Steve LaRance
Master Hopi silversmith Steve Wikviya LaRance was born 1958 in Phoenix, Arizona but spent part of his childhood with his grandparents in the Hopi village of Moencopi. At Hopi he learned the traditional Hopi arts and those ceremonial designs are a part of his distinctive tufa cast jewelry today. Steve says "When we create art, we share a piece of ourselves with the world."
Steve’s distinctive, tufa-cast jewelry uses traditional Native symbols, like petroglyphs, dragonflies, kachina figures and water signs, in creative contemporary ways. His designs are inspired by historical cast jewelry and other old techniques.
After becoming a painter, then a sculptor, he now does jewelry that is beautifully designed and impeccably executed. He gathers the semi-hard volcanic tufa from the Hopi Reservation. "I was able to find the site where Charles Loloma used to get his tufa," he says, happily. It is finer-grained than that found elsewhere. Constantly seeking the best is a signature concept of Steve LaRance and his jewelry.
