Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Double Strand Necklace Santo Domingo

Our Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Double Strand Santo Domingo Necklace carries a story that reaches far beyond its striking blue color. Handmade by a female artisan from Santo Domingo Pueblo (Kewa Pueblo), this necklace features two generous strands of beautifully polished Sleeping Beauty turquoise nuggets, each with its own organic shape and character, and is finished with a sterling silver clasp. The stones have the vivid, clear sky-blue color for which Sleeping Beauty turquoise became so treasured, with occasional natural matrix adding individuality and reminding us that no two pieces of turquoise are ever exactly alike.

What makes these stones especially remarkable is their history. They belonged to the artisan’s mother and had been tucked away in a box for many years. When the artisan rediscovered them, she felt something deeper than simply finding beautiful old turquoise. She shared with Jean Marie that she felt her mother would have wanted her to finally string the stones, give them new life, and allow them to find a new home. In that sense, these are vintage stones, not newly acquired material, but turquoise preserved within a family and now brought together by the next generation.

Sleeping Beauty turquoise is particularly prized because the historic Sleeping Beauty Mine near Globe, Arizona, is no longer producing turquoise, making older material increasingly difficult to replace. Known for its distinctive bright blue color, Sleeping Beauty has long been sought after by Native American jewelers and collectors. Here, its rarity is joined by something that cannot be measured by scarcity alone: provenance, family memory, and the continuation of Santo Domingo jewelry-making traditions through generations.

Jean Marie has developed a special relationship with this artisan, and hearing the story directly from her made this necklace especially meaningful. She was moved not only by the beauty and rarity of the turquoise, but by the artisan’s connection to her mother and her feeling that it was finally time for these stones to become something complete. For Jean Marie, this necklace represents what makes handmade Native jewelry so powerful: the materials carry history, the hands carry tradition, and sometimes a piece carries the memory of someone who came before.

Length 21.5" 

Made in New Mexico, USA

Sterling Silver Clasp