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.
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