Turquoise, Gaspeite, Heishi Santo Domingo Necklace

Our Turquoise, Gaspeite & Heishi Santo Domingo Necklace brings together two extraordinary colors of the Southwest, brilliant sky blue and vivid, lime green. Commissioned especially for our collection, this graceful multi-strand necklace was handmade by a female Santo Domingo (Kewa) Pueblo artisan with whom Jean Marie has developed a close working relationship. There is something wonderfully organic about the transition from turquoise into gaspeite: rather than competing, the colors seem to belong together, recalling desert skies above the green-gold tones of the high desert landscape.

Gaspeite is an especially fascinating stone. Known for its distinctive apple-green to yellow-green color, it is considerably less common in Southwestern jewelry than turquoise and became particularly sought after by Native American jewelers and collectors in the late twentieth century. Its fresh green color creates a beautiful counterpoint to turquoise, one of the Southwest’s most treasured stones. Here, the artisan has arranged the materials in delicate heishi beads, allowing subtle variations in color and matrix to remain visible and giving the necklace the unmistakable character of something made by hand.

For generations, artists of Santo Domingo Pueblo, also known as Kewa Pueblo, have been celebrated for exceptional heishi jewelry. The tradition requires remarkable patience: shell or stone is cut into small pieces, drilled, shaped, ground, and polished before the individual beads are carefully assembled into fluid strands. What appears beautifully simple when worn represents countless small decisions of proportion, rhythm, texture, and color, knowledge traditionally carried from one generation of makers to another.

That human connection is especially important to Jean Marie. Rather than simply selecting finished jewelry, she enjoys working closely with the artisan, discussing materials, colors, and combinations that can become pieces made specifically for us. This necklace grew from that relationship, a meeting of Jean Marie’s eye for unusual color with the artisan’s inherited knowledge and skilled hands. The result feels both ancient and wonderfully modern: a wearable story of friendship, collaboration, Pueblo artistry, and the enduring beauty of turquoise and gaspeite.

Number of strands: 3

Made in USA

Length 17"