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Silversmith Directory · Hallmarks

Zuni Craftsmen Cooperative Association (ZCCA) — Southwest Jewelry Cooperative & Marks

Zuni Craftsmen Cooperative Association (ZCCA) — name card, T.Skies Southwest Jewelry Guide

Name-card placeholder — historic shop-mark imagery to follow. © Turquoise Skies Inc.

Artist cooperative · Zuni, New Mexico · founded 1967 · Southwest Jewelry Guide

Overview

The Zuni Craftsmen Cooperative Association was started in 1967 as a co-op serving the artists of Zuni Pueblo. Per Hougart, its purpose was "to provide quality supplies for Zuni artists, to offer technical assistance and teaching programs and to assist in marketing and promotion of artist products at its facilities in Zuni, NM." Hougart's hallmark-history timeline lists 1967 as the year "The Zuni Craftsmen Cooperative Association (ZCCA) is created."

Unlike a trading post, the ZCCA was an institution owned by and run for the craftspeople themselves — supplies, training and marketing under one roof — part of the same cooperative movement that produced the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild a generation earlier.

The mark

"Mark: ZCCA (on a knifewing)" — Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. (2022), p. ~374.

Pieces handled through the co-op may carry the ZCCA knifewing stamp alongside the artist's own hallmark; Hougart's individual entries note artists who "may be marked with" the ZCCA stamp.

Artists connected to the ZCCA

Per Hougart's individual entries: Edward A. Beyuka, the figural-inlay master, "was the registered agent for the Zuni Craftsmen Cooperative Association (ZCCA)"; Fred Bowannie, primary silversmith at The Zuni Shop in Gallup in the mid-1950s, "served as an officer in ZCCA"; and Augustine Panteah, who shares a stamp with his wife Lorie, "may be marked with the Zuni Cooperative Craftsmen Association (ZCCA) stamp."

The corpus preserves no comprehensive membership roster — the three names above are the documented officers and members, and the knifewing stamp is the co-op's lasting signature.

References

  • Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. Schiffer Publishing, 2022. Institutions section, p. ~374, and individual artist entries.

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