Navajo Jewelry

Contemporary Navajo jewelry shows dynamism and innovation as modern artists build on the foundation of early silversmithing techniques. Top Navajo jewelry artists pay homage to the techniques of the past while pushing into new expressions with exotic metals and stones gleaned from around the world. The culmination is an array of jewelry expression from classic Navajo concho belts and bracelets to modern forms expressed in precious metals and sparkling gems.

Navajo metalsmiths were not only responsible for the inception of Navajo jewelry, but the introduction of silversmithing to Hopi and Zuni artisans. One of the most prominent early Navajo jewelry silversmiths, Atsidi Sani, learned metalsmithing techniques from a Mexican man living near Mount Taylor, New Mexico. He is often credited with the emergence of Navajo silver jewelry, first by teaching his four sons and they in turn, teaching others in the newly formed Navajo Nation.

Early Navajo jewelry consisted of simple earrings, ketohs, belt fasteners and bracelets. Traders provided tools and supplies such as silver coins and slugs. More important, traders gave Indian silversmiths a place to trade and sell their work. In the 1920’s sheet silver replaced silver slugs, allowing artists to work more quickly since they no longer needed to melt and pound the slugs flat. A Navajo jewelry style evolved, typified by heavy silverwork hammered, bent and molded, either alone or sometimes around stones.

One early technique still used by Navajo silversmiths is making silver castings in sand or stone molds. The artist carves a design into damp sand or tufa, a porous volcanic stone, and then secures a second flat stone on top to complete the mold. Using a crucible, the artist then pours melted silver into the mold through a carved channel. Air vents allow steam to escape, preventing air bubbles from forming in the cooling silver.

After the silver has cooled and hardened, the artist removes the piece from the mold. Any silver not part of the overall design is cut off and the edges are filed smooth. All surfaces of the jewelry are ground and polished. Sometimes, artists add stones as a final accent.

Early Navajo jewelry emerged from blacksmithing techniques that required the heating and softening of metal interspersed with hammering to work the metal into desired shapes. Great skill is required to balance these opposite forces. Too much heating and hammering causes the piece to become “work-hardened” making it brittle and prone to cracking. Too little force can lead to a poorly shaped piece with shallow, inconsistent design work.

After shaping the piece, the silversmith uses a graver or die stamps to inscribe designs into the metal. Many artists create their own carved metal stamps to add design elements such as lines or swirls to their jewelry. The artist places the designed end on the desired spot of the jewelry piece then strikes, stamping the design into the metal surface. A good silversmith strikes the stamp evenly each time, producing a consistent design.

----Excerpt from A Guide To Indian Jewelry in the Southwest by Georgiana Kennedy Simpson

Navajo Baskets

Navajo baskets possess a rich history, indicative of the Navajo people’s movement into the Southwest and their subsequent adoption of a lifestyle which would best help them survive in the high red rock desert of the American Southwest. Interestingly, Navajo baskets today descend from basketmaking techniques adopted from Ancestral Puebloan people. As is true with other Navajo art forms perfected by rug weavers and silversmiths, Navajo basket artists have mastered techniques necessary to create fine baskets with a uniquely Navajo flavor.

All Navajo baskets employ the coil method of weaving using rhus trilobata, more commonly known as three-leaf sumac. The foundation for all designs is the Navajo ceremonial basket which continues to be woven and used in traditional Navajo healing rites. In the late 1960’s, a few Navajo basket weavers experimented with other pictorial elements such as yei’i and eagles. As a result of this early experimentation, Navajo basket artistry is currently experiencing its richest period of innovation. Led by fine basket technicians and artisans such as Elsie Holiday, Lorraine Black, Alicia Nelson and Joann Johnson, a plethora of representational and geometric designs is making contemporary Navajo basketry one of the most exciting expressions in contemporary Native American art.

Hopi Jewelry

Hopi jewelry, although a somewhat latecomer to the southwestern silver jewelry pantheon is widely and wildly collected by enthusiasts of clean designs executed in gold and silver. At Twin Rocks Trading Post, our love of fine Native American artwork spills into a top selection of contemporary Hopi silver jewelry. Visitors venturing to our store located in Bluff, Utah’s beautiful red rock river valley will find a large assortment of Hopi silver overlay bracelets, earrings, pins, buckles, and pendants.

Hopi jewelry created from shell, wood, bone and stones, including turquoise, has been created at their ancient villages for many centuries. The village of Orayvi is considered the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America and beautiful renditions of ancient jewelry as well as ongoing traditions in painting, basket making and cloth weaving laid a rich foundation for a wholly new Hopi jewelry art form.

In the late 1930’s, curators from the Museum of Northern Arizona encouraged Hopi artists to create their own unique style to differentiate their work from the Navajo and Zuni jewelry being made at that time. Using designs from Hopi pottery, baskets, weaving and paintings, artists Paul Saufkie and Fred Kabotie created classic interpretations to be executed in Hopi silver.

Paul Saufkie (1898 - 1933) learned silversmithing in the 1920’s and after World War II, in a program sponsored by the G.I. Bill of Rights, taught returning Hopi veterans the art of Hopi overlay jewelry. One of their first and most successful students, Victor Coochwytewa, developed a new technique whereby the bottom silver layer is oxidized, allowing the cutout designs in the top layer to show more prominently, a technique still in use today. In 1949, Paul, along with Fred Kabotie, formed the Hopi Silvercraft Cooperative Guild, providing training, materials, financing, work space and marketing for a growing Hopi silver jewelry market.

Today, contemporary Hopi artists continually refine their techniques while finding new ways of expressing these beautiful designs for discriminating buyers in Native American art. Travel down U.S. Highway 191 and visit two of the best locations in the Southwest; Twin Rocks Trading Post and Bluff, Utah.