Cecelia Bull Bear has been making quillwork art for as long as she can remember.
“I learned from my grandmother, Ethel Black Crow, and my aunt, Rose Spotted Eagle, when I was real young,” the 76-year-old Denver-based Oglala Lakota artist said. “I’ve been doing it all my life.”
Quillwork is an art form that uses porcupine quills to embroider clothing and make jewelry, and it is one of the oldest artistic traditions practiced by Indigenous North Americans, mostly in the northern plains of what is now the U.S. and across Canada.
To Bull Bear, who is from the Medicine Root District of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, quillwork products are as precious as gemstones.
“Quillwork is like wearing diamonds,” Bull Bear said. “Quillwork is sacred. It was here before the beadwork people do now.”
Bull Bear is one of many artists who patronize and sell their art at the reopened Orr’s Trading Post, a Native arts supply store that has long been an important community hub for Indigenous people.
New owner Lakota Sage wants to expand Orr’s 133-year legacy as a community hub and arts store into a destination for authentic Indigenous arts.
Formerly located in Englewood and Denver and operated by the Orr family for generations, the new owner, Lakota Sage, reopened the store in Lakewood in February after the previous owners decided to close down.
Orr’s has always offered Denver’s Indigenous community a place to buy supplies to make regalia, practice traditions and create art; even Bull Bear’s grandmother used to buy supplies at Orr’s when it was on Colorado Boulevard in Denver.
“Most people come here to buy supplies, so when word started getting around it was closing, the community started freaking out a little,” Sage, a Lakota citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said of why he restarted the business.
This new location continues the business’ legacy of serving Denver’s Indigenous community, but Sage also wants it to be a place where people who are not Indigenous can come to see and buy local artists’ artwork.
Here, Sage hopes, they can also learn about sacred traditions and see that Indigenous art and culture is alive and well in Denver.
“The more we can have representation, the better,” Sage said. “Because we are still here; we’re still remembered.”
That’s also why Bull Bear said being able to sell her work at Orr’s is so important to her: Not only is quillwork sacred, but here in Denver, the skill is a rarity.
Bull Bear is the only practicing plains quillwork artist in the area; many people stopped doing quillwork to take up the less complicated beading art that is most commonly associated with Indigenous embroidery now. She’s started classes in Denver to keep the tradition alive here.
“They say it’s a dying art, but if people like me teach it, I think we can keep it alive,” she said. “It’s really a blessing to try and teach it to new generations. We need to take care of it.”
Newer local artists also get a chance to show people their work at Orr’s.
Tom Salazar, an Indigenous third-generation Coloradan, is a self-taught artist who sells beaded jewelry at Orr’s and buys a lot of his supplies there. His art is also meant to show people Native American traditions are still alive, and he said Orr’s is the perfect place to teach people about art through his and others’ work.
“Art is something I like to do so people don’t forget where we came from,” Salazar said. “A lot of people don’t see Native art as something somebody put their heart and soul into. When I make something, I genuinely have a love for my ancestry and love for the community to where I want to make it authentic.
“A place like Orr’s is a great place for the community to make and see authentic jewelry.”
Sage also has branched the store out for more than just the beadwork and regalia-making products.
Other wares include macaw feathers for Nahua, or Aztec, people of Mexico; shells of all types, sea stars and urchins for coastal nations and Pacific Islanders; painted beads from Peru; and katchina dolls, ancestral spirits of the Hopi and Pueblo people of the Southwest, are all available at Orr’s.
“There’s something for everybody here,” Sage said. And that goes for non-Indigenous people, too.
A whole section of the store is dedicated to naturopathy, with traditional teas that have healing properties lining a wall and sages, sweetgrass and palo santo available for ceremonies and smudging. Stones with different astrological and healing purposes are also available in different sizes and shapes for different uses.
“It’s not just a store for Natives; it’s a store for everybody,” Sage said. “The idea behind that is the more people we can get in here, the more these local Native artists can be seen and our culture appreciated. It’s a helping hand for everybody.”
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