Description: Applique Gold-on-Silver

A descendant of master silversmiths, weavers and artists, Kee Yazzie gained inspiration from them, but traveled an interesting path to his present renown as a jeweler. His father was a silversmith, but Kee never received any formal instruction from him; perhaps just some artistic genes. He considers 1995, the year he acquired his own jewelry-making tools, to be his launch as an artist.

Kee studied architecture and linguistics at Brigham Young University, and is fluent in Thai and Laotian. Artists he read about and knew, such as James Little, Norbert Peshlakai, Gibson Nez, and Ray Scott helped and guided him. However, he developed his own style and techniques resulting in wonderful surface images created through complex overlay, cutouts, stamping and appliqué. Inspired by the rock art walls he saw east of Keams Canyon in his youth, he began depicting petroglyph-styled images. Kee’s applique work in gold-on-silver is highly collected and he is recognized as one of the most accomplished overlay craftsmen, sometimes incorporating one hundred symbols within a bracelet. Each intricately hand-cut piece becomes part of a seemingly never-ending mural in silver.