7.25" Vintage Wilson Begay silver and turquoise cuff bracelet

7.25" Vintage Wilson Begay silver and turquoise cuff bracelet. 60mm wide in center tapering down at ends. Wilson and Carol Begay are traditional Navajo silversmiths. These talented silversmiths have been creating traditional Navajo jewelry since 1969. They came from families well known for their jewelry making. Wilson’s father, Luke, taught John Adair, author of “Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths” how to make sand cast jewelry. He worked for many years with Mike and Dean Kirk, at the famous Kirk Brothers Trading Company in Gallup, New Mexico. Carol’s parents, Angela and Allen Chee were both silversmiths who worked by C.G. Wallace, the famous jewelry trader from Zuni, New Mexico. The Begays began their career making sandcast jewelry, a traditional type of Navajo jewelry that requires the artist to make carvings in Tufa stone to make forms to shape molten silver. They first worked for Tobe Tupen, a well known trader in Gallup. Carol remembers that silver was only $1.25 an ounce when they started. Today they are independent artists whose work is widely sought after and admired. Wilson concentrates on the casting and building the foundations of the jewelry and Carol sets the stones and does the finishing work. They work together to design their jewelry. Traditional sandcast silver jewelry is a unique Navajo art form. The process, although it sounds simple, requires careful discipline and years of practice to obtain quality results. The artist takes two pieces of p