Native Northwest, an Indigenous wholesaler, has filed a lawsuit against Bruce and Fiona Fearon of Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs in Harrison Hot Springs, B.C., for “copying, using, and selling” Francis Horne Sr.’s Sasquatch design without permission.
On a trip to Harrison Hot Springs in the summer of 2022, Horne visited Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs.
“I took a closer look and realized that’s not my design. I couldn’t eat after that, it literally made me sick to my stomach…. You’re mortified, you think, ‘Why would they steal this? Why would they steal my design?’”
Gabe Garfinkel, general manager of Native Northwest said, they immediately began working to have the copies removed and rectify the situation.
When Global News called Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs, a woman answered, refusing to give her name, but said she was the new owner who purchased the business in November of 2022.
They decided to keep the store name and were surprised when letters began arriving.
“This is not fair for our business…. It has really hurt our business,” she said. “Bruce and Fiona are previous owners, we are not connected to them, we are brand new.”
When asked whether the T-shirts were still being sold, the woman said, “We don’t sell these T-shirts anymore, come down and take a look.”
Global News has tried to contact Bruce and Fiona but has so far not received a response.
Francis Horne Sr. designed the Sasquatch displayed on this T-shirt.
“Every day, Indigenous artists find their original art taken without permission and used on fake carvings, prints, T-shirts and logos,” Garfinkel said. “Authentic Indigenous art holds immense cultural significance to artists and their communities yet there are no Canadian laws that recognize this cultural value or restrict forgeries and fakes past general copyright law.”
One hundred per cent of the art featured on Native Northwest products is designed by Indigenous artists and Garfinkel said they are committed to maintaining the integrity of Indigenous art.
“We are taking legal action, because of the lack of meaningful response and that there are no Canadian laws in place to stop the theft or forging of Indigenous art,” he said. “We hope that talking about this more will deter others from Indigenous art theft.”
A lot of this theft can be found in gift shops, and an investigation done by journalist Francesca Fionda in Vancouver found that only 25 per cent of the tourist gift shops they looked at in Gastown, Chinatown, on Robson Street and on Granville Island exclusively sold authentic items.
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“It sends a message to all Native Northwest Coast artists that we need to stand up for ourselves. We have to protect what’s rightfully ours,” Horne said.
“It’s plagiarism, plain and simple, and it’s a mockery of what we do as artists … to know that people are taking that and making money from something that they have no right to put a claim to.”
Theft of Indigenous art is something that has long plagued Indigenous people and the Indigenous economy. And there are groups dedicated to exposing and raising awareness of Indigenous art theft.
In a Facebook group called Fraudulent Native Art Exposed there are daily posts detailing work that has been copied and stolen, whether it’s appearing in gift shops, on Etsy or through various online wholesalers.
For many Indigenous artists, fighting back against theft can be too costly and all they can do is call it out. Native Northwest hopes their case sets a precedent and helps stop this theft from happening.
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“Not only does fraudulent Indigenous art have a direct financial impact on artists who are not compensated for their designs, it also undermines and neglects the spiritual and cultural significance of each brush stroke and each design,” said Garfinkel.
Everyone can help, especially when shopping.
“The first thing people can do is check that the design is attributed to or signed by an Indigenous artist,” said Garfinkel.
“If there is no artist name connected to the art, it’s more often than not a fake.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
