On Monday, in our final entry in our series on small holiday gifts for the season now winding down, we featured three belt buckles from another Taos Pueblo silversmith: Rodney Concha, one of the masters, and one of Wings’s distant relatives. At the time, I took some new (better) photos of the other piece by him that we have in inventory — a genuine showpiece, a collector’s item — and so it seems appropriate to begin the new year with a look at one of his masterworks. I’m featuring it today less for the prospect of selling than simply for sharing the beauty and master craftsmanship of Wings’s fellow artist, relative, and friend.
Last year, when we first launched this blog, I wrote about the Southwestern Indian jewelry form known as the concha. We delved then into the identity and meaning of the word, and of the surname, too:
The vast majority of “Indian” surnames in this area are actually Spanish, most often representing a region in Spain. Of course, European (and Christian) naming traditions bore no resemblance to those of the indigenous peoples on this continent, but it’s not only history that’s written by the perceived victors. It’s an existential phenomenon, touching and altering the very concept of identity.
But as with our peoples across the continent, the new names are here to stay, and they’ve mostly been absorbed into the various local cultures. They have not, however, managed to supplant traditional naming practices; they’ve merely become the public face shown to outsiders, masking the real identity and existence much deeper within.
Unlike a lot of the Spanish surnames found in New Mexico’s Indian Country, “Concha” is unusual in that it does not refer to a place, a geographic region, in Spain. Instead, it refers to an actual thing: a shell (for an English analogue, think conch shell). I’m not sure anyone remembers anymore how the first Indian person came to be called “Concha”: Perhaps it was an artist who worked in the tiny shells found around local watersheds; perhaps a trader in shells, since this area was one of the continent’s great historical trade routes in all directions. Perhaps it was simply a humorous nickname. Whatever the origins, it stuck. And it is now a word that is firmly enmeshed in local culture and tradition, both as a proper name and as an elemental part of the indigenous arts.
Here, it’s now a very old surname, and one long associated with talent. Numerous members of the extended Concha family create beautiful art (some in more than one medium). Rodney himself has long had a reputation as a master silversmith, and he has developed a singular style that is simultaneously very traditional and very recognizeable in contemporary terms.
It’s interesting to me that he should be best known for creating pieces that share his name. Perhaps that’s what prompted him to follow in the footsteps of his silversmith forebears in the first place; perhaps it was just a bit of serendipity, of synchronicity. At any rate, the eponymous nature of his work gives it a deeper layer of meaning, of identity, of mastery.
The fact that this iconic Indian jewelry style shares an identity with people makes it all the more important, though, to get it right. And most of the Southwestern arts and jewelry worlds (to say nothing of the rest of the dominant culture here) don’t.
I wrote about that here last year, too:
First, let’s clear up a few things: The word is, unequivocally, concha. C-O-N-C-H-A. It is not “concho.” There is, indeed, no such thing. That’s a misspelling, a mispronunciation, an error, and the town of Concho Springs notwithstanding, in the Native arts world in 2014, there’s absolutely no excuse for getting it wrong. But non-Native art dealers constantly misuse the word, and it drives me up the wall. This is a word, and also people’s name; get it right. It’s not in the least difficult to do.
Something I should have added then , but didn’t: Pronunciation.
It’s pronounced, more or less, KOHN’chah. With the long “o” sound manifest in the short, sharp vowels common to Spanish syllables.
It is not KAHN’chah. Nor is it KOHN’choe. And it most assuredly is not KAHN’choe. And, yes, I know that popular fiction and contemporary place names are full of misspellings and mispronunciations, but that doesn’t excuse it. In this country, it’s a feature, not a bug, that words and names of marginalized populations are Anglicized beyond all recognition, bastardized and corrupted into something they are not. The fact that white folks chose to [mis]name an area “Concho Springs,” or that Tony Hillerman repeatedly misspelled the silverwrok style as “concho,” is not a license to do likewise.
Non-Indians profiting from the identity and work of Native artists have an obligation to meet minimal standards of respect for those artists, and that includes proper use, spelling, and pronunciation of names.
Misuse of the word has another, less obvious effect, too: It divorces the word from its actual meaning, and thereby disconnects the art style from its identity and function. It’s another way of whitewashing, Anglicizing, appropriating an art form and a cultural referent.
We don’t do that here.
I explained the linkages last year:
So, in this Native arts world, what is a concha?
It’s most often assumed by outsiders simply to refer to a type of iconic Southwestern Indian-style belt, but in fact, it actually refers to the shape of the pieces that compose such belts and other types of silverwork. It’s simply a medallion of sorts, generally rendered in silver, that takes the rough from or shape of a shell. Now, these are not what a lot of people think of as shell shapes (i.e., not clamshells); these are traditionally oval and slightly domed, to give a slight convexity of shape to them, like a shell. Today, the genre has expanded to include round or rectangular shapes; Wings even does a scalloped version unique to him. But the original shape was oval, and the medallions were usually created in groups to form a repeating pattern for use across a leather belt or a hatband.
Silver, of course, was always at a premium, so while you can still occasionally find an old belt made of heavy poured and rolled ingot, you’re more often likely to find versions that are a testament to Native thrift and improvisation:conchas made of rolled silver coins. Yes, you read that right: An old traditional method of making concha belts involved taking silver coins and rolling them, flattening and extending the surface, and then adding traditional stampwork. We have a couple of those old belts, and they’re amazing.
This particular belt, of course, is a contemporary one — by which I mean that it was made sometime in the last 20 years or so. It’s not new, in the sense that it was not made yesterday (or last week, or last month, or even last year). It is new in the sense that it’s unworn; it’s been a part of Wings’s private art collection for more years than I can remember. It’s also the sort of work that will only appreciate in value over time, significantly so. From its description in the Other Artists: Miscellaneous Jewelry here on the site:
This beautiful vintage-style traditional concha belt is from Wings’s private collection. The word concha is Spanish for “shell,” and the individual pieces, or conchas, do indeed resemble silvery shells. This one is rendered in heavy sterling silver, each piece individually hand-stamped. The belt is high-quality, heavy leather, such dark brown that it’s nearly black in color. By Rodney Concha (Taos Pueblo); other views shown above and below.
Sterling silver; dark brown leather
$1,500 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Because of weight and value, extra shipping charges apply
It’s incredible craftsmanship, the kind of artistry that is labor-intensive and requires enormous creative and spiritual investment, as Wings can attest. He knows well what it takes out of an artist to produce this sort of detailed cutting and stampwork by hand, chased in repeated patterns around multiple constituent pieces. And yet, this sort of meticulous, uncommonly close work is a hallmark of Rodney’s personal style, one fine enough to bear his name both in style and in fact.
To produce something in the old traditional patterns, as Rodney has done here, is a labor of love indeed.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
