EDITH TSABETSAYE (Zuni, b. 1940)

Edith Tsabetsaye, born in 1940, is a contemporary Zuni Pueblo jewelry artist and a master of the needlepoint lapidary style. She has been making jewelry since the age of thirteen. She learned the craft from her parents, Joe and Susan Tsabetsaye, initially creating pieces with traditional cluster work and petit point motifs.

In 1958, she focused on “needlepoint” jewelry—a labor-intensive process in which intricate cluster patterns are created from tiny, carefully matched navette-shaped cabochon stones. Using turquoise from the Lone Mountain and Sleeping Beauty mines along with red coral, Tsabetsaye painstakingly cuts each stone with a distinctive crescent profile and sets them in individual serrated bezels of sterling silver. In the artist’s words, “I began cutting the raised and crescent-shaped stones in the late 1960s so you can see the stones from both sides. I wanted to create something different from what others were doing.”

Tsabetsaye has won many awards at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial competitions as well as Best in Show at the Santa Fe Indian Market.

Visit our Native American Collection page to see jewelry from our inventory of exquisite Native American jewelry and purchase the catalog Material Beauty: Modern Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo Artist Jewelers, which accompanied our 2018 exhibition here.