About Tawapa
Tawapa Yesterday:
First, it gave name to a Native American tribe located in what is now northern New Mexico and the fertile valley that housed them.
Second, it moonlighted as an outlaw utopia of communal living in that same region from 1967-1992 created by back-to-the-landers in the late 60's, who squatted the valley and built off-the-grid adobe houses which was one of the childhood homes to our owner, Phoebe Minona Durland.
Tawapa Today:
The envisioned livelihood of Durland and established in 1996, it is a perceptive and bold line of excellent quality organic jewelry, created with the highest standards possible. It is the product of creative passion, a fascination with native cultures, ritual and tribal rites, a love of anthropology and extensive time spent living and traveling among native cultures in Latin America and Southeast Asia and India.
We use the best materials we can find. Except for items which have become industry standards, our designs are lovingly imagined by yours truly: ourselves. Tawapa is proud to offer the largest variety of trustworthy, beautiful, and unique designs. It is one of our most important goals to maintain the raised bar of quality control within the "organics" jewelry industry. Having recently opened a retail shop of our very own, we get first hand feedback about our jewelry, and we’ve always benefited from suggestions from our retailers. Because we work so closely with our carvers, your suggestions and comments are not only always taken to heart but also considered for implementation. We do our best to be meticulous in working out the inherent kinks of hand carved jewelry.
We have also taken great pains over the years (and continue to do so) to focus on achieving accuracy of gauge size. Though we offer jewelry sized by the millimeter, we strive to match our sizes to the appropriate and exact gauge.
Our jewelry is handmade by very skilled craftspeople who are like family to us. Mutually, our businesses have grown together over the years. It is with pride that we can state that we follow fair trade standards.
As one of the pioneers in our industry, we have created consistency in the attainability of "organics". We were nearly first in our kind to make catalogs and price lists available to our retailers. We also worked to build up our stock, thus making it easy and consistent to order specific pieces.
It is because we diversified our designs with such a collection of materials that our competitors now offer their designs in arrays of materials as well. We don’t necessarily need credit for this, but we are glad to see this industry aglow in options.
We are practically a traveling road show, only without music, and without the antics. But we do have lovely traveling ladies who hit the road to bring Tawapa designs to retail shops all over the world.
It is with honor that we are now members of the Association of Professional Piercers.
We are the proud sister company of www.wildcardcollection.com, the revolutionary couture clothing and accessory line and www.fiveanddiamond.com, our jaw dropping retail shop. Check us out!
Tawapa Tomorrow:
You're lookin' at it—our brand new website! Eventually we would like to build more community by means of online forums, etc.
Our new classic jewelry line, which we are now extending to those with non-stretched earlobes will be as varied as our piercing jewelry line someday.
It's hard not to foresee a new office in our future. We are quickly outgrowing our latest digs, which we just inhabited not even a year ago (May 2007).
We’re imagining something about Tawapa Europe… Got any ideas?
Who knows? The sky’s the limit. Here’s to the unknown...
The Ever-Growing Tawapa Nuclear Family is:
Owner / Designer / Genius: Phoebe Minona Durland
Designer / Mad Scientist: Leighton Kelly
Office / Director of all Things Coming and Going / Head Cheerleader / Angel: Jenella Brooks
Office / The All Seeing Eye / Hot Mama: Victoria Hawkins
Office / Resident DJ / Adoring Cat Owner: Becky Chun
Office / Enthusiast Extraordinaire / Storyteller: Tatjana "Toots" Ducker
Office / Ms. Meticulous / Goddess: Fatima “Beloved” Flemming
Office / First Dude: Joshua Ryan Korpi
Books / Savior / Brains with Beauty: Alcina Horstman
Sales Rep / Rolling Stone: Hannah Dansie
Tawapa Rep in Europe / Madame Holland: Sharon Looey
Bottomless thank you’s to the many people who have helped us out at APP and at large, including (but absolutely not limited to): all of the shops, new and old, who have supported us over the years, Joshua David, Duges, Sarah Rutland, Sam Sanchez, Spencer Hansen, Niko in Bali, Everybody Loves Lance Geng, Philip Milic and the opportunistic and adorable Cholula, Chillaxed Jesse Miller and last but never least our 5 & Diamond Soulmates...
