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My name is Arjan Hollestelle. I was brought up during the 70's as the son of hard-working and diligent parents in a family business. Our street in the small Dutch town Poortugaal was quite multi-cultural and consisted of various different cultures and ethnic groups. For instance, our neighbours were a very kind Indonesian family. My uncle Piet lived a few houses further down the street. He more or less sparked my interest in collecting ethnographic art. Uncle Piet had served in the military in Indonesia. As a child, I always was curious. I remember this beautiful Balinese carving residing near his telephone. I was also always staring at his gorgeous Kris hanging on the wall. After years of staring at it, I received it as present on my 8th birthday. With that, I got my first Kris, hurray! From my childhood onwards, I have been intrigued by history and art. I thus began to continuously read about these subjects to gather as much information as possible. The fever began!

Soon I started to buy other objects; first the bad things, then the better things, as we all do, mostly.

 

With the arrival of eBay, I began to sell some of my acquired objects. I sold a lot and my account began to be marked as "favourite" quite rapidly by lots of buyers. Nevertheless, I had to pay a large amount of eBay fees. In 2007, I launched Mytribalworld.com. Not too long after that, I discovered that it could earn me a decent salary. I quit my job and never had any regret about the choice I made. Being busy with all those nice objects, having contact and communicating with clients, and finding just that particular object a collector so desires truly is the job of my dreams. In July 2016, I changed the website’s name into Mytribalart.com. This is because this name is shorter and better explains what I sell.

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My clients are collectors and museums from all over the world. They consist of artists, writers, painters, doctors, and archaeologists, but also people with more common jobs. Nevertheless, they have one thing in common: they are connected by their deep fascination for other cultures and art. In the past years, I sold a few hundred objects to them and I'm proud to say that the number of returns is limited at 1%.