Larry "Bear" Upshaw. Diné, out of Bluff, Utah. Watch him build a bracelet from a single essential form.
Some silversmiths chase ornament; others chase the essential — the one clean form a piece is really about. Larry "Bear" Upshaw is documented in our own footage doing exactly the second thing: building what he calls the Essential Triangle Bracelet, a piece worked down to a single strong shape. A Diné maker out of Bluff, Utah, he is one of the artists this directory captures the honest way — by what we filmed him actually making.
We don't have a documented hallmark on record for Bear, so we won't invent one. His work is identified by provenance and by the piece we filmed him build. (Hold a marked piece of his? That's exactly the first-hand detail this directory is built to capture.)
He is Diné (Navajo), from Bluff, Utah. We're keeping this to what we can stand behind: his community and his craft are documented in our own interview footage, and the specific clan we haven't sourced — so we don't state one rather than guess. What we can show you is the maker at work.
The piece we filmed is his Essential Triangle Bracelet — a bracelet built around a single triangular form, the design pared to its strongest line. It's the kind of work where the shape does the talking: no crowding, no excess, just one form resolved cleanly in silver. Watch the build itself in the footage below; the method is the story.
Meet Bear at the bench, in our footage:
Know more about Larry? Contact T.Skies.