State of the Art
By Lindsay Atwood
USDA Rural Development
n a lively city
street in
Berkeley,
Calif., welldressed
shoppers peer into a modernlooking
window display of
paintings and jewelry, admiring
the contemporary storefront
and eclectic collection of art
inside. Almost 2,000 miles away
in a remote Alaskan village,
Alaskan native women mail
their exquisitely knitted hats
and scarves to Anchorage for
sale to visiting tourists,
weathered fishermen and Websurfing
shoppers worldwide.
These two businesses may
sound very different, but they
share a key, unifying trait: both
are arts and crafts cooperatives.
Cooperatives are common in many
business sectors, and the production
and sale of fine arts and crafts are no
exception. But arts and crafts co-ops
face some unique challenges.
Liz Bailey, executive director of the
Cooperative Development Foundation
in Washington, D.C., is responsible for
conducting an on-line arts and crafts
co-op auction during Co-op Month each October, and she has a wealth of
knowledge about arts and crafts co-ops
in general.
Help for new artists
Bailey says co-ops can help new or
up-and-coming artists develop a
reputation and get their feet on the
ground. “I had a member of [a co-op] in
California tell me that for new artists
coming out and trying to get
themselves established, the coop
is the perfect model,” she
says. “It would be absolutely
essential for a starting artist.”
Rural craftspeople without
an immediate market for their
works can also benefit from
belonging to a co-op. Co-ops
provide them with access to
the market and act as a magnet
to draw in tourists for the
greater good of the rural
economy.
“It allows artists who want
to live in rural areas for all the
quality of life issues…a
business link that makes it
possible for them to live there
and be part of the rural
economy,” Bailey says.
For any artist, though,
whether new or established,
rural or urban, a co-op
essentially does for members
what a commercial gallery would do: It
gives talented artists a market for their
work.
Tenacity helps gallery
survive and thrive
The Arts and Crafts Cooperative
Inc. (ACCI) Gallery in Berkeley holds
the distinction of being the oldest arts
and crafts co-op west of the Mississippi.
The gallery has persevered through the
ups and downs of start-up and
maintenance, and last year it
celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Now an established, viable
business, ACCI Gallery no
longer has to borrow money
from members to stay afloat.
“There have been plenty of
times when we’ve been in the
‘save the co-op’ state,” says Lisah Horner, the gallery’s
executive director. “We’re not operating in panic mode [any
more]. The members can relax.”
What began as a group of people putting blankets on the
sidewalk to sell their wares has evolved into a 130-member
cooperative with paid staff and a fully paid for building on a
busy Berkeley street.
“We were always on this street,” says Horner of the
immensely popular ‘Gourmet Ghetto,’ as it is known in
Berkeley. “We have so much attention from the restaurants
around us. There is no way we could have done it without
the street traffic and foot traffic.”
But location alone was not enough to keep the gallery in
business. Horner describes the main contributing factor to
the longevity of the co-op in one word: tenacity. “This would
never happen without a large group of people who invested
personally and financially into it
and were just determined to
make it happen,” she says.
Recognizing the
importance of the business and
day-to-day operations of the
gallery, the member artists
organized a board of directors.
“You need business-minded
people involved,” says Horner, who served on the board prior
to becoming the gallery’s director. “What I get to do is select
people who I think would be ideal candidates — people who
have owned businesses and have corporate backgrounds.”
In addition to their artwork, member artists contribute to
the business side of the co-op with their $250 annual dues, 20
hours per year of work for the co-op and 45 percent of their
sales going to pay for the building, staff, advertising and
other costs.
Co-op identity a plus
So successful has ACCI Gallery been in managing the
business that unless it actively marketed the gallery’s
cooperative status, it might be easy to mistake it for a
commercial gallery. Co-op leaders are adamant, however, that
the acronym in the name be spelled out and that people know
it is a co-op. After all, “it’s got a
life of its own separate from a
commercial gallery where you
go drop your art and leave,”
Horner says.
Customers appreciate the
hands-on, personal approach to
the co-op and have shown great
interest in understanding the
alternative business structure. “In fact, they ask my staff
repeatedly,” Horner says. “They want to know how the
whole operation works.”
Staff are eager to talk about the co-op model, as well as
the artists, while they are selling. “It creates a dialogue, and
you try to educate as well as sell art,” Horner says. This is a
dimension less frequently found at commercial galleries but
important to ACCI, and it has served them well. “We have a
fabulous reputation,” Horner asserts. “It helps [the artists],
and they sell.”
Aside from the business, the daily grind, the sales and the
management pressures, ACCI Gallery has provided a haven
to Bay Area artists. “This is an opportunity for people to…be
a part of a community of artists,” Horner says.
There are members who have been with the co-op for 40
years. They stay because of what the co-op does for them.
The co-op stays because of what the members do for it. It is a
cycle that has worked for ACCI Gallery for 50 years and
counting.
Co-op spins musk ox wool into high fashion
Half a continent and a cultural world away from Berkeley,
the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Cooperative has a
history as rich as the cultures and heritage of its members. Its
story began when, more than half a century ago, Harvardeducated
Dr. John Teal Jr. began his research on the Arctic
Musk Ox, also known by its Eskimo name, Oomingmak. His
goal was to determine whether the animal could be
domesticated and used for its fine underwool, called Qiviut.
From his research, the Musk Ox Farm was born and is
now located in Palmer, Alaska. In 1968, not long after the
domestication of these animals began, the Oomingmak Musk
Ox Producers’ Cooperative came into being. Twenty-five
women in a small village on Nunivak Island off the west coast
of Alaska took part in a knitting workshop. It was this group
that comprised the original membership of the Oomingmak
Musk Ox Producers’
Cooperative. Today, 40 years
later, its infant business has
grown to include some 200 to
250 members in villages all
across Alaska.
Almost from the very
beginning, the co-op and the
Musk Ox Farm in Palmer have
shared a special relationship. The cooperative buys all of the
fiber from the Musk Ox Farm each year, as well as from
people in Alaskan villages who hunt the musk ox as part of
their subsistence lifestyles. “It is a very fine and very
expensive fiber that is bought by the cooperative as a whole
and yet trusted to each member without any cost to them,”
says Sigrun Robertson, executive director of the cooperative.
Once they have procured the fiber, the co-op sends it to a
cashmere mill to be spun into yarn. “From the time we send
the fiber out until we get the yarn can take a year, maybe
more,” Robertson says. “The fiber is very limited. We can’t
just go out and buy more fiber. We have to make sure we
procure enough.”
This incredibly warm, soft and lightweight yarn is then
sent to any co-op member who asks for yarn to be knit into
hats, scarves, stoles and the co-op’s signature item: the
nachaq. Although the hat patterns are universal, each knitter
has a specific pattern for the scarves and nachaqs that is
unique to the village or area that he or she is from.
Tapping wholesale and retail markets
Back in the co-op headquarters in Anchorage, Sigrun
Robertson handles the business side of the co-op. “The
knitting comes in here. A check is cut the same day and
mailed out the next day,” says Robertson.
Each of the items is evaluated in Anchorage for quality
and workmanship. Then the items are all washed, blocked,
packaged, labeled and sold, both wholesale and retail. “We
produce 4,000 to 5,000 items per year at the most,”
Robertson says. “They’re beautiful items.”
The Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Cooperative goods
are sold at its store in Anchorage, at David Morgan in
Seattle, at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer and online. “One
would think it would be people from higher income levels
and people who prefer to save and purchase nice things,” says
Robertson of the co-op’s clientele. “But
I have found that you don’t know.
There are young people. There are
fishermen. It’s such a variety. A good
part of our purchases are, of course,
made by summer tourists to Alaska, and
that’s how the word gets spread.”
Despite its limited marketing, the
word does continue to spread.
Robertson credits two things for this
high demand: the fine quality of the
fiber, and the hands-on, personal
approach and story behind the items. “I
think the fact that this is truly meant to
help the people in the villages…is a big
drawing point,” Robertson says.
The Oomingmak Musk Ox
Producers’ Cooperative stands out, not
only because it is structured differently
than a typical business, but because it
exists solely for the benefit of the
people living in remote Alaskan villages.
“These are villages you could not get to
by car,” Robertson says. “It really is
truly way out there. You don’t go there
on a whim,” she says, adding that there
are very few jobs in such villages.
The beauty of the
cooperative is that it
provides a way for
these people to make
money but is flexible
enough to allow them
time to live their
mostly subsistence
lifestyles. “It’s
something that you fit
in with the other parts
in your world, like
taking care of your
children, preserving
the things that you
need to pick and
preserve in the
summer or drying
fish,” Robertson says.
Robertson admits that the co-op has
changed very little since its beginning,
other than incorporating computers at
headquarters, developing a Web site
and increasing the number of members.
Unlike other businesses and co-ops that
work to stay on top of, and even ahead
of, the next big thing, Robertson makes
clear that Oomingmak Musk Ox
Producers’ Cooperative’s goal is very
different: “We’re not a mover and a
shaker type of business. We are steeped
in tradition, and that’s where we intend
to be.”
