About Us

Gallery

Business Policies

Contact

Home

"Olneya Tesota". The Sonoran Desert Ironwood Tree.

Photo source and © Spadefoot Nurseries

An exceptional 10-strand hand-cut Silver and Desert Ironwood bead necklace by Ed Aguilar, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico, c. 1970’s-80’s

Ed Aguilar’s (1941-2006) stunningly beautiful precious metal and exotic wood bead necklaces are quite rare

and quite difficult to come by, and it's little wonder since they are so excruciatingly demanding and difficult to make. Aguilar was born and raised at the Santo Domingo Indian Pueblo some 20 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He first began to make jewelry while studying silversmithing at boarding school in Santa Fe.

Like many of his fellow Pueblo young men, Aguilar worked part-time as a hot shot firefighter during the summers to earn extra money. While still in high school, Aguilar’s father was badly injured and left unable to work so to help support his family, Ed began making jewelry full time following in the footsteps of his jeweler Uncle and his Mother who had previously made hand cut stone and shell bead necklaces. In time, he basically taught himself the painstaking techniques of cutting, casting, shaping and extruding his metal and wood beads. Over the years, others have tried to imitate him, but have found the work simply too exhausting and difficult.

The act of bead-cutting itself requires immense amounts of patience, perseverance and precision, and the amount of concentrated effort and sublime artistry that it took to create the elegant simplicity that characterizes the look and feel of this necklace is simply astonishing, so much so that you might not really believe it unless you knew it to be true. The necklace is ten strands in all and each strand is composed of at least one hundred very small precisely hand-cut Desert Ironwood beads. Ironwood is one of the world’s hardest, most dense and most excruciatingly difficult woods to work with. Let’s talk about an incredible, almost insane degree of precision.

“I cut my beads with a diamond edge saw.

If they are even 1/100th of an inch off, I won’t use them.”

-Ed Aguilar

And, not only that, consider that each and every single one of these one thousand or so perfectly matching ironwood beads is only about 1/16" in length. And, on top of this there are also some 500-plus hand-fashioned, silver tube beads, around 50 per strand, each also measuring approximately 1/16" by 1/16", in the necklace as well for a grand total of approximately 1500-plus small, perfectly-cut beads in all. The necklace is finished with a 4" long handmade silver link chain and hook and eye clasp and a pair of beautifully hand-fabricated silver cones which are each 1" in length. The astonishing amount of highly-skilled painstaking hand craftsmanship and patience in evidence here simply boggles the mind; the necklace is flawlessly made in every possible respect and is an extraordinary artistic and technical achievement any way you look at it.

The short choker length necklace measures 7" in height from the top of the silver chain clasp to the bottom of the bead strands, measured while lying flat on a table. When completely opened up, the necklace measures 16" from end-to-end which means that it is 16" in circumference all the way around the neck. The necklace weighs a very nice feeling and extremely comfortable to wear 24 grams or 7/8 ounce and it is in remarkably excellent original condition with no damages and no noticeable wear in evidence. It was clearly not worn very often and has been very well taken care of. The necklace is properly signed “Ed Aguilar” on both of the silver cones in Aguilar’s customary graceful cursive signature and both of the silver cones are also marked “Sterling”.

The necklace lays beautifully and feels just marvelous on the body with its rich, luxurious silky texture and feel. Impress everyone you know and everyone you don’t with this elegant and extraordinary rare beauty. It’s an immaculate and stunningly precious piece of truly fine jewelry from the inspired mind and skilled hands of a distinguished and singularly dedicated Native American artist.

SOLD