Ok, First of all; I'm a full-time student @ Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Upon moving into the base of the rocky mountain region about 7 months ago. I was living in Shiprock New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation. I am an American Indian; member of the Navajo Tribe and just finally got to go back to college after a hiatus of over 12 years.
This is my first post related to blogging and keep coming back... and I'll work.
I have always been interested in fine jewelry and I've always wonder just "how do they do it"...
Being a member of the Navajo tribe, I have been surrounded by cultural fine arts of the day: Hand-woven Rugs, Navajo jewelry and custom Native American Artwork.
My father did some very beautiful paintings on pottery, I remember him creating when I was 8 y.o. in a dusty room in Ganado Arizona back in the early 1970's.
My family lived in a area of the Navajo reservation that produced rough Olivine and Chrome Pyrope stones. As a poor family on a reservation, during the summer; we use to pick these stones and sell them to stone collectors/ gem-traders via post cards. A week of two later, they would either bid on our lot or decline. On the return postcard, they would write in the amount of what they are willing to pay for a can of stones. Our cans were made of Forgers Coffee cans and Calumet cans.
Along with gathering these stones, their are certain songs that go with these stones right before they are gathered. Of my family, I believe that I'm one of the last one to practice these ways. There were certain periods of the overhead constellations when we would get the go-ahead to gather these lovely stones.
Now, I go back and I think of all of the times that we spent our time on our knees looking for these stones, I do that same motion now and my knees are soft and tender.
I'm crawling about and I feel that course sand and a multitude of stones saying:
"hey you, watch it... or excuse me..."
I miss those days with my family.
I still sing those songs and I still gather those stones for my usage. These pictures are of both rough stones and faceted finished stones.
A variety of shapes and sizes
This blog is my own birth and my own beginning in chasing the Lost Wax Process, how to incorporate my stones & my own jewelry designs into those future creation of expressions.
Like the stars overhead and the ancient petroglyphs of the southwest
