Ray Lovato is the undisputed master of traditional Santo Domingo hand rolled, natural turquoise heishi. For decades he has worked with the finest natural stones and created beautiful necklaces.

Nearly all of the current heishi makers at the Pueblo now use treated or stabilized stones. Many do wonderful work and the difficulty and cost of obtaining natural turquoise combined with the difficulty of working it, results in the use of treated stones being preferable.

There have been several great books written about American Turquoise, most of them photographic and with basic background on the different mines. But, unless you really are an avid fan of the “Sky Stone,” they don’t do a lot to hold your interest. Now that has changed. 

During the late 1960's and early 1970's, Indian jewelry was incredibly popular. Turquoise and silver jewelry was being turned out by shops in Albuquerque, Gallup, Farmington, Flagstaff and other "border" towns in massive quantities.

The Fall Gallery Walk was founded in 1983 by the four original members of the Durango Gallery Association. Toh-Atin Gallery is the last one standing of the original group and we are happy that the Gallery Association continues to grow in both numbers and quality.

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.

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.

Coral became a popular material for Native artists to work with hundreds of years ago when European Traders began to bring it to the Southwest as a trade item. Early on, the small pieces of coral were drilled and strung on necklaces made of drilled shell beads and, usually, pieces of turquoise.

How about that? According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, turquoise is having a jewelry resurgence! I did not realize it had gone out of style, but I guess that’s from living in the Desert Southwest!