
Navajo silversmithing traces its origins to the 1860s and 1870s, when Atsidi Sani and other early practitioners adapted metalworking techniques learned from Spanish and Mexican plateros into a distinctly Dine artistic tradition. Through stamp work, repousse, sand casting, and tufa casting, Navajo silversmiths created an iconic design vocabulary — the squash blossom necklace, the concho belt, the ketoh — that remains the foundation of Southwestern jewelry artistry.
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From the red mesas of the Navajo Nation to the galleries of Santa Fe, Thomas Begay has spent five decades refining the techniques first brought to the Diné by Atsidi Sani generations ago. His sand-cast and tufa-cast creations represent a living bridge between ancestral metalworking traditions and contemporary artistic expression, each piece carrying the weight of cultural memory forged in sterling silver.
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