Calvin Begay is a Navajo artist and one of the most widely collected inlay designers working in the Southwest.
He was born in Gallup in 1965 and raised in Tohatchi, New Mexico, and made his first piece of jewelry at ten, taught by his mother and his uncle. He has been at it ever since, and unusually he is master of the whole process rather than one stage of it, from design through cutting and setting to finish. He took Best of Show at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial in 1989 and has won repeatedly since, and his work has been written up in Arizona Highways and Southwest Art.
What he is known for is mosaic inlay. Rather than a few large stones in bezels, a Begay piece is assembled from many small precisely cut stones set tight against one another to build a pattern or a scene, then ground level and polished into a single smooth face. He works in sterling silver and in gold, and combines traditional Navajo stamp work with a cleaner, more contemporary geometry than most inlay artists attempt.
This collection includes his Night Sky work, the dark ground scattered with opal stars and moons that has become one of the signature looks in Navajo inlay. The stones through the group run to turquoise, coral, opal and onyx, all natural.
Begay is a name people search for by name, which usually means they already know the work. If you are new to it, the thing to look at closely is the seams: on a piece at this level you should not be able to find them. See more rings and bracelets, or visit our Old Town Scottsdale showroom, open since 1979.