(Photo: Autumn Hazen’s spritual strength is Protection | courtesy of Manymoons.net)
Local entrepreneurs transform fine arts into beautiful personal and gift items, while supporting a movement to preserve the Ojibwe Native American language.
Local start-up manymoons.net revolves around Bend resident Marjorie Meret-Carmen’s belief that, “…if small businesses would take on even one of society’s injustices by earmarking as little as 5 percent of profits toward making a difference, the ripple effect could go a long way.” Thus, the concept of Commerce with Conscience was initiated with the launching of this site.
“We chose to support the Ojibwe language preservation projects out of gratitude to Dale Shalefoe, a member of the Ojibwe tribe who owned the manymoons.net website, for ‘gifting’ it to us when we informed him of our intention to help repair social injustices that go back many generations.”
The idea grew out of Marjorie’s extensive collection of her father, Tom Meret’s watercolors; works that were scheduled for public exhibition in New York in 1971, the year of a tragic auto accident and his death a few months prior to the opening.
“We canceled the show. There would be no more paintings and we didn’t want to sell the collection we had, “ Meret-Carmen said.
The work remained largely unknown until a few years ago when she had some of the watercolors produced as greeting cards for family and friends. Then someone remarked what great jigsaw puzzles they could be and Crystal Wright came up with a prototype for the puzzles and two sets of notecards. There is even a coloring book in the works.
“Seeing my father’s art going public 40+ years later warms my soul,” said Meret-Carmen, realizing the paintings are finally able to be seen and enjoyed beyond her Touchmark apartment.
Launching manymoons.net has been a dynamic collaboration between Meret-Carmen, Kristi Miller, Barbara Rich and Dan and Crystal Wright of Bend Internet Solutions. Said Rich, “We are committed to promoting original products of our own creation or others’ that can further our mission of changing the way the world works, even if just by a little.”
We invite you to visit manymoons.net, headquartered in Bend and experience commerce with conscience this holiday season.