anything in an Ethan Allen store.
A stainless-steel needle hit the platter’s grooves. There was a crackling, then the vibrant, patrician voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt jumped out, announcing to Americans that they had just lived through a day of infamy, but that the foe would be fought and vanquished.
“Every time I hear that I get tingly and emotional,” said Stone, who lives in Northglenn. “Just listen to the anger in FDR’s voice. He’s telling the country we’re going to war, yet no one could imagine what lay ahead.
“It’s as if you’re sitting in front of a tube radio on a cold December evening in 1941.”
The lure of owning an aural time tunnel – in this case a Victor II Humpback Phonograph from 1904 – is what binds Stone and his fellow collectors in the Old West Antique Phonograph Society.
“It’s an addiction, I’ll be honest,” Stone said. “You get hooked on it, and if you’re not disciplined it becomes an obsession.”
The machines are marvels, embodying a timeline of technological innovation that started when Thomas Edison – he of the 1,093 U.S. patents – launched the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co. in 1878. (“Phonograph,” for the record, was Edison’s coinage.)
There is also a deep aesthetic appeal. Cabinets were fashioned by master craftsmen from fine woods such as mahogany, quartersawed oak and bird’s-eye maple.
Price tags on the machines run from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Collectors vie for them on Craigslist and eBay.
“Each of these has a different story,” Stone said of his 10 machines. “They’re amazing. They were all handmade, and the wood they used was beautiful. You just don’t see that today.”
One of his prizes is a Victrola 18 model from 1915. Housed in a burnished mahogany cabinet, the machine cost $315 in its day – more than a car. It was later modified with an orthophonic speaker, an upgrade that was sort of the Dolby system of its day.
“It’s my pride and joy,” he said.
Stone’s wife is good-natured about his collection, referring to the parlor as the “toy room,” though lately she has imposed a “buy a new one, sell an old one” caveat.
She probably hasn’t seen Bob Stapel’s house.
On a recent evening, club members descended on Stapel’s house in southeast Denver. Stapel is a popular figure among these folks, in no small part because he’s a master repairman and restorer of the machines.
Stapel’s house is something of a museum to the early recording industry. The shelves of his workshop, redolent of machine oil, sag with spare parts.
His collection includes numerous players from early in the last century: an Edison William & Mary model with an intricate filigree, a couple of French Pathes, and a Columbia AF Graphophone with two rubber earplugs, just in case your teenager was driving you nuts playing Over There.
Stapel also collects ephemera, and Stone pointed out a turn-of-the-century record-cylinder cabinet that he covets. “I’m still trying to find one,” he said.
For Stapel, who is an attorney, scoring the wooden box was the result of a practiced eye.
“The lady I bought it from called it a lingerie drawer, but I saw the pegs in it to put the cylinders on, so I knew what it was,” he said. “It was a real find.”
Club member Fred Williams delights in cylinder players, where a steel needle traced a mechanical track across a spinning wheel. One of his machines is an Edison General, built in 1899 as an answer to the 1898 Columbia Model Q, with its “clockwork” motor.
His passion runs deep.
“It’s all about the hunting,” he said. “See this? It’s a recording of President William Howard Taft. An original, from 1905, not a rerecording. Who else has that? Me.”
Some record collectors specialize, concentrating on vaudeville acts, historical recordings or the works of a specific artist – say, pianist Jelly Roll Morton or Bix Beiderbecke, the cornet titan.
There are other collector niches too.
Curt Vogt specializes in the record brushes used to keep 78s clean. They are housed in their original ornate tins, many of them stamped with the colorful logos of the stores that carried them. Vogt pointed to a cabinet holding an array of tins, brands from such labels as Okeh and the American Musician Co.
“When I started collecting, I couldn’t really afford the machines themselves,” said Vogt, who works at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware in Denver. “Plus, I was in the Air Force, and most of the machines don’t meet the weight restrictions for traveling.”
Stone has several hundred recordings, culled mainly from auctions and to a lesser extent from antiques stores. “Stores aren’t the best place to find things because they’re often picked through and it takes hours to go through the stocks,” he said.
The recordings recall another time.
Listen to Stone’s century-old recording of The Star- Spangled Banner through a conical, “witch’s hat” horn, and you hear a version of the song with none of the melisma and swooping vocal tricks found in performers at today’s ballgames. The singer gets the words right too.
Funny thing, how once- cutting-edge technology is reduced to an archaic novelty. Sony’s Walkman is nearly there. The iPod will be there soon enough.
Somehow, it seems doubtful these inventions, in their compact plastic casings, will enthrall people on the cusp of the 22nd century.
“I bring kids in from the neighborhood, and they look at these machines with practically no reaction,” Stone said. “They’re puzzled by it. Then I play them something, and they’re mesmerized.”
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-19-11 0036GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Victor Talking Machine Co. built this School House Victrola in a quartersawed oak case and stand. Auctioneer Bob Courtey estimates the scarce Victrola will sell for between $6,000 and $9,000 at his May 28 auction in Millbury, Mass. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers Archive and Bob Courtney Auctions.
A charcoal iron furnace has been restored at the 696-acre Pine Grove Furnace State Park in mountainous Cumberland County, Pa. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. GARDNERS, Pa. – Pine Grove Furnace State Park and the Appalachian Trail Museum are preparing for two straight weekends of outdoor events and family programming – National Get Outdoors Day on Saturday, June 11, and the First Appalachian Trail Festival June 18-19.
Pine Grove Furnace State Park, recently named the 2010 State Park of the Year, the South Mountain Partnership, and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy are sponsoring National Get Outdoors Day to provide outdoor and education opportunities for the entire family. Events for the day begin at 8 a.m. with a half marathon and 5K run to support the Friends of Pine Grove Furnace, a nonprofit organization that helps promote volunteerism and assist with events at the park. Other events include trail hikes to local scenic vistas and historical sites, a wildflower walk, a historical scavenger hunt and kayaking for beginners.
Lunch will be available at the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy’s newly renovated Ironmaster’s Mansion. Meals will include hamburgers, hotdogs, sloppy joes, potatoes salad, watermelon, desert and drink for only $7.
“The afternoon of National Get Outdoors Day will feature the South Mountain Ramble as part of the South Mountain Speaker Series,” said Jason Zimmerman, manager of Pine Grove Furnace State Park. “This will be a fun interactive 1.5-mile hike for the whole family that will explore the area’s rich history. Topics will include local Native American history, the Underground Railroad in South Mountain, the South Mountain Iron Industry, a local history of the natural world, Appalachian Trail Balderdash and history at the Appalachian Trail Museum, and the history of Camp Michaux.”
Registration is required for all events and, with the exception of the half marathon and 5K run, are free. To register, visit the DCNR Calendar of Events for Pine Grove Furnace State Park at www.dcnr.state.pa.us or call the Park Office at 717-486-7174.
The Appalachian Trail Museum will hold its first festival on June 18-19 at the park. “The festival will celebrate hiker culture and feature a new traveling exhibit developed by the museum,” Zimmerman said. The kick-off for the festival will be the inaugural Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame Banquet on the evening of June 17, at Allenberry Resort in Boiling Springs. At the banquet, the first class of six honorees will be inducted into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame, which will be located in the museum’s building at Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The festival will feature a hiking program, music, storytelling, crafts, competitions and history programs. There also will be a variety of activities for children on both days. Additional information on the Appalachian Trail Museum and the festival weekend events can be found at www.atmuseum.org.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A charcoal iron furnace has been restored at the 696-acre Pine Grove Furnace State Park in mountainous Cumberland County, Pa. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Ken Burns and Sam Waterston join arms with costumed interpreters of Old Sturbridge Village. Image courtesy of Old Sturbridge Village. STURBRIDGE, Mass. – Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and Old Sturbridge Village presented award-winning actor Sam Waterston with the fourth annual Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award at a recent fund-raising dinner at the living history museum.
More than 200 people attended the benefit, which raised approximately $28,000 for the museum.
The Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award is presented jointly by Ken Burns and Old Sturbridge Village each year to an individual who has made a significant impact on the arts through projects related to history. Last year’s award was given to Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and the 2009 award went to actress Laura Linney in recognition of her portrayal of Abigail Adams in the HBO series John Adams. Old Sturbridge Village presented the first lifetime achievement award to Ken Burns himself in 2008 in honor of his many award-winning documentary films.
Although he is best known for his role as district attorney Jack McCoy on NBC’s Law & Order, Waterston is one of the industry’s most versatile actors, winning Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for his role as a journalist in the 1984 film The Killing Fields. Waterston portrayed Abraham Lincoln in the Tony Award-winning play, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, in Gore Vidal’s miniseries, Lincoln, and he voiced the role of Lincoln in Ken Burns’s acclaimed documentary, The Civil War, which was recently rebroadcast on PBS to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of that war.
Burns, whose many other documentaries include the PBS series Baseball, The War, and The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, made his first film about Old Sturbridge Village as a college student in 1975. Burns is currently producing and directing a number of projects, including the much-anticipated PBS series Prohibition, set to debut in the fall of 2011.
Waterston’s distinguished career has included appearances in such varied presentations as Shakespeare in the Park to Saturday Night Live, giving him the opportunity to perform a wide range of roles.
Burns, who has been making films for more than 30 years, is perhaps the most critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker in the country. According to the late historian Stephen Ambrose, “more Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.”
Burns’s films have received dozens of major awards, including 12 Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations. His 1990 series The Civil War captured the nation’s imagination, and as noted by the Los Angeles Times, “gave people a new way of looking at still photographs, which freeze a moment in time but which he animated by zooming in, or scanning over them, the technique now called the “Ken Burns effect.”
Burns notes that his first film, a 28-minute work featuring Old Sturbridge Village entitled Working in Rural New England, inspired him to pursue other historical subjects throughout his career.
“I still remember every shot of that film. In the very last scene, I did a pan across a painting and literally found what I would spend the next 36 years doing. I began my professional life with that project. It’s how I learned how to write a proposal, stay on budget and speak in public. My interest in history was born at Old Sturbridge Village.”
Old Sturbridge Village, one of the oldest and largest living history museums in the country, celebrates New England life in the 1830s. The museum, famous for its costumed interpreters, has 59 historic buildings on 200 acres, three water-powered mills, two covered bridges, a working farm with heritage breed animals, and a stagecoach that visitors can ride. For details go to www.osv.org or call 1-800-SEE-1830.
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Ken Burns and Sam Waterston join arms with costumed interpreters of Old Sturbridge Village. Image courtesy of Old Sturbridge Village.
Toadlena Trading Post sells the work of Navajo weaver Clara Sherman, who died last year at age 96. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) – The trading post is an icon of the American West: The hand-built wooden structure nestled among hills, or standing alone at a wide spot in the road, a place where American Indians could trade their wares for food, household items or weapons.
Some of those icons still stand on the Navajo Nation and surrounding areas, and a handful still operate much as they did more than 100 years ago.
A newer method of marketing, however, has taken some traders by storm, changing forever the way trading posts – historically operated by non-natives – and traders view commerce.
For a population whose traditional livelihood centered on herding sheep and weaving rugs, Internet-based business can be a blessing or a curse. And for those who embrace it, the whole world is literally at their fingertips as the global community shrinks and becomes more accessible.
“It’s just like any other business,” Farmington businessman David John said. “People who weave, now they can sell their products around the world. When they sell on the Internet, it opens up a whole new variety of ways to sell, to better themselves.”
Not all are Internet savvy, however. About 40 percent of residents on the sprawling, 27,000-square-mile reservation still live in primitive homes without running water or electricity. Internet access is simply a luxury few can afford.
That’s not always a bad thing, said John, who also serves as chairman of the city of Farmington’s Community Relations Commission. Many of the more traditional artists or entrepreneurs prefer to do business face-to-face.
“A lot of people want to stick with their own traditional way of doing things from home,” John said. “A lot of people don’t want to use computers or advance with cell phones, technology, email and that kind of thing. They’d rather just use a simple phone.”
The World Wide Web, though enriching economic opportunities for those who have access to it, also is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
But even as technology rushes forward, many businesses owned by Navajos or located on the reservation still are hesitant to join the race.
Business is booming at the Toadlena Trading Post.
Located at the end of a dirt road 13 miles off the beaten path, the century-old trading post still sees a steady stream of customers.
Housed in the original building, which opened in 1909, owner Mark Winter operates the trading post much as his predecessors did. He accepts rugs from a limited population of Navajo weavers and offers, in exchange, cash or store credit.
Winter, who took over the lease at the trading post in 1997, buys rugs from between 150 and 175 weavers, all of whom live within 12 miles of the trading post and have local ancestry, he said. About a quarter of his customers don’t speak any English.
“We’re the bank. We cash government checks. We do a little of everything,” Winter said. “It’s all unsecured, all uncollateralized. It’s a negative cash flow, but with a lot of positive results.”
The trading post and adjacent Weaving Museum are nestled in the small community of Toadlena, nudging the rolling hills and surrounded by trees. Stepping into the trading post is much like taking a step into the past.
Saddles hang from the ceiling inside the main room, and groceries and cigarettes line the shelves behind the cash register. Additional rooms are filled with jewelry, dolls and piles of hand-woven rugs.
But Winter doesn’t conduct all his business inside the store. The Toadlena Trading Post also has an online presence, where customers from around the globe can view and purchase authentic Navajo rugs. The website, www.toadlenatradingpost.com, went live in 2004.
Straddling the traditional and modern worlds presents Winter with unique business challenges.
“The website serves much more as information for people,” he said. “It’s a wide world out there, so you have to realize the potential of the Internet, but we like the old world here.”
Winter, who lives in a mobile home outside the trading post, has Internet access via satellite, but few of the local residents have computers. Most have a hard time finding cell phone service.
Weavers who are Internet savvy sometimes sell on popular sites like eBay, but many who are still spinning their own wool before spending months in front of the loom simply don’t want to bother with the hassle of marketing online, said Linda Larouche, Winter’s soon-to-be bride who works by his side at the trading post.
“We’re at a crossroads between tradition and cyberspace,” she said. “I can’t imagine living with my foot in two worlds.”
Those who trade their rugs in Toadlena don’t have to worry about that. They still do business the same way generations before them did, yet their rugs find owners worldwide.
Winter is the first to admit that he doesn’t capitalize on the possibilities the Internet presents.
“It’s a way of reaching out to a broader market,” he said, “but just because the capability is there doesn’t mean we have to use it. We’re not living up to the potential.”
Winter has plans to upgrade the trading post’s online presence, including offering news about the small weaving community and alerts when weavers have finished long-anticipated rugs.
His main method of advertising now is a handful of billboards spread out along U.S. 491 between Shiprock and Gallup.
Trading posts were started as a way for artisans to get cash, credit or loans for their wares, and that model still works, Winter said. Customers come from all over the country to buy authentic Navajo art, and the personal experience is better than typing in a credit card number and rolling through an online checkout lane.
“Rugs are so textual,” Larouche said. “People need to feel them, to touch them. We get a lot of phone calls from people who see the website, but they want directions on how to get here. They want to see the environment where these rugs were made, have a chance to meet the weavers.”
“The website is the impetus for people to come and visit,” she said. “It’s nice to present it to the world on the Internet, but it’s such an intimate experience that you have to be here.”
Online customers, though few, spend big, Winter said. When people buy on the Internet, it’s usually in excess of $10,000.
Those customers are missing out, Larouche said.
“People think we’re out in the middle of nowhere, but business is nonstop,” she said. “It’s off the beaten path, so people who come meant to be here.”
Francis Mitchell doesn’t own a cell phone. He doesn’t have Internet. He owns a computer, but he doesn’t know where the power switch is.
Mitchell, a practicing Navajo medicine man, has business around the globe, yet he never has sent or received an email message.
How does he do it?
“Word-of-mouth,” he said. “It’s what you do, who you know. That’s what gets things going.”
Mitchell’s lack of technology comes from a cultural belief that medicine men should not advertise their services, he said.
“It’s not supposed to be a competition,” he said. “It’s not a way to recruit business, a way to identify yourself.”
Mitchell, who grew up in the Midwest and served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, returned to his homeland as an adult. He learned the Navajo language and studied medicine after returning to the reservation in 1969 at age 25.
“I picked up the language, the culture by word of mouth,” he said. “Medicine is an attempt to assist, so modern technology is not part of it.”
Mitchell’s business started to pick up more than 25 years ago when Navajo clients he treated intermarried with members of other tribes, he said. Those clients spread the word about Mitchell’s services, and he started getting calls from Canada and Europe.
“There was no Web back then and very few computers,” he said. “Word of mouth opened the door.”
Mitchell eventually joined the International Association of Shamanic Practitioners and built a reputation that spans the globe. He gets patients from across the country, Europe and Australia.
He gets all his business by waiting for his home phone to ring.
People like Mitchell face both advantages and disadvantages by not embracing modern technology, John said. Although he is selling a service rather than a product, Mitchell may be losing business by not having an online presence.
“As far as selling around the country, this is modern time, and everyone else is using the Internet,” John said. “This is helping them. They’ve got to do it.”
Those who choose to run an online store or employ another Internet business model may find greater ease and flexibility when it comes to doing business, John said. Internet shopping can occur without a store attendant, which cuts out the need for artisans to travel to far-away cities to market their wares or spend hours selling at flea markets.
“If they’re on the Internet, they can go back to their weaving or herding sheep while their product is on the market,” John said.
Another advantage to doing business on the Internet is receiving payments in cash. Traditional business people, Mitchell included, sometimes accept payments in goods, such as food or livestock.
On the flip side, however, artists who choose to limit the visibility of their products by keeping their businesses off-line may have better success at controlling copycat artists, John said. Serious artists usually offer a certificate of authenticity with their wares; sellers at some of the bigger events must get their wares authenticated by jurists before they can sell.
“In general, the Internet can help these people as long as they have a strong hold on who they’re selling to,” John said. “But even on the buyer’s end, if you buy over the Internet, you might find out that it’s fake.”
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Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-05-18-11 0807GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Toadlena Trading Post sells the work of Navajo weaver Clara Sherman, who died last year at age 96. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Important museum pieces will be protected under rules adopted by the New York state Board of Regents.
The Regents, who are responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within the state, approved new rules that would restrict the sale of museum pieces as facilities face continued hard fiscal times.
The rules would require proceeds from sales to be used for acquisitions and would also seek to keep museum relics and pieces in the public domain even if a museum shuts down.
Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester said the rules will prohibit important cultural pieces being sold to private collectors in order to pay for operating expenses.
Brodsky, now a fellow at Wagner College on Staten Island, calls this an extraordinary moment in New York’s cultural history.
Brodsky and the legislature has sought the protections since the recession cut into museums’ revenues.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
