Andrea Lonjose is a Zuni artist, and what she does is among the hardest things to do well in Southwestern jewelry: she draws with stone.
Zuni inlay is a lapidary art rather than a silversmithing one. The silver is a frame; the picture is built from individual pieces of stone and shell, each one cut to a shape that exists nowhere else, ground to fit its neighbours with no visible gap, then set flush and polished until the whole surface reads as one continuous plane. A single ring can hold dozens of separate cut pieces. Get one edge wrong and the piece is finished.
Lonjose is known for figural work, and that is the whole of this collection: recognisable characters and faces rendered entirely in cut stone. Her palette does the drawing for her, because Zuni inlay has no paint. A face is white mother of pearl, hair is onyx, a dress is coral or pink shell, water is turquoise, and the highlights are yellow mother of pearl. Every colour on the piece is a real material, chosen because it is that colour, not because it was tinted.
Her rings are widely collected and have been carried by Zuni specialist galleries for years, generally described as master-level inlay. These are conversation pieces in the literal sense; people ask about them. They are also genuinely fine lapidary work, which is a rarer combination than it sounds.
Each ring here is one of a kind and made at a specific size. If you would like to see them side by side, or check a fit, our Old Town Scottsdale showroom has them in the case. See more rings or explore work by our other artists.