I love this company’s designs and workmanship.  Shown here is  one of my favorite designs, the Copperhead Snake.

“At the heart of Julio Pagliani you’ll find the people of Norogachi, a small town deep in Mexico’s Sierra Madre, reachable only by sometimes impassable dirt roads through a land of Tarahumara Indians and Mestizo farming families.  Working with these talented people, we craft beautiful bracelets, necklaces and accessories embraced by the finest shops.”

When you purchase a design with Julio Pagliani’s name, you are helping a village to find fairly paid work…and make much-needed money….without having to leave home and family.

Arizona artist, Kit Carson has brought a taste of the wild to Santa Fe Trail Jewelry.  Inside some of his bracelets is this wonderful inscription of “Bad to the Bone”.  Kit’s Stitch bracelets are inscribed with “Life is Good” inside.  If you want a piece of the ‘wild side’, look for his work here at Santa Fe Trail Jewelry.
Jewelry with attitude.

 

May 5th, 2010, Santa Fe Trail Jewelry will be hosting a Cinco de Mayo Trollbeads Trunk show.  Come in and browse for something new and unique for your collection.  I will have my Trollbeads representative here for the day and we’ll have chips and salsa from our fabulous local Mexican restaurant, La Casa Fiesta.  I also hope to have in stock the fabulous new Trollbeads - An Icon in Jewellry book available for sale.   Call for more information:  719-481-0250

 

Kit Carson’s designs are unique and full of life and emotion.

 I discovered Kit Carson’s work through a friend who owns one of Kit’s  ’Pirate”  bracelets.  Engraved inside is the saying “Bad to the Bone”.  (see “Looking for Biker Jewelry?”)   I knew his designs would be a perfect fit for my store.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Kit Carson, the “Wildest Jewelry Engraver in the West”, is known for his original, bold, naturalistic, curvilinear design, extremely fine detail and a subtle sense of humor.

Inspiration rushes through Kit like a desert flash flood slapping the dust out of a dry arroyo.  He observes the rich palette of nature in the desert:  a leaf spiraling over itself, the graduating texture of a weathered stone, the voluptous form of the thunderheads, and the accelerating curves of a sunbleached bone.  As he notices a rabbit bounding by him, framed over a golden cactus against a turquoise sky, he’s back at his bench working madly, a happy guy.  “It is the nostalgic freedom of the western landscape and a return to a natural and simple life that I want to capture in my art”, says Kit.   His themes include ravens, dragonflies, cactus, bones, cowboys and anything else he discovers in the desert.

My own newest design for the season, 3 strands of serpentine heishiwith a jade-like quality, dotted with a trail of cultured pearls.  Years ago I fell in love and began collecting the fine jewelry from the Santo Domingo Pueblo Indians. This is a design with that inspiration

Santa Fe Trail Jewelry has been showcasing the designs of Richard Lindsay for over 6 years.  I have made it my mission each year to buy his featured earrings from his spring shows.  This year he designed the “Mountain Chime” earrings which I just had to have and I have added to my gallery.  I hope to add some of his other styles as I get to it but these are just a preview of his best, most outstanding work available.  Each element is hand made, so the wait can be several months.  I have these and 4 other pairs of fabulous Richard Lindsay originals available.   Watch for them to be added soon! 

Richard says “A hallmark is the registered signature of a master gold and silversmith.  I have chosen as part of my hallmark a triangle, the universal symbol of change.  It represents the three main sources of my artistic inspiration:  my love of nature, wildlife and the outdoors, my roots in the American West and the stories and symbols of American peoples past and present.  This hallmark signifies an authentic Richard Lindsay creation and guarantees enjoyment and inspiration.”

Debby Harkness, of Southern Exposure in Austin Texas, came in to my store this week and intrigued me with her story. She is in town for the duration of one of the top Renaissance Festivals in the country. She creates lampwork glass designs and is a silversmith. She graciously offered me a pair of tickets to come visit her booth.

The Renaissance Festival is going on in Larkspur, Colorado and it is a huge, well visited event. I had a wonderful day and enjoyed many artist’s demonstrations. I picked this gorgeous lampwork glass bead made by Debby of Southern Exposure and hope to get my hands on more as she makes them. Offered on a simple rubber cord, I am going to try to come up with my own design with beads that will compliment the blue glass pendant. It will be a truly unique necklace and should be made available for sale in the very near future!

The breathtaking shards of glass Angie Olami uses in her jewelry date from 100 BCE to 300 CE. They were unearthed in Israel by archaeologists sifting through the fallen pillars and once magnificent cities of the Roman Empire.

And how do the colors form? The layers of iridescent colors have evolved gradually over the centuries as part of the glass’s chemical reaction to the sun, the water and the mineral rich earth in which it was buried. There has been glass found in England and Northern Europe dating back at least 1700 yrs, but it lacks the opalescence associated with Roman Glass because the natural phenomenon could not occur in their cold, damp climates. Angie Olami’s suppliers of Roman Glass are all licensed by the Israeli Government Antiquities Authority. Whole vessels are carted off to the museums and archaeologists keep whatever they need for research, the fragments are used in the jewelry design - useless rubble to some but magnificent gems to us!

Angie Olami jewelry is made from the hand blown fragments of ancient perfume pots, juglets, lamps, flasks, vases, cups and bowls. Each fragment varies in thickness, age and composition. Each piece underwent its own unique transformation as it became weathered with layers of patina. If a shard doesn’t sit exactly straight in its bezel, remember it is someone’s ancient wineglass you are wanting to wear as a pendant or as earrings.

This gorgeous Trollbeads bead is mounted with a new glass bead reflecting the colors of the rainbow, made from the same special glass as the Eye of Aphrodite ring.

I like to call it the ‘Wings of Aphrodite’. This is a limited edition bead and there were only a few made available to each of the dealers. I did not receive many and at this time have sold out completely.

Original Post June 2, 2009  BEAD IS SOLD OUT!