Ambrose Roanhorse silver and turquoise pistol grips

 

 

 

Kenneth Begay silver and turquoise necklace

  

 

Preston Monongye gold bracelet with red cabochon and turquoise

   

Charles Loloma cast bracelet with gold bezel and turquoise

Native American Indian jewelry is often thought of as moderately priced souvenir-shop turquoise and silver squash blossom necklaces, sterling silver rings, bracelets, earrings, concho belts and bolo ties.  Most people don't have any knowledge of what modern Native American jewelry looks like or of the artisans that produce it.  These metalwork artisans fabricate jewelry that is both complex and intriguing.  Their strikingly contemporary designs are collected worldwide and exhibited in major museums and galleries. 

The Navajo have been making jewelry since 1870.  They acquired their metalworking techniques from the Spanish American silversmiths.  They began by creating filed and stamped silver jewelry and subsequently began to bezel set native cut turquoise stones onto their pieces.  The Navajo are primarily located on reservations in the four corners area of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. 

The Pueblo people learned the metalworking skills from the Navajo around 1900. The Pueblo tribes, made up of the Hopi, the Acoma and the Zuni, remain in their traditional communities, mostly in New Mexico and Arizona.  The Acoma Pueblo in western New Mexico was built a thousand years ago (by the ancient Anasazi people) and is the oldest continuously inhabited village in the US.  The Pueblo artisans are known for their lapidary skills.  The Zuni Pueblo, in far western New Mexico and Santo Domingo Pueblo south of Santa Fe has the largest jewelry making community.

Pueblo and Navajo jewelry traditions are very different.  The Santo Domingo Pueblo, is renowned for its exquisite heishi bead work (strung finely-cut shell).  The Hopi are known for their distinctive silver overlay and the Zuni for their beautiful stone inlay techniques that date as far back as their Anasazi origins.  Reservation traders and souvenir dealers throughout the Southwest began to promote traditional Navajo and Pueblo turquoise and silver jewelry in the early 1900s. 

Ambrose Roanhorse, a Navajo silversmith teaching at the government Indian School in Santa Fe in the late 1930s, was one of the first artisans to secede from traditional Native Indian designs.  Roanhorse reduced his designs by using simple forms, bold lines, minimal stamping and single high quality stones.  These progressive designs reflected the modernist post war aesthetic. 

Kenneth Begay was traditionally trained, but he developed his own innovative contemporary style.  He was called the "father of modern Navajo jewelry" and was known for his streamlined and elegant designs.  He would use simple, repeated shapes to create harmonious patterns.  In the 1940s his designs were considered too radical for the traditional Navajos.  He launched a retail store in Scottsdale, Arizona where he produced hollowware commissions and flatware sets, as well as his silver jewelry embellished with polished desert ironwood or quality turquoise. Begay was a teacher and a leader among Navajo silversmiths. He was celebrated for introducing a new and refined style that led away from the typical jewelry of that era.  Near the end of his life, he explained, "I like to create something new and still use the old Navajo design style". 

Charles Loloma was the most famous Native American jewelry artist of his time.  In the 1950s he broke free from the stereotyped role of the Native Indian artisan and achieved worldwide fame.  Loloma, studied painting and ceramics at the School for American Craftsman at Alfred University before he embarked on metalworking. When his work first appeared, nothing like it had been seen before. He was lauded for his bold use of gemstone color and the way that he cut the stones.  His clients included presidents, monarchs and celebrities.  Although he traveled all over the world, he chose to live and work in the Hopi Third Mesa in Arizona. Loloma's name means "many beautiful colors," and his artistic designs incorporated innovative use of materials such as fossilized ivory, natural tufa stone, cast textures, diamonds, gold and a rich array of turquoise and rosewood.  His raised and exaggerated chunk inlays and angular patterns echoed artistic influences, including the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.  (Frank Lloyd Wright's Arizona Biltmore hotel and his Taliesin Studios provided a sophisticated customer for their modern creations.) 

In the 1960s, Preston Monongye introduced tufa stone casting with raised line drawings that were highly unusual and organic.  They were often inlayed and/or overlayed with turquoise beads or polished multi-colored stone on stone inlays. He experimented with using multi levels and unique stones, shells and textures.  Monongye believed that Native jewelry should not be bound by the past.  He felt that one could integrate innovative ideas to create contemporary jewelry by still using old techniques and old designs.   Hopi colors and images were very prominent in his work.  Monongye's philosophy was, "If you can progress without hurting your tradition or your religion, you should do so."

This Height ring is one of Sonwai's trademark pieces. This one is cast in silver with a gold bezel with inlay of turquoise, coral, ebony and gold.
 

Sonwai, Verma Nequatewa
Height Bracelet, Momo Coral and Turquoise

Harvey Begay traditional tufa stone casting bracelet in 14k gold with textured surface and multiple coral cabochon sets

 

Joe and Mary Calabaza heishe necklace with turquoise, coral and olive shell with silver findings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan Poblano featherweight square neck ring with sterling and gold accents
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan Poblano "found objects" ring in sterling silver with red glass and stone

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zuni ring

Zuni bracelet with ten row matched turqouise

                                   

Generations of Navajo, Pueblo and Hopi silversmiths, who were trained at an early age form a rich lineage of artisans that are reviving and renewing Native American jewelry making.  Many of these metal smiths have attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, while others have pursued further studies in non-traditional techniques (such as mokume, roller printing, reticulation and raising) at universities throughout the United States.

Verma Nequatewa, Charles Loloma's niece, worked with him for nearly 20 years. Sonwai, her Hopi name, is a beautiful line of jewelry that she designs.  Some pieces echo Loloma's chunk inlay work of the late 1970s, but definitely exhibit her own distinctive approach and style.

Harvey Begay, was heavily influenced by his father Kenneth Begay's training.  He apprenticed with Pierre Touraine, a highly acclaimed French jeweler.  Touraine instructed his students in setting gems and refining techniques, but above all he encouraging them to expand their imaginations and venture into the international world of design.

Joe and Mary Calabaza have been making heishe and beads all their lives; a tradition passed down through generations.  The finest heishe and beads is made in the Santo Domingo Pueblo. Almost anything can be made into heishe; shell, turquoise, lapis, amber.  The selected material is cut into thin strips and drilled with a very fine bit.  After the holes are drilled, the strips are cut into squares. The squares are then strung on wire and worked by hand until each piece is perfectly round and matched. The end result can be as fine as a strand of hair.  While foreign made heishe (mostly from China) costs less then that made in Santo Domingo Pueblo, the difference in quality is dramatic. 

Dylan Poblano is the grandson of esteemed Zuni carver Leo Poblano and the youngest (29) of a family famous for their workmanship and innovative designs. Dylan's designs have been described as "wearable sculpture".  His work represents the antithesis of traditional Zuni jewelry, which is typically set with clustered turquoise stones.  His intriguing sculptural pieces are complex in their depth and textural design and are imbued with a witty and subversive attitude.  This contemporary jeweler has developed a following for his beautiful "Mondrian" stackable rings.

Charlene Sanchez Reano reversible sandwich inlay necklace,1999, shell, mother-of-pearl.

Charles Supplee Inlay bracelet and necklace

 

Hansen "Moogie" Smith turquoise jet ironwood and silver bracelet

 

Charlene Sanchez Reano uses traditional lapidary techniques and materials common to the Santa Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico. By overlaying patterns of colored stones and shells, she creates striking linear forms that when strung create new shapes.

Another way contemporary Southwestern jewelers have approached cultural expression is through reinterpreting traditional images in novel ways. Charles Supplee references his Hopi roots with remarkable lapidary renditions combined with contemporary metalwork in gold.

Navajo artisans Carl and Irene Clark are renowned for their unique and mastered technique of micro-mosaic inlay.  Each piece contains hundreds, if not several thousand individual tiny pieces of various stones. A close-up detail shows that the black lines separating each little rectangle are actually inlaid lines of jet. The silver, even on the inside of the cuff, and around the bezel and ends of the top, is hand stamped in a variety of patterns. The images are of traditional yeibechai figures which have elongated bodies, facing the viewer or sometimes sideways, and often have legs bent in a dancing motion.

Hanson Moogie Smith's techniques and designs resonate Charles Loloma's aesthetics.  The silver work is similar and Moogie uses boldly cut natural, high grade, gemstones cut in a rich palette of colors.

Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson mabe pearl and rutilated quartz necklace and coral and pink tourmaline gold ring

Roy Talahaftewa sterling sliver bracelet with turquoise

Ric Charlie chanting dance bracelet, 2001, talk gold, Carico Lake turquoise, lapis lazuli, sugulite.

Lee Yazzie silver bracelet inlaid with finest royal lapis, coral and Lone Mountain turquoise.

Raymond Yazzie silver bracelet inlaid with coral, lapis and turquoise

 

Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson, a Pueblo and Navajo have collaborated in their design and fabrication of elegant jewelry for 25 years. Their reverence for landscape has provided them with design inspiration throughout their careers.

Ric Charlie uses the old form of casting into locally mined tufa stone (a compressed volcanic: pumice rock). Traditionally, the technique was a means of producing multiple copies of a form by carving a triangular cross section or half round shape that was readily separated from the stone mold. Ric Charlie's updated technique involves carving the stone mold in perfect right angles like a milling machine to create his signature angular, raised, linear designs. As a result, the mold breaks when removing the casting, creating a one-of-a-kind object that he then inlays or colors with chemical patinas.  

Roy Talahaftewa studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He returned to Hopi and developed a new style, "tufacast overlay," by merging the two major Hopi jewelry techniques.

Lee Yazzie first gained recognition with the work he did with Preston Monongye. Monongye did the silver work, Yazzie the lapidary. Lee Yazzie and Raymond Yazzie are among the most collected Native American silversmiths.  They are both expert stone cutters and use only the finest quality gemstones in their jewelry. 

All artists work with personal memories, background and history that may not be obvious to the viewer.  Many of these artists rely on traditional techniques but use new innovative approaches to the graphic content; while others use traditional imagery with contemporary techniques.  These exceptional objects communicate the culture that they represent while the materials and techniques reflect twenty-first-century innovations.