31.2_FORGING A FUTURE 2.CB.3.JD FIN 12/12/07 6:26 PM Page 48 DYLAN POBLANO JARED CHAVEZ ELIZABETH WALLACE WAYNE NEZ GAUSSOIN Photographs by Miguel Gandert. Photographs by CODY SANDERSON KERI ATAUMBI MARIA SAMORA DAVID GAUSSOIN A NEW ERA IN JEWELRY FORGING A FUTURE Diana Pardue everal young American Indian jewelers are developing and staff member of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) distinctive contemporary styles while acknowledging in New York City to attend school there. His application was S traditional ones. Like the generation before them, they successful, and his studies included jewelry classes as well as are exploring materials and techniques new to American drawing, painting and fashion design classes. Poblano spent Indian jewelrymaking. Many of these young artists have unique two years at the Fashion Institute learning new techniques, experiences, including formal training in art or design at including lost wax casting, which were influential and useful as competitive universities and select art schools. Others have he continued to develop his sense of design. been influenced by global travels and hands-on opportunities His lost-wax cast designs can be whimsical yet applicable with jewelers from other countries. The result is diverse and to contemporary lifestyles and include small cast earrings distinctive work that is engaging and intriguing. The jewelry in the shapes of couture shoes or charm bracelets that hold of eight of this new generation of young artists is currently a variety of his cast silver shoe charms. Much of Poblano’s being featured at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. silver imagery references modern themes, such as his depictions Four of the jewelers, Dylan Poblano, Wayne Nez Gaussoin, of men or women of his generation. Other jewelry has David Gaussoin, and Jared Chavez began experimenting in references to celestial bodies—the stars, the moon or the solar jewelry techniques by the age of eight or nine. Each grew up system. His September Moon necklace contains planets held in a family where a parent was a prominent jewelrymaker on silver wire that encircle the wearer. Poblano creates other and each spent time during his childhood in a parent’s jewelry images that are purely abstract forms. studio. Dylan Poblano’s mother, Veronica, and his grandfather, Poblano respects his Zuni heritage and the lapidary Leo, are known for their lapidary skills. Jared Chavez’s father, skills he learned from his mother. He applies those skills in Richard, initially trained as an architect, is also known for his very different ways than previous generations and seeks and lapidary work. David and Wayne Gaussoin’s mother, Connie, incorporates unusual materials such as labradorite, cobaltic is known for her silversmithing abilities. calcite drusy, Orville Jack Faustite, sugilite, and Rhodonite. Dylan Poblano (b. 1974) was born in the small community For some works, such as those that reference the planets, of Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico. Although he grew up in Poblano inlays precise circles of various stones into spheres Albuquerque, the family went home to Zuni for many occasions. or half spheres that he incorporates as the setting of a ring or While still in high school, Poblano sold his jewelry at an art necklace. For other jewelry, Poblano positions stones in 48 ORNAMENT 31.2.2007 fair in Hunter, New York. He was encouraged by a family friend random abstract patterns. Poblano’s application of design, 31.2_FORGING A FUTURE 2.CB.3.JD FIN 12/12/07 6:26 PM Page 49 linear incisions in the rough surface contrasted with the curved ones in the polished surfaces. Wayne Nez Gaussoin (b. 1982) learned to make jewelry by watching his brother, David, and his mother, Connie. The three continue to work together today in a shared studio. Gaussoin began to enter his jewelry in youth competitions while he was in junior high school. In 2005, he began attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago after receiving an associate of fine arts from the University of New Mexico. While in Chicago, Gaussoin pursued his diverse interests in DYLAN POBLANO bracelet several areas of art including jewelry, photography, fashion of silver; dremel texture design, drawing, and sculpture. He also took art history with overlay, 2001. All jewelry photographs by Craig Smith. classes and computer modeling. He was particularly drawn to sculpture because of the parallels between sculpture and jewelry construction. Gaussoin emphasizes the metal and incorporates a sense of freedom in the jewelry forms he creates. combined with his use of varied and unusual colorful stones Two other jewelers, Maria Samora and Elizabeth Wallace, and his lapidary skills, distinguish his work. learned jewelry as young adults, although they both had parents Like Poblano, Jared Chavez (b. 1982) grew up in a quiet who made jewelry at different points in their lives. Samora community of San Felipe, New Mexico, but moved to (b. 1975) grew up in Taos, New Mexico, and in 1993 attended a university in a large metropolis after graduation. Chavez Pitzer College in Los Angeles for two and a half years. While completed a bachelor of fine arts at Georgetown University in there, Samora studied art classes, was particularly interested in Washington, D.C. in 2005. Although Chavez was familiar with photography and also studied Spanish. She took a break from the techniques of jewelrymaking, he was drawn to printmaking; school to travel in South America with the intent to explore he found Georgetown’s art department to be a good fit for photography and improve her Spanish along the way. After the this interest. While there, he explored woodblock printing, trip, in 1997, Samora returned home to Taos. She and a friend intaglio and chinkole. The imagery he developed with digital took a jewelry class taught by Phil Poirier through the Taos composite photography combined different buildings, giving branch of the University of New Mexico. Within a few months, them the appearance of one. Samora successfully secured an apprenticeship with Poirier. Chavez found that the designs he created in prints could By 1998, Samora was creating her own jewelry. Initially, also be made in silver. At the suggestion of his father, he began she worked in silver and then combined silver with gold, using guitar wire as a medium to form the stamped outlines because she likes the two tones and the contrasts of the two of the city scenes and landscapes. This technique was developed metals. Samora also uses a variety of patinas to add contrast by another Southwestern silversmith and friend of the family, and dimension. She was drawn to Incan gold jewelry and strove Norbert Peshlakai. The flexibility of the guitar wire was to incorporate that look in her jewelry. She prefers the look of perfectly suited to the curvilinear lines Chavez could create in twenty-four karat gold to fourteen karat and has also combined printmaking but is more difficult to accomplish in silverwork. gold and silver in her designs. Plates of silver became Chavez’s canvas; the landscapes and cityscapes became the walls of silver containers he made. Chavez utilizes other silvermaking skills, at times combining them to create complex forms. He has used tufa, or volcanic rock, as a casting medium. This centuries-old technique was typically used to cast silver that was then polished to a high sheen until the revolutionary Hopi jeweler Charles Loloma allowed the rough unpolished surfaces to become the textured surfaces of his modern jewelry. Like other contemporary jewelers, Chavez carves designs into tufa, pours the molten silver into the mold he has created and leaves the surfaces rough to accentuate the deep lines accomplished by the tufa carving. He further embellishes the silverwork JARED CHAVEZ, Dancing in the Moonlight, by highly polishing areas of the design. The smooth and belt of tufa cast silver, 2006. rough silver surfaces create a sharp contrast, as do the 31.2_FORGING A FUTURE 2.CB.3.JD FIN 12/12/07 6:26 PM Page 50 Elizabeth Wallace (b. 1975) has become known for using a difficult enameling technique, plique à jour. Her jewelry often reflects the natural world, and her brooches include cicadas and dragonflies with enameled wings. Like her peers Cody Sanderson and Keri Ataumbi, Wallace appreciates the articulated properties of jewelry and has created a cicada with articulated wings, dragonflies with articulated tails and tiaras that are balanced to have movement when worn. Wallace is also known for butterfly pins with carved turquoise wings. Wallace studied with silversmith Bob Bauver in order to learn some different jewelrymaking techniques. Their common WAYNE NEZ GA USSOIN Child’s Play bracelet of silv er, fourteen interest in Lalique’s enamel works led Bauver to show her the karat gold; hand-forged, 2006. plique à jour, which he had learned through experimentation during college. Wallace’s designs incorporate delicate elements of enameling with carved or set stones. She often carves the bodies of cicada brooches from lustrous shells that complement the jewel-like qualities of the enamel work. For other artworks, she sets coral or turquoise in silver to form the bodies of dragonflies. Wallace’s incorporation of enamel work is unique as is her combination of the technique with materials traditionally used in the Southwest such as coral and turquoise. Other jewelers such as Keri Ataumbi and Cody Sanderson grew up in homes where there was an appreciation for art but neither parent made jewelry. Sanderson (b. 1964) is a first- generation self-taught jeweler who learned by reading books, asking questions of other jewelers and experimenting. He took his first jewelry class at a branch of the University of New Mexico MARIA SAMORA silver necklace, 2006.