Diego Ramos — Isleta Silversmith
Diego Ramos was a blacksmith before he was a silversmith. Margery Bedinger's Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers, drawing on John Adair, calls him "an Isleta" who in 1908 "made Laguna his home in that year, set up a silversmithing shop, and worked for a number of years," adding that "He is said to have been the first Laguna smith to set turquoise" (Bedinger 1973, p. 167).
Bedinger traces how he learned. After his wife died around 1884, he left Isleta for Peralta, where a man named Valencenio showed him how to form silver; at Silver Creek, Arizona, a Hopi silversmith showed him how to set stones, and Diego showed him wire-bending in return (Bedinger 1973, pp. 169–170). He returned to Isleta, where he died in 1918 (Bedinger 1973, p. 170).
William and Sarah Turnbaugh, in Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest, also describe him as originally from Isleta, and date his turquoise setting to after about 1910 (Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 2007, p. 66).
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References
- Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
- Turnbaugh, William A., and Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh. Indian Jewelry of the American Southwest. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2007 (first published 1988).
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