by Scot Kelly

Welcome to the humble beginnings of Artistream, an online market offering outstanding works of art from Native American artists!

For a few years now, co-founder Ron Peters and I have maintained a vision of what Artistream could become. We officially forged our partnership and launched the skeleton of Artistream by holding a ceremony on top of Bald Mountain in upstate New York. This wasn’t your typical ribbon-cutting ceremony, though. We didn’t hoist a champagne toast among friends and backers. Rather, our ceremony was designed to honor our diverse spiritual inspirations, to focus our minds and hearts, as well as to give thanks for the people, the earth, and the energies that assisted us in progressing this far – the same forces whose benevolence will support us in the future.

For the moment, I’ll skip the details of that ceremony. I mention it because I want to make it clear that, from the very beginning, Ron and I felt that Artistream should be much more than just a typical corporate enterprise. In fact, we decided that Artistream should:

1. Be a vehicle for producing and distributing beautiful art
2. Provide economic benefits to the artistic community that works in partnership with Artistream
3. Work to preserve (and restore) Native American culture, spirituality, history, ceremonies, etc.
4. Be intelligent about the resources that it consumes / transforms and give back to the environment when possible
5. Be aware of the local communities that it interacts with and strive to be a good corporate neighbor
6. Respect the people who work for and partner with Artistream and strive to meet (and inspire) them as individuals who have lives other than Artistream
7. Listen to feedback on how Artistream executes on these ideals and goals as well as regularly refine and update these ideals and goals
8. Be profitable and therefore continue to invest in these goals as well as provide for our families and those who partner with us.

I realize that these are lofty goals and ones not normally found in a company charter. However, I feel that it is time that companies take greater responsibility for their actions and become more broadly accountable. In fact there are many companies who acheive many of these goals today and who are great examples to those of us who wish to create a more holistic company structure (Patagonia and Ben & Jerrys are 2 outstanding role models).

Artistream is but a small trickle bubbling from under a rock on a remote mountainside. Our current business is limited to marketing art multiples via the Web. With few moving parts (or employees), it is not that difficult to work within the goals we have set. However, should we achieve some modest success, the interactions between these goals will become complex and will require thoughtful compromises for Artistream to stay on track. Ron and I say “So be it”. As believers in the sanctity of our environment, the value of our artists and partners as well as the responsibility that businesses must shoulder in creating a better planet… we welcome the challenge.
We invite you all to check in from time to time, provide feedback, ask questions, inspire us, work with us, or just ignore us.

Mita Kuya Oyasin (All my relations)

Scot Kelly

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