GALLUP, N.M. — Many Navajo jewelers come from five or even six generations of artisans, however, Lyndon Tsosie became a first-generation silversmith because he desperately needed a job.
At 19, after drinking and partying his way out of vocational school for auto mechanics and showing back up at his mother’s doorstep, he found himself with nothing.
“My mother said, ‘I can’t keep taking care of you, you have to grow up,’” Tsosie recalled.
Tsosie found a job in Gallup as a stamper in what he calls making ‘tourist-style” jewelry.
“I didn’t even know how to do that,” Tsosie said. “I was self-taught by just looking at copies of what they gave me with a few stamps and then I proceeded to create whatever they gave me, whether it was bracelets, hair berets, rings or earrings — and that’s how I started my career.”
A few years later Tsosie moved to Albuquerque with his then-wife and daughter, Jasmine, taking what he learned from stamping and jewelry into a business of his own. His dream was to become a famous however, he didn’t exactly shoot to fame. Alcohol continued to be a problem.
Tsosie got his first taste around 7 years old.
“I first started drinking alcohol when I got my first communion,” Tsosie said. “That’s the funny part, I got my first taste of alcohol there in the Catholic Church.”
Tsosie remembers sneaking into the garage of the Father at the Tohatchee Catholic Church with some friends during a potluck as a child to find two fridges. One fridge was full of Coors beer, the other one had gallons of Garden De Luxe, the wine that destroyed thousands of Navajo families in Gallup.
“I was like, ‘wow, it isn’t Jesus’s blood’… It was fortified wine that I savored in my mouth,” Tsosie recalled. “I was so bummed and turned off because I was like, ‘my uncle drinks that, it destroyed my uncle’s life’.”
In the ninth grade, Tsosie began going to parties and drinking regularly. Though he graduated from Tohatchi High School in 1987, he was ranked nearly “dead last.”
“I had such a hard time trying to finish high school,” Tsosie said. “When I graduated there were 136 students, I was ranked 134.”
Tsosie was still drinking heavily after starting his business in Albuquerque, and with a crumbling marriage in 1992, he took his daughter, some petty cash, and $30 worth of silver to Many Farms, Arizona, on the reservation. His new shop was a 4 feet by 5 feet storage closet in his father’s house. Tsosie continued to create art and attend large jewelry markets, but also continued to binge drink and throw his money away.
A turning point for Tsosie was being introduced to Teddy Draper Jr., son of Navajo Code Talker Teddy Draper, Sr. Draper Jr. was a silversmith living in nearby Chinle. Draper saw something in Tsosie and gave him some inlay work.
“I was his apprentice, but not in jewelry or art, it was an apprentice of life,” Tsosie said. “He really helped me with my drinking. He told me who we were as Navajo people, what we’re capable of doing.”
Draper told Tsosie he would never become a famous artist if he continued to drink. He told Tsosie about how the Diné should always give back in any way to help their community and family.
“He told me in order to stay sober – yes, it’s the willpower – but you also have to understand the spiritual side of this,” he said. “You need to pray and mean it, not just say your prayers as a Navajo. There’s no word for religion, but the spiritual part of us as Navajo people is always the way we give thanks to the holy people – not g/d or anything – but we look at the historical part of who we are as Navajos.”
Draper took Tsosie to see medicine people who held prayers for him. In 1995, Tsosie started his sobriety journey.
“Well, I decided I needed to give back somehow, so I stay sober,” he said.
In December 1995, Tsosie used his last $50 to buy 10 Gold Medal flour bags and brought them to the Chinle chapter house for a Navajo Nation food drive.
“Three months after, news came out saying they had given food to family members and not community, so I think they got in trouble,” Tsosie said. “So I vowed next year I would go out on my own and deliver food.”
Tsosie saved money and in December 1996, got the names of 10 families in the Chinle area that were in dire need of food.
“I bought the whole meal. I bought turkeys, I bought potatoes and vegetables, coffee, for a nice holiday meal,” Tsosie said. “And I went out Christmas Eve – my daughter, myself and my dad – and we delivered those food baskets to family in the Chinle area.”
With his newfound sobriety and sense of purpose, Tsosie’s goal to become a famous artist started to come to fruition. In 1997, he incorporated his business, naming it after his daughter, Jasmine. He entered into shows, getting awards at the Gallup Inter-tribal Indian Ceremonial, New Mexico State Fair and Southwest Art Festival. He eventually received first place at the prestigious Indian Market Show in Santa Fe and swept at the Heard Museum Show in Phoenix.
In 2001, Tsosie met Valerie Joe, an administrative assistant at Coyote Canyon Rehab, where Tsosie was leading an art program for adults with disabilities. The two opened the Jasmine Inc. Gallery in 2004. Tsosie and Joe now have two boys together. Tsosie has four other children from previous marriages.
Today, Tsosie’s pieces are sold all over the world. Garland’s in Sedona is currently selling a red mountain turquoise necklace he created for $18,000, calling Tsosie’s style extremely unique, with combinations of contemporary 3D shapes, masterfully-cast designs and bold textures that portray landscapes. Tsosie uses precious stones of the highest quality, as well as platinum, sterling silver and all karats of gold. Besides jewelry, Tsosie has created intricate keepsake boxes, dish sets and even urns.
Tsosie and Joe run other businesses at a Gallup gallery space, including House of Tools and House of Stamps, which sells metal stamp patterns for Navajo jewelry making. Tsosie also has a shop in Tokyo, where Native American art is highly coveted.
Building a foundation
Tsosie, Joe and their team wanted to take the success of their businesses and build a foundation to help what they call the “underdogs.”
“Our goal is to root for the underdog,” Joe said. “Because all of the scholarly (kids) do get the scholarships, and what about the others who are unrecognized but who do want to do something, who strive for something to better themselves but they have that struggle because they’re overlooked?”
Tsosie remembered how hard it was to get through school, with grades so low that he was classified with the special education kids.
“In 2016, I stood behind a podium on the stage as an alma mater of Tohatchi High School. I gave the keynote.” Tsosie said. “Valerie and I and our company donated $10,000 in scholarships to 10 individuals that didn’t get any scholarships – that had a dream to go to school. So we gave them $1,000 each to help them with school.”
The food drive that Tsosie started as a way to give back and stay sober is also still around today, with Tsosie and his company feeding 347 families in 2022.
The Lyndon Foundation was started in 2023 originally to help with the food drive, but has morphed into promoting young Native Americans in the fine arts.
“As we all know when you look at statistics, Native Americans are not as successful in academics and they don’t get degrees like a lot of (Non-natives) and I think a lot of it is because of the living situations,” Tsosie said. “So we decided, let’s try to get young individuals here, anywhere from 16-21 where they still have the ability to say, ‘I want go back to college,’ or ‘I want to go to college,’ ‘I want to go to art school.’ So we’re the catalyst to getting them in there.”
Tsosie already had teaching experience from House of Stamps stamping workshops he taught, as well as teaching silversmithing at Diné College in Tsaile for two years as an adjunct instructor.
Over the summer, The Lyndon Foundation hosted a symposium, which included five students from Diné College’s Navajo cultural arts program.
The students made bolo ties with unique silver motifs, using tufa casting with the help of Tsosie and House of Stamps staff. The group also took a trip to the Hopi reservation to tour studios and homes of successful artists.
“Our students got to actually meet very successful and famous jewelers who have been doing this for 30-, 40-, 50- years, and have made a great financial living for themselves and who are recognized all over the world,” Tsosie said. “That was a very big, big treat not only for them but for me.”
Even though Hopi silversmithing differentiates from Navajo, Tsosie said it was more important that the students saw the individuality and the success of these artists. One artist who gave them a tour was Verma Nequatewa, aka Sonwai.
“She is one of the most famous American Indian jewelers,” Tsosie said. “Her work dons presidents, first ladies, kings, queens, Forbes 500 companies, people come to her from all over the world to buy her work. And that’s what we’re trying to inspire.”
Tsosie has an impressive clientele as well, including ambassadors to different countries, secretaries from the Navy and Airforce, bank owners and cattle company heads.
“We want to tell them about these customers and the potential that they have,” Tsosie said. “People love American Indian art. They love to collect it. We don’t want to make just Indian art to sell. We want these individuals to truly succeed and be leaders in their home life.”
Tsosie said there aren’t a lot of opportunities for those wanting to learn silversmithing anymore, unless you happen to have family who can teach you.
“You have families that do teach their children, but there are families that no longer do art work like that and those kids perhaps want to learn but they have nowhere to go. So the foundation has a goal to help those kids,” Tsosie said.
Schools are steering way from silversmith classes too. Tsosie noted that Gallup-McKinley County Schools have around 70 schools within the Navajo Nation and 85% are Navajo.
“There used to be art classes, silversmith classes – just like any American school, a lot of those vocational classes no longer exist,” Tsosie said.
Draper’s mentorship meant everything to Tsosie, and he credits him to where he is today. Tsosie hopes through his mentorship with the Lyndon Foundation, he can pass on the torch.
“We did our research about mentorship – 55% (of those with mentors) are less likely than their peers to skip a day in school, 78% are more likely to volunteer regularly, 90% are interested in becoming a mentor themselves, 130% are more likely to hold leadership positions,” Tsosie said, citing facts from mentoring.org. “We at the Lyndon Foundation actually have the ability to change and hone (young people’s) skills into leaders. That’s what we’re focused on, is making sure they become successful and that they’re educated and that they’re financially stable. …if I can do that with nothing, and have my little empire here, then any other native can do that.”
Tsosie is hoping to raise money from donors to give the foundation a good base to make those young people’s dreams come true.
“When I’m 80, I want these young individuals having their own financial stability to say, ‘I did it, thank you to the Lyndon Foundation. I now support other foundations to do the same thing that Lyndon Tsosie and Valerie Joe did for me 25 years ago,’” Tsosie said.
Visit thelyndonfoundation.org for more information.
GALLUP, N.M. — Many Navajo jewelers come from five or even six generations of artisans, however, Lyndon Tsosie became a first-generation silversmith because he desperately needed a job.
At 19, after drinking and partying his way out of vocational school for auto mechanics and showing back up at his mother’s doorstep, he found himself with nothing.
“My mother said, ‘I can’t keep taking care of you, you have to grow up,’” Tsosie recalled.
Tsosie found a job in Gallup as a stamper in what he calls making ‘tourist-style” jewelry.
“I didn’t even know how to do that,” Tsosie said. “I was self-taught by just looking at copies of what they gave me with a few stamps and then I proceeded to create whatever they gave me, whether it was bracelets, hair berets, rings or earrings — and that’s how I started my career.”
A few years later Tsosie moved to Albuquerque with his then-wife and daughter, Jasmine, taking what he learned from stamping and jewelry into a business of his own. His dream was to become a famous however, he didn’t exactly shoot to fame. Alcohol continued to be a problem.
Tsosie got his first taste around 7 years old.
“I first started drinking alcohol when I got my first communion,” Tsosie said. “That’s the funny part, I got my first taste of alcohol there in the Catholic Church.”
Tsosie remembers sneaking into the garage of the Father at the Tohatchee Catholic Church with some friends during a potluck as a child to find two fridges. One fridge was full of Coors beer, the other one had gallons of Garden De Luxe, the wine that destroyed thousands of Navajo families in Gallup.
“I was like, ‘wow, it isn’t Jesus’s blood’… It was fortified wine that I savored in my mouth,” Tsosie recalled. “I was so bummed and turned off because I was like, ‘my uncle drinks that, it destroyed my uncle’s life’.”
In the ninth grade, Tsosie began going to parties and drinking regularly. Though he graduated from Tohatchi High School in 1987, he was ranked nearly “dead last.”
“I had such a hard time trying to finish high school,” Tsosie said. “When I graduated there were 136 students, I was ranked 134.”
Tsosie was still drinking heavily after starting his business in Albuquerque, and with a crumbling marriage in 1992, he took his daughter, some petty cash, and $30 worth of silver to Many Farms, Arizona, on the reservation. His new shop was a 4 feet by 5 feet storage closet in his father’s house. Tsosie continued to create art and attend large jewelry markets, but also continued to binge drink and throw his money away.
A turning point for Tsosie was being introduced to Teddy Draper Jr., son of Navajo Code Talker Teddy Draper, Sr. Draper Jr. was a silversmith living in nearby Chinle. Draper saw something in Tsosie and gave him some inlay work.
“I was his apprentice, but not in jewelry or art, it was an apprentice of life,” Tsosie said. “He really helped me with my drinking. He told me who we were as Navajo people, what we’re capable of doing.”
Draper told Tsosie he would never become a famous artist if he continued to drink. He told Tsosie about how the Diné should always give back in any way to help their community and family.
“He told me in order to stay sober – yes, it’s the willpower – but you also have to understand the spiritual side of this,” he said. “You need to pray and mean it, not just say your prayers as a Navajo. There’s no word for religion, but the spiritual part of us as Navajo people is always the way we give thanks to the holy people – not g/d or anything – but we look at the historical part of who we are as Navajos.”
Draper took Tsosie to see medicine people who held prayers for him. In 1995, Tsosie started his sobriety journey.
“Well, I decided I needed to give back somehow, so I stay sober,” he said.
In December 1995, Tsosie used his last $50 to buy 10 Gold Medal flour bags and brought them to the Chinle chapter house for a Navajo Nation food drive.
“Three months after, news came out saying they had given food to family members and not community, so I think they got in trouble,” Tsosie said. “So I vowed next year I would go out on my own and deliver food.”
Tsosie saved money and in December 1996, got the names of 10 families in the Chinle area that were in dire need of food.
“I bought the whole meal. I bought turkeys, I bought potatoes and vegetables, coffee, for a nice holiday meal,” Tsosie said. “And I went out Christmas Eve – my daughter, myself and my dad – and we delivered those food baskets to family in the Chinle area.”
With his newfound sobriety and sense of purpose, Tsosie’s goal to become a famous artist started to come to fruition. In 1997, he incorporated his business, naming it after his daughter, Jasmine. He entered into shows, getting awards at the Gallup Inter-tribal Indian Ceremonial, New Mexico State Fair and Southwest Art Festival. He eventually received first place at the prestigious Indian Market Show in Santa Fe and swept at the Heard Museum Show in Phoenix.
In 2001, Tsosie met Valerie Joe, an administrative assistant at Coyote Canyon Rehab, where Tsosie was leading an art program for adults with disabilities. The two opened the Jasmine Inc. Gallery in 2004. Tsosie and Joe now have two boys together. Tsosie has four other children from previous marriages.
Today, Tsosie’s pieces are sold all over the world. Garland’s in Sedona is currently selling a red mountain turquoise necklace he created for $18,000, calling Tsosie’s style extremely unique, with combinations of contemporary 3D shapes, masterfully-cast designs and bold textures that portray landscapes. Tsosie uses precious stones of the highest quality, as well as platinum, sterling silver and all karats of gold. Besides jewelry, Tsosie has created intricate keepsake boxes, dish sets and even urns.
Tsosie and Joe run other businesses at a Gallup gallery space, including House of Tools and House of Stamps, which sells metal stamp patterns for Navajo jewelry making. Tsosie also has a shop in Tokyo, where Native American art is highly coveted.
Building a foundation
Tsosie, Joe and their team wanted to take the success of their businesses and build a foundation to help what they call the “underdogs.”
“Our goal is to root for the underdog,” Joe said. “Because all of the scholarly (kids) do get the scholarships, and what about the others who are unrecognized but who do want to do something, who strive for something to better themselves but they have that struggle because they’re overlooked?”
Tsosie remembered how hard it was to get through school, with grades so low that he was classified with the special education kids.
“In 2016, I stood behind a podium on the stage as an alma mater of Tohatchi High School. I gave the keynote.” Tsosie said. “Valerie and I and our company donated $10,000 in scholarships to 10 individuals that didn’t get any scholarships – that had a dream to go to school. So we gave them $1,000 each to help them with school.”
The food drive that Tsosie started as a way to give back and stay sober is also still around today, with Tsosie and his company feeding 347 families in 2022.
The Lyndon Foundation was started in 2023 originally to help with the food drive, but has morphed into promoting young Native Americans in the fine arts.
“As we all know when you look at statistics, Native Americans are not as successful in academics and they don’t get degrees like a lot of (Non-natives) and I think a lot of it is because of the living situations,” Tsosie said. “So we decided, let’s try to get young individuals here, anywhere from 16-21 where they still have the ability to say, ‘I want go back to college,’ or ‘I want to go to college,’ ‘I want to go to art school.’ So we’re the catalyst to getting them in there.”
Tsosie already had teaching experience from House of Stamps stamping workshops he taught, as well as teaching silversmithing at Diné College in Tsaile for two years as an adjunct instructor.
Over the summer, The Lyndon Foundation hosted a symposium, which included five students from Diné College’s Navajo cultural arts program.
The students made bolo ties with unique silver motifs, using tufa casting with the help of Tsosie and House of Stamps staff. The group also took a trip to the Hopi reservation to tour studios and homes of successful artists.
“Our students got to actually meet very successful and famous jewelers who have been doing this for 30-, 40-, 50- years, and have made a great financial living for themselves and who are recognized all over the world,” Tsosie said. “That was a very big, big treat not only for them but for me.”
Even though Hopi silversmithing differentiates from Navajo, Tsosie said it was more important that the students saw the individuality and the success of these artists. One artist who gave them a tour was Verma Nequatewa, aka Sonwai.
“She is one of the most famous American Indian jewelers,” Tsosie said. “Her work dons presidents, first ladies, kings, queens, Forbes 500 companies, people come to her from all over the world to buy her work. And that’s what we’re trying to inspire.”
Tsosie has an impressive clientele as well, including ambassadors to different countries, secretaries from the Navy and Airforce, bank owners and cattle company heads.
“We want to tell them about these customers and the potential that they have,” Tsosie said. “People love American Indian art. They love to collect it. We don’t want to make just Indian art to sell. We want these individuals to truly succeed and be leaders in their home life.”
Tsosie said there aren’t a lot of opportunities for those wanting to learn silversmithing anymore, unless you happen to have family who can teach you.
“You have families that do teach their children, but there are families that no longer do art work like that and those kids perhaps want to learn but they have nowhere to go. So the foundation has a goal to help those kids,” Tsosie said.
Schools are steering way from silversmith classes too. Tsosie noted that Gallup-McKinley County Schools have around 70 schools within the Navajo Nation and 85% are Navajo.
“There used to be art classes, silversmith classes – just like any American school, a lot of those vocational classes no longer exist,” Tsosie said.
Draper’s mentorship meant everything to Tsosie, and he credits him to where he is today. Tsosie hopes through his mentorship with the Lyndon Foundation, he can pass on the torch.
“We did our research about mentorship – 55% (of those with mentors) are less likely than their peers to skip a day in school, 78% are more likely to volunteer regularly, 90% are interested in becoming a mentor themselves, 130% are more likely to hold leadership positions,” Tsosie said, citing facts from mentoring.org. “We at the Lyndon Foundation actually have the ability to change and hone (young people’s) skills into leaders. That’s what we’re focused on, is making sure they become successful and that they’re educated and that they’re financially stable. …if I can do that with nothing, and have my little empire here, then any other native can do that.”
Tsosie is hoping to raise money from donors to give the foundation a good base to make those young people’s dreams come true.
“When I’m 80, I want these young individuals having their own financial stability to say, ‘I did it, thank you to the Lyndon Foundation. I now support other foundations to do the same thing that Lyndon Tsosie and Valerie Joe did for me 25 years ago,’” Tsosie said.
Visit thelyndonfoundation.org for more information.