Abalone and Heishi Shell and Turquoise Necklace Santo Domingo

There is an extraordinary refinement to Our Abalone, Heishi Shell and Turquoise Necklace, handmade by a female artisan from Kewa (Santo Domingo) Pueblo. What immediately distinguishes this piece is the unusual, softly squared cube-like form of the abalone beads. Each piece of shell has been individually cut, drilled, shaped, and polished with remarkable precision, then carefully matched and strung into graceful strands. Abalone is naturally unpredictable, its layers reveal pearl, bronze, taupe, green, blue, and flashes of iridescence, so achieving this degree of consistency by hand requires tremendous patience and skill. Yet each bead remains subtly different, ensuring that this necklace can never be precisely replicated.

The juxtaposition of abalone and turquoise is especially meaningful. In Pueblo traditions, turquoise's blue-green color has associations with water, sky, health, abundance, and protection. Research from the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture notes that turquoise and shell have historically been paired in Southwestern jewelry, with both materials evoking water, shell through its origin and turquoise through its color, intensifying that symbolism when worn together.  Rather than saying turquoise represents earth specifically, we prefer this historically supported interpretation: here, the touches of turquoise visually ground the luminous abalone, bringing the colors of water and sky into harmony with a material born of the sea.

For Jean Marie, this necklace is made even more meaningful by her close relationship with the artisan. She deeply appreciates her extraordinary workmanship and takes great pleasure in patronizing her work. Traditional Kewa shell jewelry is intensely laborious; museum examples document shell and turquoise pieces being individually ground, drilled, polished, and strung by hand. These painstaking skills deserve to be valued and supported, particularly as fewer artisans may choose to undertake such demanding, time-consuming work in generations to come.

The result is a necklace of exceptional individuality: sophisticated, luminous, and unmistakably handmade. The precision of the unusual abalone shapes contrasts beautifully with their naturally shifting colors, while turquoise provides quiet punctuation throughout. Jean Marie was particularly captivated by this balance of discipline and organic beauty. More than an accessory, it is a singular expression of an artisan's hand—a piece to collect, wear, and treasure while supporting the remarkable tradition from which it comes.