Before opening our gallery in Durango, we bought and sold rugs and jewelry out of my father's office in his Pepsi Cola store. We were lucky to meet and work with many well-known and accomplished artists, many of whom became famous for their work.
I used to read books like Beyond Tradition by Jerry and Lois Jacka and drool over the creations of cutting-edge artists. Now, fifty years later, I can look through those books and enjoy that, at one time or another, we have had work by most of those artists in the gallery.
There are a limited number of pieces that any artist whose work is handcrafted can make, and the better the artist, the fewer the number of pieces they can make in a year. For that reason, most of these people work with a limited number of galleries, so I always knew we could never work with all of them. It's like that old saying, "You can't own everything that adjoins you!"
Over the years, we have had the opportunity to re-sell many lovely works for people who decided to move them on to others who would appreciate them. Because of that, we have had the pleasure of handling works by some incredible artists.
But one of the jewelers that we had never handled was Larry Golsh. He was a protege of Charles Loloma, whom he met in 1969. He didn't start out to be a famous Native American jeweler. Golsh grew up in California on the Palo Mission reservation near San Diego. He studied art and architecture at Arizona State University.
Ben Goo, an established sculptor, influenced him, and later he worked with Paolo Soleri, the famous Italian-born architect who began the experimental town of Arcosanti in central Arizona, which combined architecture with ecology. The goal was to demonstrate how urban conditions could exist with a minimum impact on the earth.
He then met Loloma, the legendary Hopi jeweler, who ignited his passion. The two were recognized in a Forbes Magazine article called America Faberge for reaching a new aesthetic level, calling their styles "fully international."
Golsh went on to have an amazing career with two NEA Awards and was featured in a PBS documentary, "Larry Golsh-American Indian Artist." He graduated from the Gemological Institute of America and often used diamonds and other rare stones in his jewelry.
This classic bracelet features turquoise stones in an elegantly sculptural tufa cast setting. The Kingman turquoise is a perfect fit for the bracelet's textured silver finish, as the matrix blends with the background.
See all Kingman Turquoise Jewelry currently in the Gallery
I am very happy to say that we have had the
opportunity to share a piece of Golsh's work!
