Vintage Red Spiny Oyster Shell Necklace with Jacla by Nestoria Coriz

This Stunning Traditional Two Strand Red Spiny Oyster Ceremonial Necklace is handmade by Nestoria Coriz. This necklace features four hand stamped barrel beads and Red Spiny Oyster beads, with a red spiny cabochon in the center of the large bead that makes up the jacla. The length of this necklace measures 24″ long, and the Jacla is an additional 8″.

Coriz has been making jewelry since she was 6 years old on the Santo Domingo Pueblo. Taught by her grandfather, Coriz learned how to make beads by hand. Each bead is carefully carved and polished using gem quality stones. Coriz makes all of her own sterling silver findings (cones, hooks and eyes) as well as the silver disks, barrels, and beads used in her pieces.

Native American Artist: Nestoria Coriz

Among the few top Kewa necklace makers stands Nestoria Coriz. Her traditional-contemporary designs and styling incorporate handmade silver, distinctive drop pendants into unique art forms.

Coriz has been making jewelry since she was 6 years old on the Santo Domingo Pueblo. Taught by her grandfather, Coriz learned how to make beads by hand. Each bead is carefully carved and polished using gem quality stones. Coriz makes all of her own sterling silver findings (cones, hooks and eyes) as well as the silver disks, barrels, and beads used in her pieces. Coriz began learning all facets of heishi, bead and stone work from her paternal grandparents, Santiago and Trinidad Pena, at the age of six years. Her first tasks were to buff stones on buckskin floor rugs. At that time, there was little if any electrical power at the Santo Domingo Pueblo and so all jewelry work was created by hand.

As a teenager in the early 1960’s Coriz learned to make silver jewelry when she began working at Turpen’s in Albuquerque along side her father, Lupe Pena. She is selftaught in all aspects of the design and construction of her necklaces and jewelry. Coriz uses the highest grade of stones and shells. She uses all types of turquoise in her designs, as well as all shades of spiny oyster, clam, gaspeite, Acoma jet, various corals, lapis and abalone. She makes all of her own sterling silver findings (cones, hooks and eyes) as well as the silver disks, barrels, and beads used in her pieces.

Her grandfather was a four-time governor of the pueblo and her father was still actively making traditional jewelry at the age of 96, before passing in 2009.

Santo Domingo Jewelry

While contemporary Indian jewelry has followed many paths, the work most closely linked to the work of ancestral Puebloans is the stone and shell work produced at Santo Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico.

When stone merchants come to the village, competition for turquoise and other materials is fierce. Using five-gallon cans for chairs, women arrange themselves around a table piled with turquoise to individually pick stones they will use in their work. Artists also look for coral and shell without holes and of uniform color.