Arts&Life
shopping
30 | JULY 9 • 2020
I
n 2012, lifelong friends
Becky Riess and Kris Engle
had come to a crossroads in
their careers. Each had worked
hard for more than 20 years —
Riess taking the corporate route
and Engle becoming a South
Africa-based entrepreneur and
travelling around the world.
They had learned a lot and
earned enough, but both felt
they needed something more.
They wanted to put their indi-
vidual expertise to work in a way
that could help others in need.
Inspired by Engle’
s adopt-
ed home of South Africa, the
friends honed in on the idea of
supporting fairly traded artisan
companies in areas of the world
greatly affected by unemploy-
ment, and to do so in a way that
recognizes the entrepreneurial
spirit.
“Even though apartheid is
over, the country was left badly
scarred,
” Riess said. The unem-
ployment rate for South African
women ages 18 to 35 is approxi-
mately 40 percent.
With Engle managing busi-
ness in South Africa and Riess
handling things in the U.S.,
the pair launched Thumbprint
Artifacts as a wholesaler, offer-
ing unique home decor and
gift items handcrafted by South
African women and sold to
the U.S. market. Hand-beaded
jewelry, hand-roasted coffee by
Himelhoch’
s, ceramics, felt baby
booties, body butter — and
Judaica — are among the items
offered.
Buoyed by interest from
buyers at the semi-annual NY
Now gift show — the largest
in the country — the business
in 2018 opened a small shop
in Detroit’
s Eastern Market
called Thumbprint Gallery.
Now, inspired by the COVID-
19 quarantine, the friends have
launched a website, thumb-
printdetroit.com. “Our goal here
at the Thumbprint fulfillment
and gallery is to hire women
from Detroit who we can train
and employ. Now we’
re helping
women on two continents,
”
Riess said.
Every year at the gift show, a
group of women shopping for
items for a North Carolina tem-
ple would stop by Riess’
booth
and ask if she had any Judaica.
“They loved what we offered,
and they loved the idea of sup-
porting fair trade, but there
wasn’
t anything for their specific
needs,
” Riess said.
So Riess got in touch with
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THUMBNAIL GALLERY
A South African
artisan at work
Fair Trade
Shop
A purchase from Thumbprint Gallery shows
that a successful business can put people fi
rst.
LYNNE KONSTANTIN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Hand-beaded
African animals