Rent To Own Condos

Having native art in your home is great as it adds a taste of exotic style.  If you are currently a renter, native art will certainly set you apart from your neighbours.  Now, imagine if you had native art on the walls of your own home that you actually own.  This is certainly possible through rent to own condos as well as other rent to own homes.

Rent to own homes programs have sprung up and they help renters who want to become homeowners but can’t currently get approved for mortgages either because of bad credit or insufficient funds for down payments.  These special programs help bridge the gap towards getting financing.

Private investors help fund the properties that you want to eventually own and that you can actually live in before you become qualified for full mortgages.  You just rent in these homes in the meantime while fixing up your credit or saving up for a down payment.

Then at the end of the lease period, you can purchase the home at a predetermined price.  Then you become a full homeowner!

During the lease period itself, you can maintain and decorate your home anyway you like with as much Northwest Native art or Inuit art desired. You can even have Arctic husky dogs living with you in the home if you wish!

You basically live in your future home that you will own as if you already own it.  This can apply to detached houses or rent to own condos.

For more information on such programs, see Rent To Own Homes programs and how they can help current renters become full homeowners, even with bad credit histories.

Orcas In Frozen Planet

I have always loved killerwhales or orcas as they are often known.  I watch them when I go to aquariums like Seaworld, the Vancouver Aquarium or Marineland in Niagara Falls.  I like them so much that I even collect Northwest Indian art carvings of killerwhales.  As you know, orcas are also one of the most popular of all Northwest Indian art designs and they are steady sellers here at Free Spirit Gallery. Even the NHL hockey team Vancouver Canucks has their team logo based on an orca.

I was watching the BBC documentary entitled ‘Frozen Planet’ which is an absolutely incredible series showing nature and wildlife in the high Arctic as well as the Antarctic.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must-see as the series educates us about the far reaches of our planet with some awesome entertaining film footage.

Killerwhale Teamwork In Antarctic Waters

The first Frozen Planet episode showed a great scene in the ocean near Antarctica.  It captured a pod of killerwhales during a hunt as they were going after a seal lying on an ice floe.

The orcas used a unique strategy where they swam in a row in unison under the ice floe to create a massive wave in order to break it up and knock the seal into the water.

When the seal hit the water, the whales then used a sideswiping move to create turbulence in the ocean.  Some even blew air bubbles in the water to distract the seal.  The orcas were careful to avoid the possible snapping jaws of the seal.

The seal was able to climb onto another ice floe but was so exhausted that one of the orcas simply came up behind and dragged the seal by the tail and into the ocean to drown it.

Killerwhales are sometimes known as the ‘wolves of the seas’ because of their similar pack behaviour much like wolves exhibit on land during their hunts.  In fact, Frozen Planet also showed another scene where Arctic wolves did bring down a huge bison, again with great teamwork involved.

Animals From Inuit Art And Northwest Indian Art

Frozen Planet features many of the animals we see from both Inuit art and Northwest Indian art.  Not only were there orcas, seals and wolves, there were also many different birds, penguins, beluga whales, muskox, caribou, walrus and some great footage of polar bears.

I was also quite surprised that they even got video footage of narwhals which are not often seen in real life on any show.  These whales with their long tusks are popular in Inuit art but many people have never seen a real one either in a photo or on video.  The Frozen Planet team captured an entire pod of them up close.

At the end of each episode, we see a bit of how each Frozen Planet film crew worked on site at both Arctic and Antarctic locations to shoot their awesome scenes.

Frozen Planet DVD/Blu-ray

The Discovery Channel store has Frozen Planet available on both DVD and Blu-ray now.  I would highly recommend this series for its educational content presented with stunning, entertaining videography.  Just click on the little blue graphic below for more details at Discovery Channel.

Native Aboriginal Art

I visited a Toronto museum this weekend and got some video footage of a few pieces of Native Aboriginal art they had on display.  They didn’t have very much compared to the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau but the ones they had were quite nice.

The collection included several Iroquois carvings, an Inuit whalebone carving from Labrador Arctic, a nice Morriseau Woodlands painting (pictured above), some Southwest Kachina dolls and a small assortment of Haida artifacts including old boxes and masks.

The Iroquois art carvings were quite impressive especially given that we don’t see many around on display at museums.

Here is the video that shows some of this collection.

For many more videos and article on Native art, see the Free Spirit Gallery website.

Northwest Indian Art Carvings

Thanks to all who took part in our recent online survey on what type of Northwest Indian art carvings you all want to see for our next series from our master carvers.  Although we were not surprised how popular eagles and bears continue to be, we were surprised on how popular ravens were taking the third most popular carving subject.

There were a lot of different ideas for the general ‘other’ category but one subject that came out on a fairly regular basis was the call for wolf carvings. Maybe the recent Twilight movie series has something to do with this but the wolf is a special animal in the Northwest.  So we definitely will add wolves as part of the spring collection of Northwest Indian art carvings at Free Spirit Gallery.

Here are the overall survey results.  The figures represent what percentage of the respondents voted for each of the following types of carving subjects for Northwest Indian art carvings.

Eagles = 59.2%
Bears = 54.1%
Ravens = 50%
Thunderbirds = 39.8%
Killerwhales (breeching) = 39.8%
Killerwhales = 30.6%
Hummingbirds = 29.6%
Salmons = 29.6%
Beavers = 26.5%
Masks ($1,000 level) = 25.5%
Sun Heads = 20.4%
Indian Chief Heads = 20.4%

We just put in our request to our master carvers to produce the more popular types of carvings that most of you voted for in our survey.  Expect a big announcement for the arrivals of the new spring collection in a few weeks.

As of today, we still have two eagles and one killerwhale in stock at Free Spirit Gallery – see our Northwest Indian Art Carvings for more  details.

Northwest Indian Art Carvings

Before we order our new series of Northwest Indian art carvings for the spring, we thought that we would put out a quick, fun survey to get your input on what type of carvings you would like to see in the new collection for the spring.

Please take 30 seconds to enter your input into this new Northwest Indian art carvings series at the online survey.

We will then publish the overall results on this blog in the near future and have our master carvers produce the type of carvings that most people want to see.

Thanks in advance!

Native Art Print Testimonial

Thought that I would share with you the latest customer testimonial that came in as Tom Mallard of Mallard Design in Bellevue, Washington writes;

“Clint, it arrived in good condition.  The print is beyond mythoughts so I’m very happy, it’s a masterpiece of art, it has balance & energy !!  It’ll be framed soon, on the way to the art-supply store.”

The print that he had wrote about was in fact the United Bears one, which now comes in two different sizes.

New Business Speaker Keynote

On another small note, I’ve combined my past corporate experience along with running popular websites like Free Spirit Gallery to develop a new keynote for business audiences, especially those in small business groups or corporate sales.

If this is in your area of interest, the description of this and all my available is at my keynote speaking programs.

If not, please disregard this last point and just enjoy looking at the native artwork.

Native Art Bears Print

Free Spirit Gallery carries a limited edition Native art print called United Bears which features not one but two different Canadian Native artists representing two different native art styles. It has a bear in the Northwest Coast Salish style as well as one from the Woodlands Native art style on the same print.

The original size for this very special piece of artwork is 20 by 16 inches. There is now a smaller version sized at 14 by 11 inches available for Free Spirit Gallery customers.

See more details of this special offering at United Bears.

Northwest Indian Art Beavers

They are quite easy to miss so I thought that I would point them out – beaver carvings are not very common and we do have two of them by master carver Cody Mathias of Squamish Nation, BC.

They are found at our Other Carvings section which many people miss.  So if you have not seen them yet, they are worth checking out, even if just to see how cute they are.

Do notice their unique beavertails too!

Beaver Carvings By Cody Mathias

Don’t forget to click on each carving to get to its own webpage that has further details on size and additional photos.

Northwest Native American Art

Just in case anybody was ever worried about ordering one of a kind, unique Northwest Native American art or Inuit art online because of the shipping, there should be no worries at all.  We pack everything nicely so that the artwork is practically floating within a sea of bubble wrap and paper inside our boxes.

Also, shipping is not a problem either.  Our latest example is when we shipped a high end Northwest Native American art mask by master carver Cody Mathias of Squamish Nation, BC Canada.  This is certainly not your souvenir grade artwork that you find in tourist shops.

It is something that you would typically find in a high end Native American art gallery.  We shipped such a piece to a very lucky customer in Brooklyn, New York recently and this is what he had to say.

“The mask arrived last Friday in great condition.  I feel fortunate to own an authentic piece of northwest native art at a reasonable cost.  It will not only decorate my den but also by a symbol of focus and strength.”

Ronald Lukas, Brooklyn, NY

Ronald mentioned that this authentic piece was at a reasonable cost.  His Northwest Native American art mask actually cost him 50% of what he would have had to pay for a similar at a street gallery.  But since he ordered online from Free Spirit Gallery, he got it for much less.

At this point, we don’t know if we will stock anymore Northwest Native American art masks because they take so long to find new owners.  But masks can always be custom ordered as we can easily commission somebody like Cody Mathias to make one just for you.

If interested, see how the procedure would go at our Custom Northwest Art webpages.

The Northwest Indian art mask of a Wild Man carved by Cody Mathias of Squamish Nation, BC, Canada was finally sold to a lucky buyer in Brooklyn, New York.  This mask was carved in 2007 and even though it’s a high end art piece, it was priced at half the price of typical prices for similar masks at street galleries.

But even with such a high discount of about 50%, it still took some time to find a buyer who was comfortable enough to buy a high end art item online.  However, it’s the client who wins since he now has a very special piece of Northwest Indian artwork in the form of a much prized mask by a master carver, for half the price he would have had to pay for at a street gallery.

Free Spirit Gallery still has quite a lot of lower priced Northwest Indian art carvings available.

Here is the Wild Man mask again for the enjoyment for the rest of us at least as a photo.