Ray and Mary Rosetta — Kewa (Santo Domingo) Silversmith
Ray and Mary Rosetta made the first liquid silver: necklaces of fine, handmade silver tube beads, strand after strand. Paula A. Baxter's Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry lists them as "Rosetta, Ray and Rosetta, Mary (both b. ca.1930– , Santo Domingo)" and records that Ray, back from army service in the 1940s, learned to make silver tubing from his uncle, Santiago Coriz, and refined the process by the early 1950s, polishing the beads and reducing their size (Baxter 2000, p. 154).
The name came from a trader's wife. Marsha Mayer Lund's Indian Jewelry: Fact and Fantasy records that in 1952 the couple, "long recognized as two of the most proficient bead-makers in the business," brought a necklace to the trader Ed Young, and his wife, Lillian, said it looked "just like liquid silver" (Lund 1976, p. 131). The sources date the start differently: Lund gives 1952; Baxter says the strands were being called liquid silver by 1957 (Baxter 2000, p. 154); and their son Nick, in Mark Bahti's Silver + Stone, dates the invention to about 1958–59 (Bahti 2007, p. 142).
Lund has the method from the trader's daughter, Deyoe Young Stark: the Rosettas pulled rolled sheet silver through a drawplate over and over until it was exactly the right circumference, then cut it into tiny segments, some 1/16 inch thick (Lund 1976, p. 131). Nick recalls that all five children helped, and that their first job was the stringing (Bahti 2007, p. 142). Baxter adds that Ray and Mary also made more traditional stonework and shell heishi (Baxter 2000, p. 154). Their son Johnny Rosetta and his wife, Marlene, took the form into gold, and their son Nick Rosetta and his wife, Me-Wee Rosetta, carry their own pages here.
Their hallmark
Lund records that the family signed "Rosetta" on the cone portion of their necklaces and set at least one piece of coral in every liquid silver necklace as a further signature (Lund 1976, p. 131). Baxter adds small initials on the cones, "RMR" or "JMR" (Baxter 2000, p. 154).
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References
- Baxter, Paula A., with Allison Bird-Romero. Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry: A Guide to History, People, and Terms. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 2000.
- Lund, Marsha Mayer. Indian Jewelry: Fact and Fantasy. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1976.
- Bahti, Mark. Silver + Stone: Profiles of American Indian Jewelers. Tucson: Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2007.
This profile is maintained in support of Native American silversmiths and compiled from published references. See something inaccurate, or want to add to it? Contact us.