Raymond Tenorio

I am of Santo Domingo Pueblo Tribe located between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Santo Domino Pueblo is near the ancient turquoise mines of Cerrillos, NM and our people have a long history of making fine turquoise jewelry and heishi. Heishi are pieces of shell or stone that are carefully ground into beads and strung into necklaces. Heishi are thought to be the oldest form of jewelry in New Mexico and perhaps in North America. 

I was born in 1953 at Santo Domingo and was raised there. Jewelry making has been a part of my entire life. My mother made jewelry and my dad was a farmer and a jewelry maker. As I entered my teen years, I began to help my parents with jewelry making after school. When I graduated from high school I took extra classes relating to auto mechanics and construction. I worked good jobs in these areas for many years, but I longed to return to a traditional artist’s way.

In 1986, I became interested in making turquoise and silver jewelry my career. I make various types and sizes of necklaces, earrings, pendants, and chokers. The process of my jewelry making is as follows: I search for good quality stones, such as turquoise, lapis, coral, and shells. The semiprecious stones I work with come from various mines in Arizona. The process of shaping the stones and shells into heishi takes a lot of patience and skill. To shape a stone, I cut the stone into thin strips and cut each future bead down to size. Different stones have to be shaped in different ways; natural turquoise has to be hand cut into rough circles so that it is less likely to chip and crack when it is grinder. I then drill a small hole in each stone disk and then grind a string of disks against a turning stone. I control the size and the shape of string of beads with the pressure of my hands. After the final polishing and washing of the beads I string my jewelry on waxed strings, so that each necklace and choker can last a long time.