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A particularly striking and beautiful pair of Michael Kabotie Hopi silver long dangle earrings, c. 2000’s
Let’s talk about the ultra-rare and the ultra-hard to come by, Michael Kabotie’s (1942-2009) marvelous Hopi silver overlay jewelry is just about the hottest thing going in the world of Native American art today. Michael’s pieces have become more scarce than ever before since his untimely death fifteen years ago and the demand for them has continued
to skyrocket. To paraphrase, Michael always used to say that jewelry was his livelihood, but that his real love was painting, but to us it is his remarkable and now increasingly rare jewelry that will become his most lasting artistic legacy.
These marvelous dramatic long dangle earrings are very creatively done in two sizable diamond-shaped sections
slightly domed in profile, each with a different design motif linked together by silver loops. The top sections have
a beautiful, vertically oriented split-triangle design while the bottom sections have very interesting spiral, stylized “avanyu” or plumed water serpent designs.
Michael Kabotie, c. 2004
Photo source and © "Totems to Turquoise", American Museum of Natural History,
Harry Abrams, New York, 2003, pp. 176-177.
“You beat up on your material, bang it around, scratch it, cut it, torch it, throw it
into acid, and bang it around some more, file it some more, and then, at the end, you
have this beautiful piece. And that’s what life is, and it’s quite violent.”
-Michael Kabotie
Quote source and ©: “Totems to Turquoise”, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 2004
Detail of a 2001 Michael Kabotie Hopi mural study drawing depicting The San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, AZ as being the legendary ancestral home of the Hopi Kachina spirit beings.
As he always did on his special “Triple-overlay” style silver pieces Michael has subtly accentuated the silver overlay
with etching, notching and other texturing in various areas around the earrings which adds complexity to the designs and
gives the appearance and feeling of greater depth and relief. The earrings are mounted on silver posts and they measure
a dramatic 2 1/2" in length from the top of the silver posts to the bottom of the earrings. They are 3/4" in width at their widest points and they weigh a very comfortable and extremely easy to wear 5 grams or 1/8 ounce each. They are in completely excellent original condition and each earring is properly signed “Lomawywesa”, Michael Kabotie’s Hopi name
in his customary cursive signature two times on the back of each earring, once on each diamond-shaped section for a
total of four signatures in all.
Take a good long look at these lovely and elegant long earrings but don’t look too long,
they’ll likely only be here for a short time.
SOLD
“We the Hopi have a lot to offer from a spiritual standpoint and as a living force. We are hoping that from the presentation of our traditions and from the interpretation of the Hopi way in our art and paintings a new direction can come for American spirituality.”
-Michael Kabotie