On November 3 in Denver, we will be holding the 33rd Annual Benefit Silent Auction and Sale of Navajo Weavings (and we have now added Indian Jewelry) to benefit the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Our major focus for Gallery Walk is a great showing of Stanton Englehart’s paintings but something else came up that is just too good not share. 

We recently met a gentleman from the Colorado Front Range whose father had passed. It turns out that his father was an avid collection of American Indian belt buckles. He may have been a little more than avid!

Storyteller jewelry by Navajo silversmiths have been popular for about 50 years. Not a lot of artists make this style, as it requires a special artistic talent and a lot of time. 

Silver figures of people, hogans, horses, clouds, sheep and even an occasional outhouse are individually cut out of sheet silver and then soldered onto a second sheet that is sometimes stamped with other designs.

I was a couple of years behind Jake Dalla at Durango High School. He was a cool guy. He had a sharp car and he was always nice, even to underclassmen!

This fourth generation Durangoan came from one of the many early Italian families that settled in the Durango area. One of his goals in life was to create a wildlife park and recreation area in honor of his parents.

In the 1970s, when the #8 Turquoise Mine in Eureka County, Nevada was closing, Jeanette Dale was soldering circuit boards at the Fairchild Electronics Plant south of Farmington, New Mexico. 

A couple of months ago, we sent a newsletter that talked about one of our favorite silversmiths, Jeanette Dale, that featured a beautiful sterling silver necklace and earring set made with #8 Turquoise from a mine by that name in the Lynn Mining District of Eureka County, Nevada.

A lot of you know that my father was a Pepsi Cola dealer in Durango and got into the Navajo Rug business by trading Pepsi accounts for rugs with the trading posts. One of the jobs that I had before I got out of college was driving a Pepsi delivery truck and a couple of my routes were on the Northern Navajo reservation.

Southwestern Indian tribes have long incorporated stone and shell carvings resembling animals in their religious beliefs. These fetishes are objects in which a spirit is thought to reside, and they can be used to aid the person who owns and cares for it.

A favorite artist of just about everyone is Santo Domingo jeweler, Ray Lovato. Over the years, I’ve written several newsletters about him. One of the best newsletters, in my humble opinion, described a great afternoon that I spent with Ray in a Walmart parking lot trading turquoise for jewelry.

A few weeks ago, we had a newsletter about the inlay work of Navajo artist Sylvana Apache. She and her husband, Randy Secatero, are also accomplished traditional silversmiths.

I know that some employers require men to wear a tie to work. And probably, there are some jobs where it really is appropriate. I can’t think of one right now, but I am sure they exist.

Before Raymond Sequaptewa became a contemporary Hopi Silversmith, using stones and unusual castings, different metals and unique designs, he made traditional overlay Hopi jewelry. Sort of…