Gerald Lomaventema, Hopi Overlay Jeweler. Second Mesa, AZ | 2016

Gerald Lomaventema will share the tradition of Hopi overlay jewelry, which he observed his father create when he was young. He began a formal apprenticeship at age 19 through the Hopi Guild Co-op on Second Mesa, and later learned to create jewelry in 3D and with color.

I learned traditional Hopi overlay and other techniques from other fellow Hopi artists in the 80’s and 90’s. I had to find something to take care of my wife and my kids. When I was learning at the Hopi Silvercraft Cooperative Guild there used to be like 30 men working in a big room in rows. It used to be a fun place, you know, because people would be joking or we’d be listening to some traditional music.
My great uncle Fred Kabotie–I didn’t know he was a famous artist until I got older–he and another elder, Paul Saufkie, were mentors. They taught the GIs after they came home. They didn’t want the men to leave the Hopi reservation. 
When we were first learning, the elders used to tell us that everything about the pottery—even the ancient pottery that was laying on the ground—means something, those geometric designs and figures they all have a meaning to us. So, in our jewelry, we’re doing the same thing. We’re expressing a little bit about ourselves and our culture in these pieces. You have to make jewelry that makes sense; you have to make jewelry that has meaning.   

I tell my students, you have to find yourself, your identity. People will know who you are through your jewelry. It takes a while, a lot of sacrifices and a lot of disappointment at the same time, but I think it’s worth it.

Gerald Lomaventema is a Hopi jeweler and recipient of a 2016 SFA Master-Apprentice Artist Award. He teaches students the Hopi overlay technique, which was first developed by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie and his brother-in-law, Paul Saufkie, in the 1940s. 

That’s a Lomaventema: A Hopi Silversmith on Making and Teaching. BorderLore, January 2018.

Read more about the Qwa-Holo Hopi Silvercraft group.