Native Life
Taos jewelry maker Maria Samora: Native style, modern aesthetic
By ELLISE PIERCE
Web exclusive
"I had a lot of anxiety about my first Indian Market," says Taos jewelry maker Maria Samora. "I thought, I'm not going to fit in. My stuff isn't Native American-looking." That anxiety is long-gone — Samora is showing there for the fifth year this time around, and her creations were chosen for the 2009 Indian Market poster.
Maria Samora, left, and her 14-karat gold and turquoise "Corndance" earrings
Her strong contemporary pieces do stand out, which is precisely why her first market was such a huge success. Interpretive geometric shapes that represent an element of nature, Samora's jewelry has a modern aesthetic with Native roots in nature and the elements. And like nature itself, her pieces move.
Take "Summer Rain": five strands of an 18-karat bead chain hanging from an oval turquoise on a gold cable necklace. Or a pendant called "Lightning Bolt": two rectangles — one 18-karat gold, the other sterling silver with an off-center diamond — hanging from a gold cable reminiscent of telephone line. Or "Cosmos": a sterling silver bracelet in a grid pattern outlined in 18-karat gold, with diamonds scattered about like tiny stars.
Her entire collection is like that. Simple. Graceful. Elemental. Minimalist.
Samora came to her art almost accidentally. She grew up in New Mexico on the Taos Pueblo, the daughter of a medicine-man father and jewelry-maker mother. So you might expect that Samora, now 33, would end up doing something artistic, something that spoke to her heritage and the environment that she grew up in.
But Samora, who felt her brother, now a potter, was the artistic one, chose to leave home and study Spanish and photography at Pitzer College in California. After dropping out, she returned home, where a friend offhandedly suggested they take a class at the University of New Mexico in Taos. The two signed up for beginner's jewelry-making class, something that had never interested Samora before.
"I was kind of having fun," she says. "It's not like it was going anywhere."
Yet she took another semester, and another after that. After three semesters, Samora received a scholarship to take a weeklong intensive course with Taos goldsmith Phil Poirier. "It was amazing," she says. "I realized that if I was going to take jewelry-making seriously, I needed to learn from him. That began a 10-year apprenticeship."
Samora's work is featured in this new hardback book.
On her off-hours — she worked as a waitress full time — she honed her skills under Poirier, soldering gold rings, setting stones, and polishing finished pieces. Poirier encouraged her to come up with her own designs, too, which she'd make in his studio under his supervision.
They still share a studio, where she works four days a week, in nearby San Cristobal, a 20-minute drive away.
"It's a labor of love," she says. "It's very challenging, and it's very technical. Plus, it's difficult on the body. I'm constantly mashing a finger with a hammer. ... I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface when it comes to what I have to learn."
