The world of Native American art has turned into a multibillion-dollar industry and has become a viable way for Native Americans to earn a living. To be sure, there are reasons to be concerned about the commercialization of traditional art forms, many of which are associated with spiritual and ceremonial practices that Native American people feel should not be exploited for profit (dreamcatchers are an example). The gathering of traditional materials also places stress on dwindling resources such as plant fibers for baskets and clay beds for pottery. And then there is the issue of Native Americans having to prove their native ancestry in order to comply with the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which is a double-edged sword that at once helps to protect authenticity but also polices the boundaries of American Indian identity.
On the other hand, the commercialization of Indian art has been a force for keeping culture alive during times when federal policies were designed to eliminate the political existence of Native American peoples, forcing them to blend into mainstream America and effectively disappearing. In some cases, it also helped to revive traditional art forms that had all but died out as a result of the colonial onslaught, as is the case with traditional ledger art.
Ledger art has much of its origins in the very dark period of the Indian wars era and subsequent incarceration of warriors who lost battles with the United States military, which I've written about in this article. It would evolve into an entirely new form of art that would become associated with Oklahoma tribes (originated by the Kiowa 5 in the 1920's) but ledger art itself almost disappeared as it became eclipsed by this new form. Thanks to the cultural Renaissance of the 1970's, a handful of young artists including George Flett (Spokane), Michael Horse (Yaqui/Zuni/Apache) and Tom Haukaas (Lakota), went back to the roots of traditional ledger art and since then it has done nothing but grow in popularity in the commercial Indian art world, even opening up a specialized segment of the market to female ledger artists. Ledger art is now one of the most sought-after forms of art in the Indian art world.