Forging a future

Cheyenne Sky studio

Entering the bright, high-ceilinged space of Cheyenne Sky Studio in Midtown Oklahoma City immediately feels cozy. Maybe it’s the whirring of a machine I haven’t had explained to me yet, or the two excited voices of Josie, 2, and Winnie, 5, playing in their parent’s workspace. I like it here.

We’re met by Taylor Martin, her long dark hair and countless silver pieces of jewelry bouncing with her between our greeting and checking to see if that last call from one of her girls actually needed anything. They’re fine. Grandma just opened a bag of crackers.

Our tour around the space is guided by the making of a silver and turquoise ring. We’ll see each station exercised at every step of the process, first, by Taylor hammering, sawing, then soldering a quarter-sized piece of silver. Within minutes, it’s taking shape. I’m nervous she’s going to cut a finger off, but we chat away regardless.

Taylor’s art is clearly inspired by the women who came before her. When asked about her earliest memories of Native jewelry, she references watching her Meme and Aunties trade earrings as a girl. One of her most notable memories features her Auntie who brought a Ziplock bag full of silver and turquoise jewelry back from a visit to see her sister living on a reservation in New Mexico. That early spark manifested in 2015 when she first began handcrafting sterling silver jewelry, ushering the way to her starting the metalsmithing program at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, which in turn led to the opening of Cheyenne Sky.

Through every stage of her learning and teaching journey, she has expanded her knowledge of traditional Native techniques. Most recently, she’s added tufa casting to her toolbelt, a technique taught by Roy Talahaftewa at Idyllwild Arts Academy. This is one of many techniques that she will explain to us today, all of which have very clear ties to a specific time and place in a tribe’s history, and one obvious throughline: keen improvisation and innovation.

Tufa, a soft stone found commonly throughout parts of Arizona and New Mexico, was first used by the Navajo tribe in the 1870s. The stone is cut in half to create the top and bottom of the to-be mold, then carved in the desired shape of jewelry. Melted metal is then poured into the mold, torched, and cooled into a truly unique piece of jewelry. Once that mold is used, it cannot be used again, making every item of Tufa jewelry one-of-one.

Taylor’s desire to highlight traditional Native-style jewelry has been a process, one that has developed in step with her own embodiment of her identity. “When I first started…There was that imposter syndrome of ‘I’m a city Indian. Maybe I’m not native enough to make native jewelry. Are people only going to want to see a certain kind of jewelry?” She explains, initially diverging from a traditional style in hopes of notbeing put in a box.

“Straying from that made me feel a little bit less authentic. Even though I was trying to find that authenticity.”

So, Taylor made her way back to what felt truly authentic to her, noting ample amounts of silver and turquoise. When asked about the catalyst for that change, she says it was simple: falling pregnant with her first daughter.

”You think about your legacy and impact.”

Clinton was running a food truck, Plato’s Provisions, during Taylor’s early days of managing Cheyenne Sky. They’ve owned two businesses before this one and their experience shows. I realize by listening to him speak about moving into their current building, that no matter how many times you start a business, the early days always have similar pain points. “It’s a little bit like, you know,  nervous anxiety and elation, though, because

you are the only one who’s going to do it for yourself.

You get these keys and you have a set amount of time before you need to start making money as a business, so you’ve got to find a pathway to do that without just completely stressing yourself out and overworking yourself.”

When the studio started doing better and better, he decided to make the jump and close the food truck business. He started helping out as needed in the studio but soon found himself interested in getting involved in the creation of the jewelry itself. “Getting to learn from an older Native artist and just getting exposed to the different forms of silversmithing that have been around through these native artists, that's what inspired me to do lapidary. That was a way I could help with the studio as well.”

His mom, who has been bouncing Josie on her lap chimes in, “Clinton never met him, but his great-grandfather was a lapidarist”. She notes being excited to pick out a new necklace at Christmastime. And Clinton remembers his inspiration going back even further, to rock collections as a child. This couple seems to have found an art that feels almost predetermined.

Clinton’s smoothed stone is taken back to Taylor at her workspace, where it is hammered and torched into a snug fit. After a quick sulfur bath to patina the silver, and a toothbrush scrub at the sink, the ring is ready to present. It’s beautiful and unique, with tiny hand-stamped bursts all around the band that, through my intent watching, I somehow missed until just then. Taylor holds the ring out to me and I put it on my pointer finger for the remainder of our interview.