Jewelry Masterpieces by Navajo Family at Museum of the American Indian

Lee A. Yazzie, 2000. Lone Mountain turquoise, sterling silver.

The 13 members of the Yazzie family of Gallup, NM, fine art jewelry makers whose work is now on display at the National Museum of the American Indian, grew up in a one-room Navajo-style home made of earth and timbers.

At night, Lee Yazzie would lay awake, looking at the ceiling. "You see all those logs, those patterns they make, their order," he says in a quote displayed on the exhibit's wall. "In your mind, this is all registered so when it comes time to create something, you have a base to work from."

Patterns and harmony would indeed come to mark the work of Lee Yazzie, as well as the other members of this extraordinary family. Inspired by the colors of the landscape around them, tawny mountains, cliffs turning pink from the setting sun, clouds racing across the sky, the Yazzies' work is filled with masterpieces of silver, gold and stone inlay as well as bead and stone work. It ranges from belt buckles to necklaces to bracelets.

"I treat each piece of stone and turquoise like my children," Raymond Yazzie says in a video that accompanies the exhibit. "How can we help each other. How can I bring this to life?"

“Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family” runs through Jan. 10, 2016. The museum, located at One Bowling Green, is open every day, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is free. www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.