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A beautiful "Sonwai" Hopi tufa-cast silver band ring with "Inner Gem" inlays by Verma Nequatewa, c. 2000's
Verma “Sonwai” Nequatewa (b.1949) is the undisputed master jeweler of the Hopi mesas. Beginning as a teenager
some fifty-five years ago as a young apprentice to her brilliant artist Uncle, Charles Loloma (1921-1991) she has blossomed into an international superstar, a world-renowned artist of the highest caliber. The quality and
craftsmanship of her pieces is simply astounding. This elegant tufa-cast inlaid silver ring is perfectly evocative of
her exalted and highly-refined aesthetic, a lovely organic sculptural form in beautifully textured cast and finely
inlaid silver, seemingly simple, yet complex and extremely demanding to execute so perfectly.
In addition to being a beautiful piece of precious jewelry this ring has a most beautiful origin story. The idea first originated with Verma’s mentor and Uncle, the world-renowned Hopi jewelry artist Charles Loloma (1921-1991. Sometime in the 1960s, Loloma began making this style of ring which he said were made with hidden precious gems inlaid around the inside of the ring to express and remind the wearers of their own unique hidden precious inner gems, beauty which was known only to them, privately and personally. Charles Loloma made a number of these rings in silver and in gold, both tufa-cast and fabricated and Verma has continued this beautiful tradition. These “hidden" or "Inner Gem” rings by both artists are fairly rare in our experience, we ourselves have only two others and we have only seen maybe four or five other ones by both Charles and Verma over the years.
At left, Verma Nequatewa greeting guests at the opening of The Heard Museum’s Sonwai retrospective exhibition in Phoenix, Arizona in October, 2018.
“Charles taught that beauty is all around us on Hopi;
in the environment, in the culture, in ceremony.”
-Verma Nequatewa
Above left and right, "Inner Gem" inlay rings in tufa cast gold by Charles Loloma and Verma Nequatewa. Above center, Verma "Sonwai" Nequatewa and Charles Loloma, c. 1980's.
Photo source and © "Visions of Sonwai" by Verma Nequatewa, Sonwai, Inc., 2007, pp. 7 and 101.
The ring is done in beautifully tufa-cast silver with a delightful textural contrast between the rougher darker more "pebbled" looking main center section of the silver metal and the much smoother, brighter more highly-polished edges and interior. This textural contrast provided by skillful tufa-casting iand precise hand finishing is a lovely technique that emphasizes the beauty and preciousness of the metal surface as it catches and reflects light in different ways.
The ring is inlaid all around the inside with eleven precious "Inner Gem" stone pieces in all, five of which are clear sky blue-green turquoise, two are dark blue Lapis Lazuli, two are red Mediterranean coral and two are deep purple sugilite.
All of the stones are in excellent original condition and secure and tight in their settings.
The ring measures a size 9 on a professional graduated ring sizer. It is 3/8” in continuous width all the way around and
it weighs an extremely comfortable and easy to wear 10 grams or 3/8 ounce. The ring is in completely excellent original condition and it is properly signed “Sonwai” in Verma Nequatewa’s characteristic signature on the interior and is also marked very faintly with her butterfly insignia. “Sonwai” is the feminine form of the Hopi word for “Beauty” as “Loloma”
is the masculine form of the same word.
This ring could be just as easily be worn by a man or a woman and it could be worn as a casual fashion or friendship
ring and it would also make a perfect and particularly satisfying engagement and/or wedding ring especially for any Southwestern or Native American arts collector or admirer. We can say this from our own extensive personal experience as we ourselves have both happily worn similar "Inner Gem" inlaid band rings in tufa-cast gold, one by
Verma and one by Charles, shown here above as our own wedding rings for the past 25 years.
This ring is a completely classic piece by a completely classic artist, very wearable and absolutely stunning anywhere
and everywhere you might choose to wear it, lovely on the outside and lovely in another different and deeper way on the inside, a constant and beautifully evocative and emotional reminder of your own precious inner personal private beauty, known only to you.
SOLD
"Charles often spoke of the inner beauty, both of his patrons and the jewelry he created for them. Many of his pieces have inlay set into their inner surface, thereby making them invisible to the viewer. This reflected, he said, his belief in the wearer's inner qualities, a hidden beauty that was expressed in a piece of jewelry."
-Martha H. Struever, "Loloma Beauty is his Name", Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005, pp.27.
