I made another nice contact here in Holland! Her name is Regina van de Berg
and she owns the Red Thunderbird Agency which is a Dutch based agency that
promotes the outstanding North-American Indian art and culture. She operates
the agency in cooperation with American-Indian Dr. Nate St. Pierre, Chippewa
-Cree from Rocky Boy Indian Reservation.
Red Thunderbird Agency’s core-business is the sales of beadwork and paintings,
yet they do a lot more than that: they organize events, invite Indians to
Holland
for lectures and workshops and support projects. The agency is basically focused
on the Plains-Indian culture, with a specific interest in the beadwork and the
paintings from Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in the North of Montana.
As far as the sales concerns, it's important to know that RTA buys the products
straight from Indian people. Most of the artists are from economically depressed
Indian reservation-communities. Many of them make their living through sales of
their products. In other cases, selling original artwork benefits families and
communities by providing basic needs such as health care, food, education, and
transportation. Also, RTA supports Indian projects.
One of the artists involved:
Douglas Standing Rock
(paintings)
When I approached Regina for the first time I told her about my work; working
with
Indian prisoners, and she immediately got interested! She asked me to write an
article for her website; info about NativeAmericanPrisoners you can now find on
her website under "Projects"! The way things look now we will meet each other
in October on a so called “Kiva Day”; a meeting for people involved in American
Indian issues.
Check her website out for more information; it has an English, as
well as a
Dutch & German section:
http://www.redthunderbirdagency.com
