Totems to Turquoise: Native North American Jewelry Arts of the Northwest and Southwest May 18, 2007

This landmark exhibition comes to the Autry National Center from the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Totems to Turquoise celebrates the beauty, power, and symbolism of modern Native American jewelry arts, focusing on the cultural similarities and differences of the Northwest and Southwest, the role of tribal and individual identity in design, and how artists incorporate images from their physical landscape into their work. More than 500 objects, including dazzling contemporary and historic Native American jewelry and artifacts, illustrate how techniques, materials, and styles have evolved as Native American jewelers have adapted to technical, societal, and commercial changes, transforming traditional craft into a full--fledged mode of artistic expression.