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.

Jacla” is a Navajo word for “ear string.” Jacla’s are traditionally made with turquoise “heishi” which is essentially flat turquoise beads, hand ground and strung in strands, which were worn by Native people as far back as the Anasazi or “Ancestral Puebloans” as they are recognized as today.