 Ken and I live in Tucson, AZ where the sun shines 360 days a year. It’s hotter than Hades here, but they say it’s a dry heat – meaning it’s not as hot as a humid heat. If you believe that than a blast furnace isn’t as hot as a sauna and there aren’t Cartels in Mexico. We love it here anyway, chapped lips, cracked fingers and mounds of sunscreen not withstanding. We and six of our eight children, and eight of our 15 grandchildren still live in the SW. We have one family in Florida, and one family is still in cold country, near Lake Michigan. I started selling Native American jewelry in the early 1980’s when I was living in central Florida. Things were just getting started when along came my oldest daughter. At first I put her in a stroller and took her with me to the shows, that worked pretty well until she started walking. It wasn’t long before she was off and running. I found she didn’t like waiting while I spent time with the customers. She’d scoot around a corner, or head for open spaces before I could turn around. Fortunately vendors are pretty good at watching out for one another, but it wasn’t long before my second son was born. And then there were more. So, I set aside my little collection of jewelry and waited 25 years until my children were grown to try again. Howling Moon Traders started in 2007 while I was working in the Chemistry Department at the University of Arizona. At the time I was also taking classes in the Native American Studies Program offered at UofA. I started volunteering at the Southwest Native American Art Fair held at the Museum of Natural History on campus. This began my relationships with some of the local Native American artists around the SW. The first few years Ken and I spent going to Native American Art Fairs, Pow Wows, and Markets. We would talk to Native artists about our plan to start a business selling Native jewelry online and at shows in other parts of the country. Our intention was to give these artists another avenue for sales of their jewelry. I would take their pictures, have them printed, and mail them to each artist, asking if I could post their picture and bio on my website. It was slow going. I found that many of the artists lived in areas where electronic communication wasn’t common and there was also a reluctance to share one’s bio or have their picture posted on the internet. Ken and I were also working full-time so we plugged along at this for several years, getting to know many artists while buying and selling on a small level. In 2011 we decided it was time to “up our game”. We began working shows every weekend while still working our full-time jobs. Ken was also playing in a band at the time so we would often drive hundreds of miles each weekend from playing in a band in Tombstone or even Bisbee on Friday and Saturday nights to selling jewelry and guns in Tucson or even Phoenix on Saturday and Sunday. Those early days were unbelievably busy, we only took a few days off that first year. Nonetheless, we persevered until we were able to make ends meet with the business. In 2012 we moved away from our jobs and began traveling farther for the business. We made ends meet while spending a lot of time on the road for 7-8 years. Then there was covid… There have been a lot of ups and downs. We are still a small mom and pop kinda business and we are still buying most of our jewelry from artists we have come to know personally over the years. We decided to not to go back on the road to sell jewelry after the plandemic. Now you can find our inventory here on the internet. I’ll keep the inventory updated whenever we go up to the Four Corners to meet with and purchase jewelry from our our friends on the reservations. |
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