Santa Clara Pueblo Silversmithing: A Brief, Documented Tradition
Santa Clara Pueblo, on the west bank of the Rio Grande north of Española, is historically a pottery pueblo whose silver tradition was brief and largely concluded by 1900. A Mexican platero working among the nearby San Ildefonso community in the 1880s passed through Santa Clara; three men there watched his methods and began making silver. The practice continued until around 1900, when it appears to have lapsed. When Bedinger visited in 1942, there were no silversmiths in the village and no silver worn there.
Mateo's Field Notes
Bedinger's account of Santa Clara's silver history is the primary corpus source and is candid about its brevity: "In the 1880s, the Mexican platero who had made silver for the San Ildefonsos went to Santa Clara. Here three men watched as he worked and picked up his techniques. They continued to work in silver until about 1900, but after that time no one seems to have carried on." When Adair wrote, three young men were making silver at Santa Clara—all brothers who had learned from a brother-in-law who was Navajo. But when Bedinger visited in 1942, there were no silversmiths in the village: "I saw only a few tiny bracelets on babies and small children. It was not, however, a festival day." Tanner (February 1950:27) rounds out the record by noting there was no native smith at Santa Clara, but that "a Navajo, married to a woman in this pueblo, follows the silver craft there" (Bedinger 1973:173–174).
The trajectory is clear: Santa Clara's pottery tradition was the dominant creative practice, and silversmithing found only a thin foothold. Contemporary Santa Clara artists represented in our directory work primarily in silver, carrying the craft in a period when it is no longer exceptional to do so.
Collector's Handbook
- Santa Clara is primarily a pottery pueblo. When encountering pieces attributed to Santa Clara makers, expect the silversmithing to follow broader Pueblo or contemporary Southwest conventions rather than a distinctly Santa Clara style—no dominant Santa Clara silver form is documented in the corpus as equivalent to Hopi overlay or Zuni inlay.
- Hallmark documentation is the authentication tool for contemporary Santa Clara work. Hougart (2022) and individual artist records are the reference for any specific attribution.
Santa Clara Silversmiths in Our Directory
1 Santa Clara artist is documented in the T.Skies Co-Op Silversmith Directory:
Community corrections and additional documentation for Santa Clara smiths are welcomed through our contact page.
Primary Sources
- Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. University of New Mexico Press, 1973. Pp. 173–174.
- Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. P. 188.
- Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. (2022).
Related Entries
Ohkay Owingeh Silversmithing · Kewa / Santo Domingo · Field Guide Hub