Nick Nez — Navajo/Diné Silversmith Hallmark

The marks

One mark is documented for Nick Nez from a piece recorded firsthand by T.Skies: a single N, flanked left and right by matched stamped elements, with Sterling struck separately below.

The mark shown here was photographed from a bolo tie by Nick Nez — braided leather with a sterling silver slide.

Nick has used more than one stamp, and he has said so himself on our show. In September 2021 he described switching over:

"On all my pieces the ends are not consistent… they're all different because they're individually stamped the end. So my newer one will just be more uniform."
— Nick Nez, T.Skies live show, September 19, 2021

That is a useful thing for a collector to know, and Nick and the host said as much on air: the change is a way of dating his work. On the early pieces the flanking elements were struck one at a time by hand, so no two sit quite alike. The later stamp puts the whole mark down in one strike, evenly spaced — which is what you're looking at above.

We have not photographed an early-period mark. If you own one, we'd like to see it.

Reading the Nez name — a caution

Nez is one of the most common surnames on the Navajo Nation, and it is a very well-known name in this trade. We publish eight other Nez silversmiths in this directory alone — Dee, Gibson, Henry, Hoskie, Kee, Nathaniel, Rosemary and Thomas — and there are more working smiths named Nez than that.

A shared surname is not a shared workshop, and it is not a lineage. Nick gets asked about this constantly. On our March 2021 show the host ran through the names — Leonard Nez, Gilbert Nez, Gibson Nez, Nate Nez — and Nick answered plainly:

"I'm actually a first-generation self-taught jeweler."
— Nick Nez, T.Skies live show, March 21, 2021

He has said he has no family background in jewelry at all. He taught himself: melting things down, taking things apart, breaking blades on copper before he ever moved to silver.

So when you're attributing a piece marked with an N, the surname will not do the work for you. Go to the mark itself, and go to the construction.

About Nick Nez

Nick Nez grew up in Chinle, Arizona, and lived there most of his life. Around 2020 he moved to Farmington, New Mexico, where he works and keeps his shop. Some older gallery bios still place him in Chinle — that's out of date.

He came to silver late and sideways. He started drawing in the fourth grade because a classmate was better at it than he was: "He was always drawing and he had the best drawings every time, so I just picked up a pencil one day and started drawing." Marvel characters first, then his own abstract designs — designs he would eventually cut into silver years later. A butterfly piece took first place at the Navajo Nation Fair in 2009. Then he stepped away from it to raise a family.

What brought him back was going to Santa Fe Indian Market as a spectator, buying tools, and starting over. The first thing he made was a bolo tie, and he still has it. By March 2021 he'd been at it about two and a half to three years — and had a first place in jewelry at the Totah Festival in Farmington and an entry in the Heard Museum Guild's Best of Show competition to go with it.

He does all of this on top of a full-time job. Nick is a paramedic — Chinle district first, then San Juan County — and he worked straight through the pandemic. He told the Navajo Times what that was like: "The stress you deal with every day is high. You really don't get a thank you." The bench is where he goes with it: "I don't know what it is, it's just being creative, using your hands and your mind." He's been clear about where he wants this to end up — "It's what I want to do, I want to become a full-time artist."

How his work is built

Nick works in silver overlay — two sheets of sterling soldered together, the top sheet cut away to leave the design standing, then oxidized so the recessed layer goes dark and the surface stays bright.

The part worth knowing is that he cuts it by hand. Not stamped, not die-formed — hand-sawn, including the bezels. He says it flatly on our show: "This is all hand saw work." On another piece: "those are sawed lines with filing." It's the thing he returns to most when he talks about his own work, and it's the thing that separates a hand-cut bezel from a commercially stamped one when you have both in front of you.

A few other habits of his:

• Thick-gauge silver, commonly 10 to 12 gauge on bezels.
• Raised stone settings — he sets stones high, using a riser underneath. He calls it an illusion, and he's cheerfully open about it being a deliberate look rather than a structural necessity.
• Oxidation applied line by line with a toothpick rather than a single dip, so he controls exactly which recesses go dark.
• Named pieces. He titles his work — Hitchhiker, One Blossom, True Blue, Twins in a Cradle, Chei Ring.
• Stone sourcing direct from the mines where he can — Ithaca Peak, Kingman, Carico Lake, Royston, Morenci, Bisbee, Sonoran Gold, natural Sleeping Beauty.

He describes his own work as contemporary rather than traditional, and he means it as a description, not a disclaimer: born in the nineties, working old-style Southwest design with his own drawing sensibility on top of it.

He also holds one stone back. He has a piece of Lander Blue — one of the rarest turquoises there is — and he has said he's saving it for a bolo tie for his son. His son's name is Lander Blue Nez.

Documented forms: rings, bracelets and cuffs, bolo ties, earrings.

Nick Nez on the T.Skies live show

What we don't know

Nick's birth year is not publicly documented in the sources we work from, and we won't print one we can't stand behind. We also have not photographed an example of his earlier, hand-struck hallmark — only the later uniform stamp shown above.

Know more about Nick? Collectors, family members, and researchers are invited to reach out through our contact page — verified details help us build a more complete record for every artist in the directory.

References

• T.Skies Native American Hallmarks Library — hallmark photographed from a bolo tie by Nick Nez, private collection; T.Skies firsthand record, 2026.
• T.Skies live show with guest artist Nick Nez, March 21, 2021 (Turquoise Skies Jewelry Gallery).
• T.Skies live show with guest artist Nick Nez, September 19, 2021 (Turquoise Skies Jewelry Gallery).
• Norcross, Cyrus. "An answer to stress: Jeweler, also an EMT, works through pandemic." Navajo Times, October 11, 2021.
• Nick Nez, artist biography and process notes, nicknez.com.
• Garland's Gallery artist biography (Sedona, AZ).

This profile is maintained in support of Native American silversmiths and compiled from published references and the artist's own public statements. See something inaccurate, or want to add to it? Contact us.