| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
See All Featured Events Download Annual Calendar Get Calendar Widget |
Email the link to the events on this page to yourself, or to one or several people!
Have a website? Want to show Sedona and Northern Arizona events on your website? Get our cool Calendar Widget
or you can simply
Link To Our Calendar
Subscribe to our always-updating list of featured events.
RSS News and Events
Have a website? Want to show Sedona and Northern Arizona events on your website? Get our cool Calendar Widget
or you can simply
Link To Our Calendar
Subscribe to our always-updating list of featured events.
RSS News and Events 
Turquoise Tortoise Gallery Showcases Native American Jewelry at 1st Friday Reception
|
|
The Turquoise Tortoise Gallery in Sedona celebrates the 4th of July by showcasing the most all-American of jewelry-makers: the Native Americans. For its “1st Friday” reception on the July 4th, 5-8 p.m., and extending month-long, the gallery offers a one-time-only opportunity to purchase select pieces at special pricing. The 37-year-old gallery, one of the oldest in Sedona, has had relationships with many generations of jewelry-making families, primarily Diné (Navajo) but other area tribes as well. A Diné writer, Luci Tapahonso, has noted, ''We wear the shiny silver of clear water; we wear turquoise made of bright skies.'' It is a beautiful sentiment expressing how closely a life-way ties in with extraordinary jewelry-making skills. In the southwestern region today as it has for more than a thousand years, Native American jewelry-making remains an important “currency”. Early desert tribes traded with coastal tribes for shells like spiny oyster, mother of pearl or abalone to use in their jewelry; Diné traded their cattle for jewelry from Mexican silversmiths in the mid-1800s; Native Americans used jewelry to exchange for such necessities as gasoline for cars in the early 1900s; and today’s jeweler may support a family with the earnings of their trade. Patricia Knight, Director of Turquoise Tortoise Gallery, explains that, “a lot of the Navajo jewelers who regularly sell pieces to us have known us for years. We know they do remarkable work whose quality we can count on – and have counted on. Being a marketplace for such skilled artists is what the gallery is all about.” Knight goes on to describe the nature of different tribes’ work. Historically, Native American jewelry has not had as many marked differences as native crafts because the materials - beads, shells, silver and such – were frequent trade items. Today, techniques cross tribal lines but there are still traits for which many are known. The Navajo create the popular squash blossom necklace and are renowned for their scrolls, beads and leaf patterns in sterling silver with stones such as turquoise and coral. The overlay technique is a distinct style of the Hopi for setting stones: one sheet of silver has a design etched on it and is then overlaid onto a second sheet; the background may be oxidized for a darker touch and the top layer polished. Zuñi jewelry includes techniques and styles like channel inlay, mosaic, clusters and needlepoint with a variety of stones and shells. At the Santo Domingo pueblo the creation of bead jewelry has been a practice for centuries. For further information, visit Turquoise Tortoise Gallery at Sedona’s Hozho Center or call: 928-282-2262, email: mail@turqtortsedona.com or visit: www.turqtortsedona.com. |
|
|
When: 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM Where: Turquoise Tortoise, 431 Highway 179 # A3, Sedona Phone: (928) 282-2262 Contact: www.turqtortsedona.com Don't keep it to yourself. Tell everyone you know! Subscribe now! Get Sedona news and events delivered right to your email. (Your privacy is protected. No spam ever, and you can unsubscribe at any time.) |
