Clayton Tom is a Navajo artist, and his Night Sky work is the reason people come looking for his name.
A Night Sky piece is a picture built out of stone. The ground is dark, usually onyx or jasper, and across it he sets moons, stars and shooting stars, with a Yei figure in a headdress standing in the middle of the scene. The stars are cultured opal, which is what makes the pieces move: opal shifts colour with the angle of the light, so a ring that looked blue-green a second ago flashes pink and gold as your hand turns. A photograph cannot really show it.
The technique is fine-grain channel inlay. Hundreds of individually cut stones are fitted edge to edge inside sterling silver, then levelled and polished flat. Very few inlay artists work at this density, and because every star is placed by hand no two skies come out the same. Several listings here note that the piece comes with a certificate of authenticity, and where a piece is signed and stamped its listing says so.
This collection covers the range of forms he works in: rings and wide bands, link bracelets and cuffs, cuff links, pendants, and matched necklace-and-earring sets. There are figural pieces too, including turtles, worked in the same night palette.
Night Sky pieces read as contemporary rather than traditional, so they suit people who want Native American inlay without a classic squash-blossom look. They are also unusually good gifts, because the opal does the talking. See more rings and bracelets, or view the collection in person in our Old Town Scottsdale showroom, where the light will show you what the photographs cannot.