Meet Heather Tracy of Navajo Secrets in East Valley and Nomadic

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Tracy.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Heather. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In 1935, my grandma was 14 years old when she started selling jewelry by the road side on Highway 64. One of the first places we sold was the Little Colorado Gorge Viewpoint. This is one of the first viewpoints you will run into when traveling to the south rim of the Grand Canyon through the Navajo Nation. Back then she had only a few juniper berry seeds and turquoise necklaces laid across a small baby blanket. The road to the Grand Canyon was on a few year old then. She would find immediate success in selling her Native crafting. Our sheep camp is still only a half mile from this very view point. Our Great Grandma was a rug weaver, then a silversmith. She would bare eight children and raise them here. If you weren’t herding sheep, you were selling jewelry. This would be our first generation of personal jewelers. Her 8 children would go on to learn and superseded the craft. She would apart of the first generation to sell our Native Crafts directly to tourist. Due to limited job resources on the Navajo Nation, Native crafting would become a way of life for most Navajo families. Not long after we would have families with generations of potters, weavers. We are all are taught as an early age the art of craft. I, too, would spend most of my childhood days by the roadside with my grandparents and mother helping make and selling our jewelry. Later in my teenage years, I learned the art of salesmanship from our Grandpa Roger Cowboy. He was a talker, a jokester. He would engage with customer in a way no other native had seen before. We would all learn the art of salesmanship. I am a product of four generations of Native crafting. Like most of my family I would spend my first decade of jewelry selling helping our grand grandma. I have combined all these talents in hopes of creating a legacy. Navajo Secrets. A lot of these small town roadside businesses have been removed due to the Arizona highway expansion but we can be found setting up at vendor sites in Sedona, Grand Canyon and sometimes the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. Our ultimate goal is to own a storefront then use that money to provide more Native American Vendor sites. We just recently made the transition to online sales, which has gone much better than expected. I can honestly say, we (my mother, sister and I) truly enjoy helping our people and keeping our art alive. In some ways it’s become a tradition. Telling our stories about our pieces that were handed to us from previous generation has become one of my favorite past times.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Our struggles began in the early 2000s. ADOT started expanding the highways through the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona. During this expansion many roadside Native jewelry “stands” were asked remove their businesses. After the expansion signs were put up in the same areas. The signs would read “No roadside vending or advertisement.” This created a downfall on economy on the Navajo Nation. My family relocated to another area and without success, we soon would have to travel over an hour to places such as Sedona / Oak Creek Vista to sell our crafts. This caused us to branch even further, we would apply for Arts shows in the Phoenix Area, and soon learn for the first time that Native Americans Artisans were not accepted with open arms. We were viewed as competition due to competing businesses in the area. We now currently strive and dream of opening my own store front in these same areas that originally told us no.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Navajo Secrets specializes in providing the best Native handmade jewelry and pottery. We use nothing but real turquoise. This is a family business. My uncles are mostly metal smiths. My mom’s generation mastered pottery. Some say we make the best pottery in the Southwest. I mostly bead and just learned to metal smith a couple years ago. I am proud of creating a brand for us. We are a Native owned company that provides Native handmade jewelry. In a world full of fake imported native jewelry I’ve created a brand and a virtual place where people can always find the real deal and get the real tourist experience. This in itself provides a safe place to help support and protect my people’s art and way of life. And this is only the beginning. We are only a few months away from a store front and in hopes that will leads to providing Native vending sites.

What were you like growing up?
I was born and raised on the Navajo Nation. My mom and dad built our home 50 feet from my great grandma’s home. Our “sheep camp” was located 8 miles from the small town of Cameron. And one miles from the highway down a rocky dirt road. I grew up with no running water or electricity. My family to this days owns 200 sheep. I grew up herding these sheep in every evening as a child and into my teenage years. My family consists mostly of woman. I watched them haul water, make a living, and come home and feed their big families every evening. It was from them I learned independence at a very young age. The few men in my family were jokesters, and storytellers. It was from them I would learn to be personable. I was a creative child. I enjoyed creating designs from raw materials. I enjoyed writing and superseded in academics. Unknowingly, all these characteristics would help contribute to expanding our family business into new areas including the online world.

Pricing:

• Our Prices vary from $10.00 to $1000.00

Contact Info:

• Website: www.NavajoSecrets.com
• Phone: 9286060060
• Email: NavajoSecrets@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/navajosecrets
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/navajosecretsjewelry

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