My Gallup Jewelry Journey Paula Baxter

My Gallup Jewelry Journey

Downtown Gallup, 2011

By Paula A. Baxter

II fell completely and hopelessly in love with Southwestern Indian jewelry on a business trip to Santa Fe in 1986. A year or so later, my husband and I arrived in Gallup. I was a novice collector. Gallup was trumpeted as the “Indian Jewelry Capitol of the World.” We stayed at the Best Western on the sparsely populated west side of town. We watched the trains rolling by as we ate at Ranch Kitchen, listened to the music of the engine and freight cars, and went to sleep and woke up to the mournful engine whistles as they passed through town.

Gallup had character.

I needed to expose myself to the ins and outs of Native-made jewelry. Gallup, I learned, wasn’t the place to go for antique or vintage pieces, but it provided the finest array of post-1980s Indigenous jewelry to be found in the Southwest. It was quickly becoming evident that there was not enough literature on the subject, so I needed to find alternative sources of information. In Gallup, I met the local Indian traders and they proved to be very helpful. They offered different ways of seeing and examining silver, turquoise, and related materials.

Attending the Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial in August was a bonus.

I began to meet the artists. I started to discern jewelry techniques and styles of the pieces on exhibit. Soon, I was tracking changes in silverwork, and marveling over the beauty of heishi and other lapidary designs. I studied the prize winners on display each year. Beautiful patterns were beginning to snap into place.

In Gallup, Richardson’s vast post was one way to begin looking.

They had masses of older jewelry, but also offered contemporary styles. I usually found myself using Richardson’s as a starting point, and doing my early collecting at Gallup Trading Co., Ellis Tanner’s,

Tobe Turpen’s, and Shush Yaz. I think it helped that my personal taste in jewelry coincided with local Native tastes. Gallup offered the best of the “traditional” mid-twentieth century-style Navajo and Pueblo silver and turquoise pieces. 1970s pieces were abundant.

When I took up writing about Southwestern Indian jewelry to fill a gap, Gallup’s public library was the place to go. I could look through old microfilms of the Gallup Independent and Navajo Times. I even got to read the comic adventures of Mutton Man. Sometime around 1999 or so, a trader introduced me to local resident Octavia Fellin. That marvelous lady took me on a two-hour tour by car around Gallup that I’ll never forget. How wonderful to know that later on the public library was named after her!

Change came to Gallup as it does for all places. But some things never seemed to change. You always got a good plain meal at Earl’s and a chance to dicker with the vendors selling their wares. You’d always roll out of the restaurant at El Rancho, feeling satisfied if not ten pounds heavier. If we wanted to eat Mexican, there were the folks at El Sombrero ready to place heaping plates in front of us. Tourists from the East Coast, visiting Gallup became the focus of our travel itinerary. Later on, other collectors we got to know revealed to us that Gallup, too, was a necessary part of their journey.

The first decade of the 2000s brought more changes. Perry Null took over after Tobe Turpen’s store closed. Later on, Bill Malone started his own shop on Coal Avenue. We bought jeans at Zimmerman’s and belts at City Electric. I got to meet the folks at Tanner Indian Arts. How sweet it was that Gallup not only had a Dairy Queen, but a Blake’s Lotaburger, too. There never was any need to dress up as a visitor. In 2017, we left the East and moved to Arizona.

The 2010s brought a significant enhancement in jewelry design. New pieces on offer gradually moved away from the conservative, fixed mid-century modern styles. Silverwork and inlay became more artistic and less traditional in decoration. More stylish. Jewelry available in the trading posts in town now greatly resembled the work found in posh Santa Fe and Scottsdale galleries. I discovered homegrown talent, from Philander Begay to Ervin Tsosie. Gallup was a good place to study and compare turquoise from various mines and new stone choices.

We book at various hotels, always glad to try a new experience. We know that the last two years were punishing for Gallup, as everyone struggled with the cruel and baffling nature of the pandemic. People were lost unexpectedly, a community’s heart broken. Things will revert to some form of normal, and those of us who really benefit from the Gallup experience are planning to return again and again.

Exterior of Bill Malone Trading, 2011

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