Native Arts
Norman Kolpas
Michael Roanhorse, a Navajo silversmith fashions bold new takes on tradition
 Michael Roanhorse |
Five years ago, Michael Roanhorse was working full time as a builder and electrician in Albuquerque. On Friday nights, he drove four hours northwest to his family’s ranch in Crystal, near the Four Corners. There he spent weekends crafting traditional Navajo silver jewelry, the kind you might see selling for $20 to $50 apiece in Santa Fe. Indeed, after making the long drive back to Albuquerque on Sunday night and laboring all day Monday, Roanhorse routinely headed to the state capital to sell his latest pieces. “I hustled a lot just to earn extra for living expenses,” he says.
Today, Roanhorse experiences a more satisfying form of weariness. He regularly drives or jets to and from elite Indian markets, museum shows, and galleries, where his bold contemporary reinterpretations of Navajo jewelry sell for three figures or higher and attract a growing following of serious collectors.
Roanhorse grew up on the 120-acre parcel of reservation land settled by his family in 1868. His mom, Georgia, and dad, Eugene, displayed a strong work ethic while growing alfalfa, raising horses, and pasturing cattle there.
Georgia earned a salary as a secretary while studying for bachelor’s and master’s degrees, eventually serving 15 years as CEO of the Navajo Nation Family Planning Clinic. Eugene worked as an engineer and formed his own construction company, all while making traditional jewelry in his spare time at home. “My mom wanted my father to teach Mark and me the basics,” Roanhorse recalls. “I used to sit down and watch him. I remember the stamping block in his little work area, and all the tools, and his cutting and soldering.”
Observation rubbed off, at first particularly on Mark. During high school his sand-cast silver jewelry earned ribbons and invitations to exhibit in the Heard Museum Youth Market in Phoenix, winning a best-of-show prize in his last year. “I went with him for support,” Michael recalls, “and it was my first time actually viewing the way contemporary, high-end Indian jewelry could be displayed and sold.” That was a watershed moment. “My brother told me, ‘Michael, you’re a really good artist. Why not get into the big shows like the Heard Museum Indian Fair & Market?’ But I wasn’t even familiar with it.”
He was a quick study, though. Roanhorse unself-consciously sought advice from other successful Navajo jewelers, including the acclaimed Vernon Haskie. “He told me to be creative, be unique, not copy anybody, forge my own path,” Roanhorse says.
To that end, Roanhorse evolved a working process for combining traditional Navajo themes, forms, and materials with dramatically modernist shapes. Having conceived of a theme and title, such as shima, the Navajo word for “mother,” he makes a pencil sketch of an abstract form evoking the subject, then expands it to a three-dimensional concept: a wavy wire suggesting his own mother’s hair above her coral body, while the broad silver band of a bracelet represents her arms embracing two small pieces of coral for Michael and his brother. Roanhorse creates the piece using all the techniques his father first taught him. Finally, he embellishes the interior surface with old-fashioned Navajo stamps and a satin finish. “I want my jewelry to be like me,” he explains, “contemporary on the outside and traditional inside.”
Such complex, striking work has won sufficient recognition to enable Roanhorse to devote himself full-time to his calling over the past three years. He’s in demand at an ever-growing lineup of major shows. And he has also reached a point where, to his surprise, many of his followers now acquire his works not to wear but to display. “One lady bought my first abstract concho belt and framed it in a shadowbox,” he says. “That really gave me some thought.” In fact, he has begun planning his first full-fledged sculptures, ranging from 12-inch tabletop works to “very large metal pieces two stories tall.” Additional goals include building an audience abroad and opening a gallery in Santa Fe, where he would like to offer workshops and mentoring to young Indian artists and show and sell their creations.
“I’m very blessed, happy, and humbled,” says Roanhorse of his rapid rise. “I’ve always had a passionate drive to succeed, but now I’m doing something that I really want to do.”
Roanhorse’s works are on view at Bahti Indian Arts, Tucson, AZ, and www.michaelroanhorse.com.
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