Cheyenne Nelson pulled a pair of fur pompom earrings from a box stacked with her creations.
“These are otter,” she said. ”I buy my fur from the scraps of other artists so that nothing goes to waste.”
Nelson, who is Aleut and Tlingit, owns Iliamna Arts in Anchorage. A self-taught artist, she uses fur from otters, rabbits, lynx and foxes to make jewelry, incorporating agate, shells and other natural materials she finds on Alaska beaches.
Nelson uses Etsy – an online marketplace that caters to artists and craftspeople – to sell her jewelry to customers from California to Chicago, and from Canada to the Netherlands. But that might change soon. In early April, Etsy emailed artists like Nelson to notify them it will ban many fur products, starting Aug. 11, as part of their “ongoing biodiversity efforts.”
“I just like stopped dead in my tracks because it was like, the worst-case scenario,” Nelson said. “To have that taken away, it's such a bummer, because I really like being able to have my art reach people that in no other way it would have reached.”
Etsy’s new policy, posted on their website, says that it will apply to fur from animals killed primarily for their pelts – like mink, fox and rabbit. It says the ban also covers a long list of animals that includes seals, whales, bears and wolves. The goal is to conserve vulnerable species, according to the policy.
However, it was not clear if or how the company would establish that animals were killed for fur and not for sustenance, as is often the case for Alaska Native people.
There don’t appear to be exceptions for Indigenous artists, whose rights to harvest animals and create traditional crafts are often protected by federal law.
Etsy did not respond to emailed questions for this story.
Many Alaska Native artists contacted for this story said they don’t use Etsy to sell their creations. But Nelson and several others said the new policy will disproportionately harm Indigenous artists.
“You've ostracized the entire Indigenous population that wants to share their art through Etsy, on that platform,” Nelson said.
Nelson said that if Etsy rolled out the policy with meaningful exceptions for Indigenous artists, she would have more respect for the decision. She said she is not sure she wants to continue doing business through Etsy, even though it’s a well-established platform that would be hard to compete with.
Jamie Nurauq Stallings is Yupik and Athabaskan who now lives in Idaho and owns a store she named after herself – Nurauq, which means beauty of dawn.
Inspired by Alaska Native carving and beading traditions in her family, Stallings makes earrings, kuspuks and other clothing using fur and feathers from animals like beavers, rabbits and ducks harvested during her family’s hunts. Like Nelson, she sells her art on Etsy and at local markets.
Stallings said the Etsy fur ban discriminates against Native artists who rely on fur to make money and treat animals with respect, contrary to what the ban tries to prevent.
“Historically, there's been a lot of shame put on certain parts of our lives, like our language, and now it's fur,” Stallings said. “We don't disrespect animals whatsoever. In fact, we have the highest regard for animals, and this is our way of respecting and cherishing the animal's life by giving it another life.”
Stallings often takes custom orders on Etsy, sometimes to account for customers’ allergies and sometimes to make something unique for special occasions like weddings, anniversaries and graduations.
"Every time you look at that one piece of artwork that I made, you'll always remember that day," she said. "What an honor."
When Stallings was small, she was a part of her father’s Indigenous dance group, Miracle Drummers and Dancers. She said she remembers performing in the Anchorage Native Heritage Center to a crowd of tourists from China, Australia and other countries. Between the performances, she would sit with her mom at a table, selling earrings and talking to guests.
She said that while many aspects of Alaska Native cultures are sacred, jewelry is something that others can enjoy and bring home with them.
“Earrings were the one thing that we were able to share with people,” she said. “I really love that – being able to connect to people from everywhere. It's unifying.”
Stallings said that she originally felt a lot of anger toward Etsy for its new policy. But now she said she hopes the ban can motivate Indigenous artists to come together and create their own platform to sell traditional art on their own terms.
