Ten Diné Artists, Enrolled Members Of The Navajo Nation

The artists behind every cuff

Each artist decides how much work they take on and when. Their name is on the card that travels with the cuff.

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The Work

Etkie’s work is authored by ten Diné artists, enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. We design the patterns together. Each artist looms each cuff at home, and their name is on the card that travels with it.

They are why the company exists, and the standard everything else is held to. Most of them learned beading the way it is taught here: sitting beside someone older, handed the needle before being told what to do with it.

The loom is a wooden frame, warp threads strung tight across it. Beads go on one at a time, by needle, row by row. More than 1,200 glass beads to a cuff, loomed onto leather. There is no faster version of this.

01 — WHAT THEY KEEP

The work fits the life they want

Most work asks you to leave: to move to where the job is, keep its hours, arrange your family around them. Beadwork asked the opposite. It is done at home, at whatever hour suits the day, in the community an artist chose to stay in. The business runs on their pace, their calendars, their family and cultural commitments.

We did not set out to give anyone a job. We set out to make it possible to build an art practice from home, on their own terms.

02 — ONE OF ONE

Every piece is created by hand

Each artist sets their own week. Some bead in the early morning, before the house wakes. Some work through the afternoon with the radio on. A hand places every bead, and no two rows land identically, even inside the same pattern.

Etkie exists because this work was being bought for a fraction of what the skill behind it is worth. The talent was already here. The valuation was the problem, and a valuation is something a business can fix. Wages are set with the artists through joint time studies, and 6% of the value of everything they create is paid to them every year.

BEADS PER CUFF: 1,200+
ARTISTS: 10
IN BUSINESS: 13 years

The artists

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Priscilla
Beading with Etkie since 2014; taught all three of her children to loom.
Dru
Learned beading from her grandmother on the Navajo Reservation. Mother of two.
Cal
Learned beading from their mother, Priscilla. Loves to laugh and keeps the office upbeat.
Dorothy
Likes beading at home in the peace and quiet with her animals on the reservation.
Valeen
Mother of two boys and lives five minutes from her mother and grandmother, who taught her how to bead.
Mike
From a long line of ranchers; beading keeps him on the land he loves.
Tanya
Experiments with color and pattern, and shares every finding with the team.
Olivia
Mother to one son and the most fashion-forward person on the team.
Destiny
Quiet and grounded; happiest outdoors with animals and siblings.
Sherriah
Joined after graduating, to bead from home alongside their sisters.

THE ARTISTS

Every cuff carries the name of the artist who made it. Their names are on the page, and their talent is recognized.

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