When Nancy Spada bought a piece of Mata Ortiz pottery at a Spokane auction in 2000 she didnt know that it was made by some of the poorest people in North America.


She just knew it was high-quality craftsmanship and that she wanted more. She searched the Internet, found the location of the tiny village of Mata Ortiz, Mexico, and drove 2,000 miles in her Subaru to buy more pots.


She found a village of 1,500 people, 300 of them potters, who fired their pots in holes dug in the ground with fires fueled by cow dung. She found artists who were anxious, almost desperate, to sell their pottery.


Spada bought a Subaru full of pots, drove home, sold the art to friendsand in doing so landed a second career as a Mexican folk art importer, which she does under a Hauser Lake, Idaho, business she co-owns called Singing Shaman Traders.


Domestic and business partner Roger Gee says that Spada, a Coeur dAlene psychotherapist who specializes in clients with eating disorders, has a desire to help people, and that desire is now benefiting Mexican craftspeople from Mata Ortiz to Taxco, another 2,000 miles farther south.


We havent made any money yet, says Gee. We ought to be a nonprofit.


That might change.


Spada, 50, plans to retire from her 25-year-old private psychotherapy practice in June and work full time at Singing Shaman. Gee, 62, has worked 30 years in advertising, public relations, reporting and editing. He has freelanced articles for Rolling Stone, Mother Earth News, AP, and UPI, and was a court and crime reporter for Spokanes KXLY-TV in the early 1990s, he says. He now works full time with the small business.


With extensive experience in Mexico and able to speak some Spanish, Gee joined the business in 2001 and convinced Spada to broaden its importing scope beyond pottery. In addition to pottery from Mata Ortiz, Singing Shaman now imports beadwork and yarn paintings from the Puerto Vallarta area; hand- woven baskets from Creel; silver products from Taxco, Mexicos major silver producing city; and textiles from the LaPaz area on the Baja peninsula.


Goods are sold to museums and specialty import stores, plus at trade festivals and invitation-only, in-home parties.


Spada and Gee make three or four trips to Mexico every year, normally in March, June, and September, and last year in December.


One thing Spada accomplished during the infancy of the business was to have it become a member of the Washington D.C.-based Fair Trade Federation, which the couple say is committed to providing fair wages and employment opportunities to low-income artisans in Mexico. Singing Shaman buys directly from the artisans, trying to eliminate as many middlemen in the process as possible.


The potters and the weavers set the prices, says Gee. We pay what they ask and do not barter.


Because of the 5,000 miles of travel involved in one round trip to buy merchandise, Gee says the March, June, and September trips are made to Mata Ortiz and Creel, (last Decembers trip was the first annual to LaPaz), and goods from the companys southernmost sources of Puerto Vallarta and Taxco are shipped to Singing Shamans Hauser Lake base from buyers the venture has in those two cities.


The small business grossed just $50,000 in sales last year.


Last week, Spada and Gee set out for their first Mexican trip of 2005, in the third van put into service following the Subarus inaugural voyage. One vehicle was stolen in Mazatlan in 2003, just one of many tales the couple have to tell about their adventures in Mexico. For the first time, they are now towing a 5-by-8-foot trailer that will enable them to double the amount of goods they can bring back, says Gee.


The business caters to middle-income buyers with the cost of pots ranging from $2 to a collectors gallery high of about $400. Our average pots sell for $30 to $70, says Gee.


Singing Shaman sells to the Museum Stores Association, of which the Seattle Art Museum is one of its biggest clients, and to Fair Trade Federation stores in about 20 states.


The business also set up its 10-by-10-foot sales tent at about 20 Northwest festivals last summer, but will do fewer shows this year. House parties, much like Tupperware parties, at which eight to 15 people come into a private home for a slide show, wine, cheese, and crackers, will become more and more of a selling tool this year, Gee says. He says such gatherings, which generate a fair number of sales, also provide good opportunities to educate people about the Fair Trade Federation.


Mata Ortiz is located at an elevation of 8,000 feet and became a major pottery center thanks to the efforts of one man, Juan Quezada, says Gee. Quezada became a world-class potter, then proceeded to share his skills with others in the village.


Gee says Juan Quezada pots are literally worth thousands of dollars apiece, but are now in the hands of collectors and rarely are sold. You can look at 20 pages of Mata Ortiz pottery on eBay and not see one Juan Quezada, says Gee. He says Singing Shaman buys pots annually made by a niece and a sister of the storied pot maker, though their pots dont approach the same quality.


When Spada and Gee drive into the isolated village, their van is immediately recognized, and pot makers approach them in droves. The artists in Mata Ortiz are so desperate to make sales that the couple never gets any peace, says Gee. He says the two or three days they spend in the village deciding which pots they will buy are exhausting.


They next drive about 300 miles southeast to Creel where, asserts Gee, one of every five Tarahumara children die of starvation. There they buy hand-woven baskets, and the actions of the residents are totally different than in Mata Ortiz. Instead of constantly crowding around and politely waiting to be recognized, the Tarahumara sell by indifference, says Gee.


Children as young as 3 years old peddle the baskets while adults stand back. A tourist train runs through Creel, giving children an opportunity, with some help from their mothers, to sell baskets through the train windows to tourists who dont disembark. Once the train moves on, says Gee, he and Spada buy all of the remaining baskets available for sale, an average of 30 to 40, he says.


Other baskets, drums, and pieces of art are purchased and carried out manually after the Singing Shaman Traders hike about two miles from Creel to an even more isolated village.


While traveling, Spada and Gee routinely buy bracelets and trinkets from children, what they call mercy buys, which are rarely of a quality for resale.


One of the couples biggest tribulations came in 2001 when, acting on bad advice, they drove 40 miles into Copper Canyon, which Gee says is a series of five canyons deeper and bigger than the Grand Canyon.


They drove on a steep, rough, one-lane road with a sheer cliff on one side and, at times, a 6,000 foot drop-off on the other, says Gee. We had to pull in the side mirrors to make it, he says.


On the bottom, they campedand were greeted that night with a flash flood that tore out much of the road both in front of and behind them. The trip out was slow, with countless stops to throw rocks out of the way, he says.


The future is looking good for a business now headquartered in a home and small shop, says Gee. Orders are coming in earlier this year than ever before, and many new customers have found the company on the Internet, he says.


Singing Shaman now contracts for secretarial services and for the manufacture of fleece bags used to protect pottery on the long drive back from Mexico.


We hope to grow and hire some more support staff in the future, says Spada.


When the pair return from their March buying trip, they plan to move their studio to a 30-by-40-foot metal building at nearby Newman Lake that theyll use as a packing station, storage area, office, and show room.