Philbert Secatero — Navajo/Diné Master Silversmith
Navajo/Diné · Cuba, New Mexico · at the T.Skies bench
Philbert Secatero’s mark: a feather stamp struck above his cursive name stamp, photographed from a stamp plate he had made so his marks could be shared. © Turquoise Skies Inc.
Stamping strikes a border into silver. Sawing cuts one out.
Philbert Secatero is known for the second — tight hand saw-cut edges worked around a bezel-set stone. It is the slower way to frame a stone, and the harder one to do cleanly.
About Philbert Secatero
Philbert Secatero is a Navajo (Diné) silversmith from Cuba, New Mexico. He spent years making work for established Southwest jewelry houses before coming to T.Skies, where he smiths today.
His son, Gilbert, is learning the same trade in the same shop — he came to us as an intern and now works as a pieceworker (read about Gilbert here).
Style & technique
Philbert works sterling silver set with turquoise. The saw is central to how he builds a piece: bezels encircled by hand saw-cut edges, and shadowbox settings — a pierced silver overlay raised above an oxidized ground, so the cut design reads with depth. Shadowbox demands the same precision as the borders. That is what tells you the sawwork is his method, not a flourish.
Beyond the saw, his range runs to hand-stamped silverwork, cluster and petit-point settings, and conch-shell split-wire cuffs. The stones are natural and stabilized turquoise — Kingman, Sleeping Beauty, Royston and Bluebird among the mines that turn up in his work.
His marks
Philbert signs with a feather, struck above a cursive Philbert Secatero name stamp — both shown above. He had the stamps made onto a single plate so his marks could be shared openly and collectors could recognise his work.
Not every piece he made carries this mark. Work produced for other shops went out under those shops’ stamps — ordinary in this trade, and no sign of anything wrong, but it means some of his silver circulates unattributed.
Career & shops
Before T.Skies, Philbert produced work for Nakai Indian Jewelry on East Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, and for the Albuquerque design house of Gertrude Zachary — two established Southwest houses that sold under their own names. Being trusted to make under someone else’s mark is a credential in itself. It is also why his earlier pieces can be hard to trace.
References
- Southwest Silver Gallery — the product description documenting his “hand saw cut silver designed edges,” the technique this page is built on.
- Castle Gap Jewelry — his cut-and-file split-wire cuff work.
- T.Skies gallery — work currently made by Philbert at our bench. His hometown, his family, his marks, and his time at our shop are T.Skies-sourced, from working with him directly, rather than from published record.
Philbert’s work comes off our bench and into the gallery. To ask what he has in progress, get in touch.
This profile is maintained in support of Native American silversmiths and compiled from published references and firsthand knowledge at T.Skies. See something inaccurate, or want to add to it? Contact us.