For 40 years, New Castle residents Tom and Diane Voight have highlighted work by Native American artists through their business Wintercount. 

Wintercount transforms art by Native American artists, including members of the Navajo, Lakota, Seneca, Cherokee, Pueblo and Seminole communities, into cards and prints for wholesale and retail, supporting artists while exposing their work to a wider audience.

“My paintings are my connection with a way of life, simple, yet rich in tradition and history,” Beverly Blacksheep, a Navajo artist who works with Wintercount, said on the Wintercount website. “Through my art I have come to realize a deep appreciation of my heritage and the importance of preserving that heritage for generations to come.”

Tom began the business in 1984 with his-then business partner, Dale Two Eagles. “The idea was to get greeting cards done by American Indian artists so they could express their traditions and cultures through their artwork,” Tom said. 

“At the time (1984) there were a lot of greeting cards with American Indian themes, but they were all done by non-American Indians,” he added. “We just felt that they should be able to express themselves.”

The name Wintercount was inspired by the pictographic calendars or records used by some Native Americans to record important historical events. Each winter, tribe elders would choose one event as a reminder of the year and paint it on an animal hide, which was kept as a record known as a winter count. 

Wintercount began with Two Eagles’ art, expanding to other Native American artists Tom and Diane met at pow wows and art shows.

The business perfectly combines the couple’s unique specializations — Tom’s masters degree in Native American history intertwines with Diane’s background in commercial art. “We combined our two loves and created this business,” Diane said.

Wintercount works with tribal cultural centers, the Native American Rights Fund and completes special projects, like personalized greeting cards, for Native American tribes. The business’ greeting cards are sold at museums, national and state parks, cultural centers and trading posts, including the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose.

Diane and Tom have even collaborated with the Smithsonian. 

“We actually went and met with Smithsonian buyers in Washington, D.C. and we took the stuff along that David Dawangyumptawa, a Hopi artist, was doing, because they had expressed an interest in Hopi art,” Tom said. “…They loved them. They exhibited them in their stores and then they would get orders, and we would ship direct and they carried our cards in the shop.”