Geraldine Yazzie
Navajo
Geraldine Yazzie started creating beautiful silver jewelry in the early 1990’s. Learning from her mother, she supports her own family with her well-crafted belts and other forms. She resides on the Navajo reservation in the area of Smith Lake, New Mexico near Crownpoint, New Mexico.
Geraldine is a Navajo silversmith in her early 50's who has been smithing silver for nearly thirty years.
She is known for her Traditional Revival style jewelry. Geraldine's work is sometimes misrepresented as vintage, old pawn because her detailing is so like the work common to the middle of the twentieth century. She is also particularly adept in her manner of oxidizing her silver so that the patina seems to be due simply to age of the piece. In addition, she pays particular attention to using stamps of a bygone era and sometimes adds small nicks to her pieces to make them look as though they've been worn for decades.
