S3-08: Allen Aragon, Miniature Potter, Painter and Master Jeweler

Innovative jewelry artist and gallery owner Allen Aragon draws from traditional Navajo, Pueblo, Hopi and Acoma themes for his fresh approach to pottery and silversmithing. To create his signature jewelry, Allen sets intricate handmade ceramic paintings in sterling silver. Through his unique process, he creates one-of-a-kind earrings, rings, bolo ties and concho belts. Along with jewelry, he showcases his line of miniature pots and sculptures at his Albuquerque storefront and studio. In this For the Love of Jewelers podcast episode, Allen discusses his family heritage, growing up on a ranch near Chaco Canyon, his childhood fascination with pottery fragments and his creative process. He also talks about his recent foray into making NFTs based on his jewelry designs and the self-care routines that keep him creating.  

Transcript

Courtney Gray:                 Welcome to For the Love of Jewelers, a podcast brought to you by Rio Grande Jewelry Supply, and hosted by yours truly, Courtney Gray. Now in our third season, we celebrate the unconditional strength driven by our passion to create, and the motivating factors that enable us to adapt. We recognize the relevance and resilience of the jewelry industry through inspirational stories that challenge and honor its makers. Our journey, although unchartered, is one we are on together. Let's pause, share and discover the variety of silver linings gained from each personal story of innovation and determination. Allen Aragon, an acclaimed Navajo artist, creates miniature pottery and jewelry that is highly celebrated by collectors of Native American art throughout the United States and beyond.

He's a skillful artist who has taken traditional Navajo and Pueblo themes and used them in a fresh and innovative approach. Allen's miniature pots are created in the traditional ways, but he has developed his own style, combining ideas from Navajo, Hopi and Acoma art. To create his unique Jewelry, Allen paints intricate abstract and animal images on pottery. He then sets each one in sterling silver to create beautiful pendants, earrings, rings, bolo ties and Concho bells. Each piece of jewelry is truly one of a kind. Allen has his own gallery and studio in Old Town Albuquerque. Hi guys, welcome back to For the Love of Jewelers. Today we have Allen Aragon. I'm so excited. I hope I pronounced your name correctly, Allen.

Allen Aragon:                     That's correct, yes.

Courtney Gray:                 Yay.

Allen Aragon:                     Thank you.

Courtney Gray:                 That's correct, is it? You're welcome. You never know, always nice to ask. We're joining Allen in Albuquerque in his gallery in downtown Albuquerque, is that right?

Allen Aragon:                It's in Old Town. Old Town, Albuquerque.

Courtney Gray:             Old Town. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us. It's an honor to have you with us. I'm, excited to share with our community all about your work that you do and your background and culture and everything else that you'd like to share about today, Allen, so...

Allen Aragon:                     Well, thank you for having me.

Courtney Gray:                 Absolutely.

Allen Aragon:                     It's an honor. Thank you.

Courtney Gray:             Yes. Yeah, it's a pleasure. Allen, can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing and what led you into becoming a jewelry maker. Allen does a lot of things, ceramics, jewelry. Beautiful. You guys need to look him up for sure. He does some really beautiful, intricate design work with a very unique process that I haven't seen a whole lot of, but let's go backwards and start at what lead you to the craft.

Allen Aragon:                     Well, I grew up on a ranch near Chaco Canyon, a cattle ranch, and as a kid, going on horseback and moving cattle, and you would see all these pottery shards out in the mesas, and I would always stop and pick them up and was always curious about the pottery and designs of all the Anasazi pottery and I would stop and pick them up. And you would see ant piles with beads, turquoise beads, shell beads out on the ranch that has never been touched, and I would always stop and curious about stuff like that. And I think that kind of had a little influence on me with artwork.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. And your mom was a pretty accomplished basket weaver, is that right?

Allen Aragon:                     A Navajo rug weaver, my mom was, and my dad was a rancher.

Courtney Gray:                 I was reading about you a little bit, Allen, of course, and realized that yes, you were growing up at these weaving auctions. What is a weaving auction?

Allen Aragon:                In Crownpoint, New Mexico, they have a rug weavers, Navajo.  It's an association where Navajo rug weavers can bring their weaving to sell because they don't have the opportunity to do a show or sell up a sale, so they take them to the auction. They can get a little bit better price for some, taking it there. And they used to have it once a month. I don't know whether they have one back on with COVID going on, but it's just an outlet for the Navajo weavers to sell their weavings.

Courtney Gray:             Is it just weaving or is there other...

Allen Aragon:                     Well, the auction is just weaving, but they always have these craft vendors, like pottery, jewelry and just crafts that they would let in the elementary school. That's where I grew up, and all down the halls, they would have all the craftspeople and jewelers and my mom would go there and I would see a lot of the Pueblo pottery, Acoma, and I was always curious about the pottery they were selling and got to know a Acoma lady that gave me a piece of clay, because she knew I was interested and admired her a pots and stuff. So she said, "You need to start working with clay. You have that much... You can tell you want to do it." So she brought me a piece of clay the next time, and I just started messing with it, and that's how I started doing the pottery. Just curiosity of trying something and was honored and thrilled that someone, wow, took the time to bring me some clay to work with.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, that's always those moments that we remember, the teachers or the family member, whoever hands you that first material.

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Life could be very different if those moments hadn't happened, right?

Allen Aragon:                     Yep, they sure can.

Courtney Gray:                 Tell me more about that. Did they teach you as well? Did you get to learn from these women?

Allen Aragon:                     I just did it on my own, just curiosity, looking at magazines with artwork in it, and growing up around Chaco Canyon, going to the ruins and things that we would see, and you see a lot of that old pottery, so I always had that energy to enjoy things like that, and most people don't get to. Growing up on a ranch, that open range, and you see a whole piece of pottery laying out in the middle of nowhere.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow. Wow. Like broken shards and things like that?

Allen Aragon:                     Some were broken, some were whole, but... In my Navajo tradition, like I'm Navajo, my grandma would say, "You're not supposed to bother them. Don't disturb them." And stuff. But me being a little curious and stuff, I would still pick it up and look at it and...

Courtney Gray:                 Couldn't help that, huh?

Allen Aragon:                     I couldn't help that.

Courtney Gray:                 Sorry, mom. Yeah, I'm too interested, too curious. Yeah. Breaking the rules, Allen. Good for you.

Allen Aragon:                     [crosstalk 00:06:54].

Courtney Gray:                 So you pick up these amazing shards. Did you incorporating any of those pieces or just studying them?

Allen Aragon:                     Just studying them and trying it, rolling it out with slabs and stuff, and then my mom had a little bit of silversmith tools and stuff that her grandma gave her one time, and I just started combining the silver and pottery together. And a lot of mistakes and a lot of pieces that are real simple, but when you start, you just kind of learn. You just got to try it, and no one really taught me. A lot of mistakes and melted silver, melted solder, bezels and I just kept doing it. I wasn't planning to do it as a career, it just sort of just happened.

Courtney Gray:                 It found you, huh?

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Well, those mistakes, I think, are really important to the learning process. We don't really grow without some failures.

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah. That's life though. Yeah.

Courtney Gray:             Yeah. Right? Yeah, absolutely relatable to everyday. Well, I love this. Let's talk more about your process since we're on that topic. Again, you guys out there listening need to check out Allen's work. He's got a gallery as well as... So you're representing others as well as your own work in the gallery, I would assume. Right, Allen?

Allen Aragon:                     Yes. Yes I do.

Courtney Gray:                 And so you started combining painting, pottery pieces and sterling silver.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Tell us about the process. How does that work?

Allen Aragon:                Well, the pottery pieces I'll get a white ceramic porcelain clay and roll it out, and then I have little templates that I'll cut out the shapes and stuff. And they're pretty thick, but I'll let them dry and then they're sanded down, and then I smooth them out. And after they're dry, I'll draw a pencil outline, and then they're hand paining with underglazes, kiln-fired. And after they're kiln-fired with the colored glazes, they're fired twice, and then I'll do it a bezel setting, just like a cabochon, and set it in the silver. Over the years, my earlier pieces were just like black and tans, real simple, like three colors. Now I use multiple colors, a lot of bright pastel colors now than what I used to.

Courtney Gray:                 Is there a reason or certain colors that you're using in the work?

Allen Aragon:                Like now, it's... Somebody wants more purples, I can stay more towards the all purple or all blues, but normally I like to put lots of different colors. Just mix the paints and create your own color, and when I'm painting them, it's kind of like a water color when you're painting on there, because you can mix the colors. And sometimes you fire them, they'll turn real dark or real light, so I got pretty good at knowing what color they'll come out, because sometimes it would be really dark and they won't look so bright, but over the years, just the experience of doing it so long, you know what you're doing now after 30 some years of doing it.

Courtney Gray:             I would think so. Yeah, that's long time to focus on a certain technique. Sounds like, so you mainly focused on this painting ceramic technique for the last 30 years. 

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. Yes.

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow. Wow.

Allen Aragon:                     And the miniature work that I do is mostly like miniature sculptures, miniature pottery, but I only do maybe two or three of those a year, but the jewelry is what brings in the income. Most of the income is the jewelry.

Courtney Gray:                 And are you doing mostly custom work, or-

Allen Aragon:                     I do custom work, but... I enjoy custom work, but there's times when it gets to where you're doing it for someone a certain way and it kind of puts a little barrier where you can't do what you want to do, or just... It kind of... I don't know, just that's a little roadblock sometimes where you have to work different and... I enjoy it, but I don't like working.... It's kind of like working under pressure sometimes.

Courtney Gray:                 It can be.

Allen Aragon:                     You have a deadline, it has to be out by a certain date or... Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. And sometimes a deadline's important for an artist, I feel like.

Allen Aragon:                     [crosstalk 00:11:23] sometimes we're working, like I stayed up almost 40 hours straight sometimes, tried to finish pieces before a show, and it's just kind of like, "I can't do that no more."

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, that's devotion. So the paint is like a watercolor. I was kind of curious about what-

Allen Aragon:                     It's underglazes, but I water them down sometimes to get the shadings, the different shadings in the background, so you can get more like a lighter color, so I'll just water the glazes down where it's just almost like a watercolor where you can get a different, just like shading on it. You can use like a solid color paint, which most people use, but I tend to do just like a watercolor where you can add and water it down and add different colors to get the different shading and stuff.

Courtney Gray:                 That's really neat. It almost looks like enamel when I first looked at your work. I was like, "What is he doing?" [crosstalk 00:12:20].

Allen Aragon:                     Lots of people think it's enamel, they think it's inlay, and a lot of them, people they'll look and they'll say they don't know, what is that made out of? The glaze I use is a glaze that they don't make no more, so it has that real glassy look to it, and it looks almost like glass with the glaze I use on them.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Yeah. They're absolutely beautiful, and so, so intricate. I don't know how you get so detailed with... are you using like a magnification or something?

Allen Aragon:                     I use just reading glasses, but I always work small. I never really done nothing really big, because all my pieces are pretty much miniature work.

Courtney Gray:                 And tell me about the durability of the... Well, the ceramics, they're going to be a little more delicate, I would assume.

Allen Aragon:                     Once they're fired they're pretty strong, because it's fired with the glaze. The glaze is on the outside and then on the top, and then plus they're mounted with the bezel, so the bezel also protects it. It's harder than some stones, even some turquoise, once it's fired like that.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow. That's surprising.

Allen Aragon:                     It holds up really well.

Courtney Gray:                 Very cool. Very cool. I can't wait to see some of your work in person. Well, you kind of answered my... One of my next questions, Allen, was I saw a quote, I was looking at your Instagram and it said, "I want to make an art 24/7, but my body won't keep up with me."

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah. That's sometimes your mind just says, "I want to do this, I want to do this." And then you get spazzes in your shoulders and your arms when you're just constantly holding the paint brush, or the tools. You're working and your body is just telling you, "Okay, stop." But your mind just says, "I want to do what I want to do." But it's getting more important, you have to learn how to not push yourself too much. I'm still learning that though.

Courtney Gray:                 I think we'll be learning that forever.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Like stand up, stretch, get something to eat-

Allen Aragon:                     Stand up, stretch. I do basketball, so that helps me quite a bit.

Courtney Gray:                 Oh, good. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Do the red light therapy and [inaudible 00:14:21] so that's all good that I do.

Courtney Gray:                 Red light therapy, what's that?

Allen Aragon:                Red light therapy is like an infrared. Lot of athletes use that. It helps with inflammation, circulation, and pain, so it's kind of like a new thing. A lot of the new athletes do that.

Courtney Gray:                 Oh, cool. That's helping you out, huh?

Allen Aragon:                     I do it regularly.

Courtney Gray:                 Very cool.

Allen Aragon:                     It works pretty good.

Courtney Gray:                 Basketball's a good exercise. That's pretty energetic.

Allen Aragon:                     Basketball is good. That just frees my mind. I do that twice to three times a week, so I do it while I can, because I'm getting older, so I better do it.

Courtney Gray:                 Good for you. Yeah. Keep moving. Keep moving.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 So your record time at the bench is like, you said 40 hours. [crosstalk 00:15:09].

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah. That was like... Yeah. I think a lot of the Native American artists that do the big shows, like the Heard Museum, Indian Market, they know the shows are coming up and a lot of the artists, that's their big weekend. They make sometimes half of their income for the whole year on that weekend, so that's why they're pushing the deadlines to get enough pieces. Because artists don't get paid every two weeks, like the norm, so we just got to get paid when we can.

Courtney Gray:                 That's right. That's right. Yeah. It's a whole different discipline, isn't it?

Allen Aragon:                     It is. Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 To be a maker and that be your income, your main source of income.

Allen Aragon:                     Yep.

Courtney Gray:                 Did you ever think of doing anything else?

Allen Aragon:                No, I wasn't book smart to go to college, so all my siblings got all the book smarts, so I got the creative part of it. But I don't know what I would've done. It just happened, my career. The art just happened by mistake. I wasn't planning to be an artist, it just sort of just fell in there and I kept doing it

Courtney Gray:                 Oh, good for you.

Allen Aragon:                     Thank you.

Courtney Gray:                 It's nice when things find you like that.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, I would assume your work takes quite a bit of patience and what I would refer to as getting into a state of flow where this is all you're focused on, kind of like you said with basketball, you can turn your mind off and [crosstalk 00:16:35].

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah. If your mind is in the right place or you're calm and you feel like doing the artwork, you can paint for hours, and it seems like it's only like 30 minutes when you keep going, because you're so into it. Before you know it, you're at the art table for eight, nine hours and you don't... Because you're into it.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Yeah, when time just kind of doesn't even stay relevant at all.

Allen Aragon:                     That's when your best work... I think some of my best work is when you're relaxed and no worries to get deadlines or something, and you just want to create without nothing on your mind but creating.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, no pressure. Just that freedom. It shifts a little when you start monetizing or putting a price on the work, I feel. If we're not conscious of it, it can shift in our minds to a chore or a responsibility instead of this flowing creative process. Do you notice a difference in your mindset, like you said with custom, it's a little more pressure?

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah. With custom some of them will order something, but they want a certain price range, and sometimes it's kind of hard to put a price on something that someone has a budget that they want to pay. Sometimes they'll work on their piece and you got more work into it than what you would normally have charged them, but you know what they have, that's their budget, so I just... That's was the set price and I try not to think about that and just create the piece where it looks like it's finished, and then...

Courtney Gray:                 What was one of your favorite pieces that you've ever made?

Allen Aragon:                     It's probably one of my paintings. I've done very few paintings. I did a painting called Indigenous Dreams. It's like a five by five canvas, and that's the biggest piece I ever done, was a five by five. And that I took my time on it, it just kind of like... I only worked on it when I was in a good mood and I could tell the difference. When you're in a good mood and want to work on creating something, the paint brush flows so easy.

Courtney Gray:                 Your intention. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. It's probably the painting, and then the Concho belt that I've done a while back, the pottery style Concho belt. I've done a few, but there's one that I've done that was a lot of work that I took my time on, and you can tell the difference when you just take your time on something, like work on it nine months or something.

Courtney Gray:                 Put it down, walk away.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Come back to it, like you said, when you're in a good mood or [crosstalk 00:19:21].

Allen Aragon:                     I have three or four pieces and I'll just work on one and sometimes that piece will sit there for two or three months because I'll switch off to different projects, and... I had a piece that I had like three years, it would just... I'll work on it like one month and it'll just sit there for eight months and I'll get back to it.

Courtney Gray:                 Put another layer on or [crosstalk 00:19:42].

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, exactly.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. It's nice when you have that kind of time to sit with, if you can space it out like that, so that it feels organic and natural, and not forced.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. It makes a big difference.

Courtney Gray:                 I would love to talk to you about your culture, and as a Navajo, a Diné. I was doing a little research, but there's so much there to discover and learn. Do you mind sharing a little bit about your culture and...

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, so my mom is a Navajo and she's from Steamboat, Arizona. That's where she was, well, raised. And my grandmother was from Steamboat, Arizona in that area. And the Navajo people, Diné is what we call ourselves, which means the people. The word Navajo was given from the Spanish, but us Navajos, we call ourself Diné. That's the proper way to do it. With the Navajo culture there's a lot of different... There's prayer every morning, very spiritual and a lot of respect for mother nature and what you have, with the herbs and the clay and the sky, the food. You always respect that, it was always something that I was always taught to do.

Courtney Gray:                 And when you say respect that, what does that look like in your eyes?

Allen Aragon:                     Respect what's given to you, like what the mother earth has provided for you, when you... Something that gives us the clay or gives us the water or something, you got to appreciate what it's given you and don't take it for granted and just respect what it's given to you, and give thanks to our creator, what is provided.

Courtney Gray:                 And using minerals and materials responsibly. I would think that's... I was talking with Jennifer Curtis, who's up the road from you as well.

Allen Aragon:                     Yes, Jennifer.

Courtney Gray:                 And she mentions not using a lot of stones in her work, and that part of that reason was to honor those minerals and not overuse or take advantage.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, that's exactly... Because I don't use much stones. I do once in a while when I get the strands of the beads or corals and stuff to go with a pendant, but I don't use much stone either on all my work. Mostly it was just the pottery. Most jewelers use the stones and stuff, but in my... I always thought of that too, about not using the stones, but using clay. It's different, I guess.

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's limits to how much turquoise is out there, for example, how much... And now-

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, now turquoise is getting outrageous in the prices, and the good turquoise is hard to find, that people has been holding for years that they're finally selling. And the good artists know where to get to turquoise, but the price of it's gone quite high in the last few years.

Courtney Gray:                 Well, I heard years ago that when that was starting to happen with the price of turquoise, maybe you would know, Allen, I heard it was because they were blowing up mine's trying to get to the copper. Is that true?

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. That's in Arizona, a lot of it, and a lot of the mines were closed too. They used to be open, but Arizona does have a lot of copper around Globe and that area. And it's just... Yeah, that's all part of it.

Courtney Gray:                 Part of it. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Seems like they could do that a little... Maybe I should [crosstalk 00:23:34].

Allen Aragon:                     A little more different, yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, like maybe I should be in charge of that. Let's mine responsibly and then...

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Yeah. Seems like again with the rushing or trying to get to something quickly or make the money maybe. Who knows?

Allen Aragon:                     It's a quick buck, but it has its consequences if we don't do it the right way.

Courtney Gray:                 Absolutely. You said Diné means the people. I was reading it means up and down. Is that another...

Allen Aragon:                     Diné is... Yeah, Diné.

Courtney Gray:                 Diné.

Allen Aragon:                     Is that... We are the people, is what we call ourselves. That's what I was always... Well, like the Navajo and the tribes in Alaska, they have like a... We're related. Their language is very similar, so we're related to one of the tribes up in Alaska, which is... I think it's [Inuit 00:24:28] or... But their language is very similar to the Navajo, but their dialect is a little different than how we talk in our area. But the culture wise and stuff, we all have the same spiritual and respectful things with mother nature and all the... Like the four directions, what most native Americans have, like the four directions with the Northeast... The four directions with like the four colors, turquoise, black, white and the yellow is usually like the four sacred directions of the native people.

Courtney Gray:                 Can you explain that a little bit deeper?

Allen Aragon:                     Well, there's a woman like [inaudible 00:25:15], like I'm Navajo, so my grandmother, when she would do prayers and stuff, they always pray before the sunrise. They have white corn and yellow corn, and they would always pray when the sun comes up early in the morning. My grandma had the corn right by the door there, and then even in the sunset, she would do the same. And it's just like respecting the four directions. And the north is a sacred compared to the south. There's Navajo stories that generations brought down with the... I don't know all the whole stories on that though, but it's very sacred. There's always four. Four directions. You'll see that in the Pueblos and the Navajo, the designs.

Courtney Gray:                 And it varies from tribe to tribe, I guess, as far as what-

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, it does. Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). How you would describe the meaning of each direction or the four directions.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Interesting. Let's talk a little bit about the... Let's shift gears here. Let's talk about your NFT art. I was like, "What is NFT?" And started looking into it a little bit, but you can probably tell me now.

Allen Aragon:                     Non fungible token. It's NFTR, it's a new thing that's kind of getting real popular. It's like a digital file that people buy, and people are doing artwork where they're selling like a piece of artwork, but there are people that would buy it, they actually own the digital file to that image where it's on a blockchain. It's real new, it's only been out a couple years and it's... You'll bid on them and it's like collecting artwork, but you can actually do it where they own... You can sell the copyright to it, or you can do a limited edition of one to five, or for whatever you want it to do. And it's like collecting artwork, but I've been making NFTs by taking photographs of my jewelry, and off of that photograph off my jewelry piece, I create the NFTs, so it's abstract digital art.

During the pandemic a friend of might ask me if I wanted to try it, so we said we'll try it, that we'll work together on it and see how it goes. But it's fun. It's just [inaudible 00:27:55]. I'll sit there at night just working, creating, but most of them are all done off my jewelry pieces, just a to photo of, so it's recycling my jewelry image, I guess, and making new art out of it.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. That is so neat.

Allen Aragon:                     It's been fun.

Courtney Gray:                 I couldn't tell... I was thinking these must be images of your work or a lot of the similar colors and etc. They're very abstract.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. It's just a photo off the jewelry, and it's just something that I work with. I said, "If I can tie my jewelry work into it and make it off of that, it would be more collectible and more interesting, I think."

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well, we have to dive into all different things I guess to continue to grow as makers and also create that income. Different directions.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. A lot of the professional athletes are doing NFTs with art, and they're like cartoon-like images and stuff like that. And they're marketing on their shoes, and Tiger Woods just put out a NFT, like a autograph of a baseball card, but it's an NFT, so it's the same way, and there was a limited edition. And so they're getting into... I think it's going to be the next thing that a lot of people are going to get into.

Courtney Gray:                 What does this mean? Fungible, I don't even know the word. Non fungible token.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. It's kind of... Well, you had to... It's going through Bitcoin, Ethereum, but there's... You had to get a wallet, I guess, buy a wallet and it's a different thing, but it's so much into it that we're still learning the process on how we do it. It's like you buy maybe a wallet with tokens on it, and then the NFTs are bought with those tokens, and then the NFTs will have a blockchain, and if someone buys it and wants to resell it, it will always be on there, and it'll keep a record of where the NFT is. And as an artist, if someone buys my NFT, and they would get... Buy it and resell it and I would get a percentage of... Well, it would just keep going on, because it's very collectible,

Courtney Gray:                 Oh, interesting. Like a commodity. Yeah, interesting.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Okay. Thanks for explaining that. I was like, "What is this? This is a new thing."

Allen Aragon:                     It's so different. Yeah, a lot of people don't...

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). [crosstalk 00:30:36].

Allen Aragon:                     Hopefully one day they'll do it where you can actually buy the piece, like it's a file, but I want to do it where you can actually buy the NFT and it'll have a edition print, a one on one where you can get both and actually get the original jewelry piece. I'm trying to do it where you can get the original piece of jewelry, get a print edition in one, and plus the NFT, so it'd be more of a different type of-

Courtney Gray:                 Collection.

Allen Aragon:                     ... NFT that I would be doing. Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Interesting. Okay. Cool.

Allen Aragon:                     Because Sotheby's was even selling NFTs, the auction house. They were selling for 400,000 plus. It's amazing what they were doing.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow. Wow. Sounds like a good thing to check out.

Allen Aragon:                     It's a learning process, but we're going to try it.

Courtney Gray:                 Everything is, especially when you just dive in and it's like, "Okay, well let's figure [crosstalk 00:31:37]."

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Let's figure it out. Oh, when did you decide to open your gallery? How did that come to life?

Allen Aragon:                     I opened it in 2007 and it's a small shop, it's like only 410 square feet, but I always wanted a place where I can sell my own work myself, where I can have a little studio where I can work there and sell my work, sell it myself, where I won't have to sell it to other galleries or... I just wanted a simple, small place to work, and that's how I opened it. And it was a little spot in Albuquerque that came up for rent, and I said, "I either do it or I don't." So I said, "I'll try it." And I've been here since 2007.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow. Congrats.

Allen Aragon:                     And it was tough, like 2008 when the economy went down, it was like, "Oh, what did I get myself into?" But I managed to get through that 2008, when the stock market crashed and things, and during the pandemic the same way. It was like, "Uh-oh." But my shop was small, so I think that helped me hang onto it, which is kind of like... Being self-employed, sometimes you got to still pay the rent, you still got to pay the insurance, and even though they made us close the gallery down for a few months and stuff, but we made it.

Courtney Gray:                 I'm glad. I'm glad. I know a lot changed for a lot of people. For everybody. I mean-

Allen Aragon:                     Oh yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 ... it was such a universal experience. And especially for... Well, I've actually heard some good news, Allen, about jewelry sales for a lot of folks went up during the pandemic. People were home and shopping I think.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, and I got to use Instagram more and Facebook more, so that kind of was a better [inaudible 00:33:25]. I was not very good at doing that, but I got better at it and I would post them on Instagram and Facebook, and that kept be going good when the store wasn't be able to open.

Courtney Gray:                 Good. And now you've probably-

Allen Aragon:                     [crosstalk 00:33:37].

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Seems like we kind of had to figure things out quickly and adapt, and a lot of folks have really... A lot of makers that I've talked to have adapted well and really added things to their repertoire that they have been wanting to for years, or needing to. I don't know. That pause can be good.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Not that COVID is a positive thing, but...

Allen Aragon:                     Well, I mean, with social media, I like it for this, where people all over the world can see your artwork, which is good. [crosstalk 00:34:12].

Courtney Gray:                 To broaden your audience. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Have you ever been approached to teach what you do with the ceramic and silver?

Allen Aragon:                     I have, but I never went to college or nothing, so it's kind of like... Most places you got to have a degree to teach and stuff, so it's like-

Courtney Gray:                 Nah.

Allen Aragon:                     [crosstalk 00:34:29] book smart to do that. But I always wanted... In the back of my mind, I wanted to try it. It's like, "It'd be nice to teach something somewhere." But I'm getting older. It's like, "Man, I'd be like old dude in college." But it's kind of like I would've loved to do it sometime, but I think to pass it on to somebody that would appreciate it and...

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Because it is... Do you know other makers who are using the techniques that you do, because I hadn't seen it before and I've seen a lot of [crosstalk 00:35:03]?

Allen Aragon:                     No. I would say I kind of developed a style. My nephew [Nicholas 00:35:08] has gotten into it. He's pretty good at it. He started around 5. He's 21 now, but the last couple years he hasn't really done nothing, but he's actually won youth awards, best in show with the jewelry that he's done the way that I taught him. [crosstalk 00:35:27].

Courtney Gray:                 So you are teaching.

Allen Aragon:                     He's younger. When you're younger like that... He has a girlfriend, so he is... And going to school, so he's got all the fun things on his mind right now, so.

Courtney Gray:                 Right. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     But it's always there whenever he wants to do it, because people know him by now. He's done Indian Market, Heard Museum. For a kid to do shows like that is pretty awesome.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, so you are teaching, that's what I meant by teaching.

Allen Aragon:                     I'm teaching, yeah. I like to learn more myself, and... Yep.

Courtney Gray:                 Right. What would you like to learn more?

Allen Aragon:                     Different jewelry techniques. I never tried tufa casting, I never done wax casting. I've seen it, but I never actually tried it. I think just from getting bored, I want to try something different a little bit, so talk to a few artists and I might do that this year. We'll see what happens.

Courtney Gray:                 Yay. Yeah. I think you would... I would really like to see what you would do with carving wax and casting.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. I never even touched carving, or not even attempted yet, but people said you have the skills, you can tell by your work that you would be pretty good at it if you try it, so I might look into it a little more and do that.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. That's what I taught for years and I-

Allen Aragon:                     Oh really?

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. I started as a casting technician, so I kind of started in reverse, but then one night I sat down at the bench after everybody left and so I was casting the metals and shooting waxes and finishing and polishing stuff, but I hadn't actually carved anything. And I remember sitting down and carving my first wax just with the tools in front of me, and it was like you said earlier, Allen, the hours just went... I looked at the clock, I was like, "Wow, four hours later."

Allen Aragon:                     [crosstalk 00:37:17].

Courtney Gray:                 And so I fell in love with that technique. I think you would like it a lot.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, I would love to try that even with diamond setting and stuff like that. Adding some of my pottery work with diamonds, or wax cast or something.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Yeah. Expand.

Allen Aragon:                     I need to do that. Yeah, expand a little bit more to keep me from getting bored, because I can get pretty bored.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, and it's good to... Do you have people that collect your work? I would think that would be important for them to see you adding new things and...

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, I do have several collectors that kept my earlier work up to my work now, and they're always looking for something different. If you're doing something different, then they catch their eye, they'll keep your... Keep them interested in your work because you can't do the same thing, I think. I'm always pushing myself to do something a little more different or eye-catching than what I haven't done, because that's the only way that's going to keep them interested in your work.

Courtney Gray:                 And like for you too, you said. Yeah, keep the fire going.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 And the miniature pottery, you only do a couple pieces a year, you mentioned.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     I have a miniature that I did now, that's a few years ago. It took me over 450 hours on it. I worked like several months on it, so a real contemporary miniature sculpture, and 450 hours, fired 5 times.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow.

Allen Aragon:                     That one I got an innovation award at the Heard Museum on that piece a few years ago.

Courtney Gray:                 That's amazing. Yeah, you've got a lot of awards on your website there. I was very impressed.

Allen Aragon:                     Thank you.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. That's got to feel really... That's a driver, I think, for us too, when people acknowledge your work and like it. It's like, "Oh, keep going."

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. I have a problem sometimes when they're applying for a show, they don't have a category for my type of work, and that's one drawback that when I'm applying for a show, they don't have a category for my type of work, or they just put it under miscellaneous. Or if I wanted to put jewelry, put something under jewelry and they say, "Oh, you can't do that because it's pottery." So it's kind of...

Courtney Gray:                 What?

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, I have a hard time with a lot of jewelry shows like that because they don't have a jewelry category for my type of work.

Courtney Gray:                 I mean, it's jewelry though still. You would think that it would fit right in to that category.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, but some of them, I'll get a rejection letter saying [crosstalk 00:39:53], "Oh, sorry. You were not approved." And I'll ask questions and say, "Well, it's pottery." The jeweler will say, "It's not jewelry, it's pottery because you're painting the pottery pieces." But It's like, "Okay." But I just keep trying, you never know.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Maybe you just go in as pottery and then you would stand out even more because there'd be no other jewelry. [crosstalk 00:40:15].

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, I've done that too, and I've put stuff under pottery and they say, "Well, it can't be pottery, it's made into jewelry." So you get it both ways a little bit sometimes where you're like-

Courtney Gray:                 Right. Right. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's a common issue. I have a friend who's a sculptor and a jeweler and she can't do both. You have to [inaudible 00:40:34] well, maybe we start putting the jewelry into the sculpture and then it detaches somehow, and so it's all the same. I mean, how can we work around this?

Allen Aragon:                     It is. Yes. Yep.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. That's got to be challenging. I didn't even think of that for you, Allen. How interesting. Do you carry other makers and artists in your gallery?

Allen Aragon:                     I do. I have several artists. Aaron Brokeshoulder is an artist that he has stuff in my shop once in a while. Mostly I have a lot of estate jewelry, older pieces, a lot more of that, a few Zuni jewelry artists that come in and sell their work to me. And my nephews work I sell here at the shop.

Courtney Gray:                 [crosstalk 00:41:25] you buy it and sell it.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. Or they'll leave it under a consignment. But Aaron Brokeshoulder, his work is really different. I don't know if you've seen his work, but it's real contemporary.

Courtney Gray:                 [crosstalk 00:41:35]. Very neat.

Allen Aragon:                     I have his work here.

Courtney Gray:                 So the estate jewelry, do you have to authenticate these works? Is there a process for that?

Allen Aragon:                Well, if there's pieces that I know, like I'm more familiar with Native American art or jewelry, that I know, but sometimes if I don't know what it is, I'll just tell them I don't know where it's from or who's the maker, but you just got to do your best and do research. Sometimes you can find out who the maker is and sometimes you can't, depending on what the item is. But I have another artist that I carry, but he's not a jewel, he's a painter, Travis Black. He's a really awesome painter. Very unique painter, watercolor artist.

Courtney Gray:                 And is it mainly Native American or Navajo work that you carry?

Allen Aragon:                     I carry mostly Native American work, and then there's a few non-native artists that I do carry too, like Travis.

Courtney Gray:                 Very cool. Yeah, I was curious about the estate jewelry as like, how do you know if it's... Where it's coming from is one thing, but also is it authentic?

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah, I've been around that so many years, you can kind of recognize it and tell, but I've gotten pretty good at saying where this piece is from, or it's not native or it's made in France, or Costco jewelry or...

Courtney Gray:                 Is there a certain couple of key factors you could share with us that you identify right away as like, "Well, no, that's not authentic. I can tell it was produced [crosstalk 00:43:19]."

Allen Aragon:                     Well, you can tell with mass produced stuff that you see a lot of around our area. You know its casts that are done just for more like tourists and stuff. They're not real collectible, but they're just something that tourists would buy, stuff like that. But I like more like the homemade jewelry. You can tell when it's homemade, and then the stones, identifying the stones of older pieces, the good old turquoise, like the Navajo and Zuni, the Hopi.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. You have an eye for it now, I'm sure. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 I want to ask you a question, Allen. What in your mind is the difference between appropriation, like you said, mass production of designs, maybe traditional Native American designs. What's the difference between appropriation and compliment or inspired by?

Allen Aragon:                     Oh, inspired by. Like on my work, I have a lot of native artwork or native symbols and stuff, but mine's more into like a modern term, a modern aspect of... You see that a lot now with the younger generation doing real modern work. Yeah, like some of the symbols are sacred, or some of them they would say like... These companies are making artwork or doing jewelry that they don't know the meaning of it when they're making it. Like a Kachina or symbol of a petroglyph or our Navajo mask, or a native mask.

They'll do, I guess, paintings on masks and stuff where they don't really actually know the meaning or the history or the belief in it, because that's why a lot of people that you'll see... I know mass produced stuff you'll see on shelves of a lot of tourist shops and stuff that have Native American symbols and stuff, but they don't know... They're made somewhere else and they're brought here to sell, but they don't know actually the meaning of it.

Courtney Gray:                 Is that frustrating to you?

Allen Aragon:                     I think it's frustrating I think to all the Native Americans, because they just feel like they're taking the image of mass produced when they don't honor it or respect it in that sense, I guess.

Courtney Gray:                 Also, I would think it devalues the hand working of [crosstalk 00:46:06].

Allen Aragon:                     It does that, yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     It does devalue the handmade or unique pieces that you can only see and buy from the artists.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, you see this a lot with Native American work, I would think. It's a very popular style, and people latch onto that and don't even pay attention to, like you said, honoring or the background or the meaning of it for an entire culture. Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. I think that's part of it. A lot of them, they don't know what it is. They just make something that looks like it, and they say, "Oh, this is Southwest style." They advertise it as Southwest style instead of Native Americans, so they get a way around that when they don't know actually what it is or the designs on it.

Courtney Gray:                 I loved learning about the meaning of each jewelry item and each piece of apparel really. There's a couple girls on YouTube who were describing it as kind of a modern approach, but they were explaining the background and the meaning of the [gish 00:47:13] and the [you 00:47:14]. There's so many pieces to this, to the outfits for men and women traditionally, and I thought-

Allen Aragon:                     Traditionally, yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Allen Aragon:                     And with the Navajos and the Pueblos, they have people who are sometimes they're using their patterns or something and putting it in like a blanket or a materialized printing material and stuff. And you'll see a lot of that on there too, like a mudhead or Hopi mudhead. Most people won't even know what it is, but you'll see symbols like that on material and stuff that find in stores or stuff that I've seen.

Courtney Gray:                 What's a mudhead? I don't even know what that is.

Allen Aragon:                     Mudhead is a... It's a Hopi... Hopi or Pueblo they'll use them, but they only... It's very sacred towards the Hopi, and especially the Zuni. They have their feast days, and they're very holy people that are very sacred to the Pueblo, but you have to come to New Mexico and go to one of the feast days out here and you can experience some of the native tradition, especially the Pueblo heritage, the dancing.

Courtney Gray:                 Love that.

Allen Aragon:                     Next year they probably would have some, they've been all closed, I think, now.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah.

Allen Aragon:                     Even with the Navajo dances, their ceremonies, they're all... They didn't have them in the last few years.

Courtney Gray:                 That had to be kind of heavy, I would think, when you're used to having those traditions and each year. It's one thing to miss an art show, but to miss a ceremony or something of tradition.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah. Like the [inaudible 00:48:57] dances and the... Those were all canceled. Those are healing ceremony dances, it's like a nine day ceremony, and then it's a prayer for somebody that needs healing. And those were all canceled and stuff.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Allen, what else do you want to share with the community about yourself, your work, your gallery? Is there anything we've missed today? I'm sure there's a lot we've missed, but...

Allen Aragon:                     Well, if you come down to Albuquerque, you're always welcome to stop in people, to see me work, because I have my pottery clay studio in the shop here. If someone wants to come in and watch me work, people are welcome to. And answer any questions. But maybe next year you'll see me doing maybe some wax casting or wax carving. We'll see what happens and... Trying something different.

Courtney Gray:                 I'm going to hold you to that.

Allen Aragon:                     Hopefully in the next few years I'll have some pieces out, maybe. I think that's my plan.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. That's the goal, always evolving and growing.

Allen Aragon:                     I just want to continue doing my work where I like doing my work. I want to do it where it's less under pressure. I rather just do it and then have... If somebody wants to buy it, they can buy it. I think doing commission pieces, I don't really want to do a whole lot of, because it just puts a little edge on me, I think, a little bit, sometimes.

Courtney Gray:                 Well, we should have permission at some point in our careers, I think, to pick what we want to do and how we want it to feel when we're creating [crosstalk 00:50:41].

Allen Aragon:                     I think I'm getting a little maybe older and grouchy in my years. Maybe I'm [crosstalk 00:50:45], that's what it is.

Courtney Gray:                 Maybe you're just more particular about what you want now.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. I have one more question for you. What is your greatest strength, in your eyes, Allen?

Allen Aragon:                     Imagination of something, when I can just pick something and make something out of it. A few years ago I made a Christmas tree out in the patio by the gallery made out of recycle bottles. I had a vision of that in my mind and I never... I always wanted to try it anyway, so it was made out of like 1,500 bottles.

Courtney Gray:                 Wow.

Allen Aragon:                     Well, plastic clear bottles, and I made a tree out of it, so I can just get in the object that [inaudible 00:51:25], another [inaudible 00:51:27] that I could stop and recycle and make objects into it, or make art into it, or something that normally what someone would throw away. I like doing stuff like that, but it's this... And I never sold anything or...

Courtney Gray:                 But you can visualize something and [crosstalk 00:51:43].

Allen Aragon:                     I can visualize something with something... Somebody throws a piece of machinery or something. I'll look at that image and say, "That looks like a leg of something, or it looks like a..." I can make something out of that and just turn it around. That's my mind. My eye is I have a creative mind. If I'm just looking at something, I can pick it up and I can make it.

Courtney Gray:                 Seems like that comes from when you were a child walking around the ranch and picking up... Not supposed to pick up, but did pick up-

Allen Aragon:                     You're not supposed to, but I did.

Courtney Gray:                 ... the shards of old antique pottery and...

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Oh, it's so neat. Neat how each thing kind of feeds each other in forms, like you said, finds you and forms your creative outlet, whatever that looks like.

Allen Aragon:                     Just like music. There's so much music in the world, you'll never listen to all of it.

Courtney Gray:                 Right.

Allen Aragon:                     Every day I find new music. It's the same way with artwork. You can find artwork just by a simple thing. You walk out the door, if you want to make artwork out of a stone or a piece of tool you see, it's just your imagination can go.

Courtney Gray:                 Yeah. Yeah, and recycle objects and... Yeah, love that.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 That's very cool. What's the biggest thing that you're working on about yourself or maybe the biggest [crosstalk 00:53:05].

Allen Aragon:                     I think the NFTs is what's my next thing that I want to do. If I can get that going, and I enjoy were doing it and it's less stressful, so if I can create NFTs and sell a few and get some on the market to learn how to make a career out of it... I don't plan to get rich, and if I can make some and sell some and trying it different, I enjoyed that.

Courtney Gray:                 It's exciting. I hope that works out really well.

Allen Aragon:                     Yeah.

Courtney Gray:                 Well, Allen, I want to stay in touch with you and I'm definitely going to come visit the gallery when I'm in Albuquerque next. Can't wait. You guys definitely, I want you to look up Allen Aragon Gallery and check out his work, all the work that he's doing. It's very, very unique, very fascinating. Beautiful, beautiful work, and I'm impressed. Allen, thank you so much for taking time today.

Allen Aragon:                     Thank you, Courtney. Thank you guys at Rio too, for allowing me to do this.

Courtney Gray:                 Yes. Well, it's our pleasure and yeah, onward and upward to you Allen. Thanks again.

Allen Aragon:                     You're welcome. Thanks Courtney.

Courtney Gray:                 Thanks for tuning in, you guys. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of, For the Love of Jewelers. Stay tuned for the next episode by subscribing through Spotify, iTunes or by searching podcast@riogrande.com. I encourage you to rate us, write a review and share with friends and colleagues. I hope you're all finding ways to stay inspired. I'm your host, Courtney Gray. Until we get to connect again, onward and upward.