Website offers market for Aboriginal crafts, art

The Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres (OFIFC) has launched an Aboriginal e-commerce website for Aboriginal artisans to sell their work.
“It’s a social economy initiative intended to support Aboriginal artisans and friendship centres and Aboriginal businesses that are partners and suppliers,” said Chester Langille, capacity support director with the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres. “We purchase products from the artisans and we sell (the products) in an e-commerce format.”
Langille said many artisans do not know how to market their work other than going door-to-door with their work.
“Often, (they) struggle to make ends meet and are spending a lot of time doing this and not getting enough dollars for what they actually produce,” Langille said. “We’re trying to ensure that we can create a global market for them.”
Available at www.kitigan.com, the website was financed through the OFIFC-owned Villages Equity Corporation to offer authentic, original, high quality Aboriginal art, gifts and crafts at a competitive price while also supporting Aboriginal artisans, particularly low-income artisans, to develop a portfolio and reach a global market.
Langille said the artists are identified on the website, which also includes educational information and cultural knowledge about the diverse styles, cultures and regions from which Aboriginal peoples and their art originate.
“If you go to our website, it shows who produced it, it has any teachings around the product, what materials may have been used,” Langille said. “Additionally, under our artisan suppliers, we identify where our artists are from, what other artwork they might do, not just the stuff we purchase from them but they might have multiple different art forms that they work with.”
The website offers a wide variety of work, including original birch bark, wood and canvas paintings, stone and antler carvings, Iroquois pottery and raised beadwork, ash and birch bark baskets, corn husk dolls, feather boxes, hand-carved paddles, quilts and star blankets, tamarack art, flutes, quill boxes and quill barrettes, gold, silver, wampum and turquoise jewelry and apparel including moccasins, mitts, gauntlets, hats, ribbon shirts, vests, dresses, purses and turtle medicine pouches.