Carl and Irene Clark Volume 44.1
Opposite page: THE MOTHER EARTH - FATHER SKY PENDANT: A MEMORIAL TO THE LATE CARL CLARK, JR. of eighteen karat gold, turquoise, coral, mother of pearl, opal, jet; tufa-cast, 5.7 centimeter diameter, 2007. Obverse: Father Sky & Mother Earth. Reverse: Father Sky & Rainbow Man. Six months after their son had passed away, Dr. Gregory Schaaf contacted Carl and Irene to let them know he and Carl Jr. had been collaborating on a pendant. This pendant was in homage to the sand painting rug Hosteen Klah. The two parents searched Carl Jr.’s old work bench and found the piece. They then spent three years completing the pendant, to honor their son. Dr. Gregory and Angie Schaaf Collection. Photograph by Angie Schaaf.
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here is no word for art in the Diné language, says Carl Clark. There are words for pottery, for paintings, for jewelry, for all the objects that we consider the fruits of art, but none for the concept of art itself. How can there be, when one’s perspective sees no division, no defining line, between art and the world? The closest one can get in Diné to the idea of art is a beautiful term, which translates to “the beginning of reason”.
CARL AND IRENE CLARK. Photograph by Angie Schaaf.
“Walk in Beauty.” This Navajo blessing carries deep roots, which, like a plant in the high desert, hides the abundance of life out of sight of the casual observer. It’s there, even when we can’t see it. But to those who hold the knowledge, and understanding of nature, they don’t need to see it. They know it’s there. They possess the awareness of the extent of it. For those particularly attuned, they can feel it, surrounding them, wrapping them up in the comforting blanket of its presence.
It is this connection with the world, and with the sensitive minutiae of life, that Carl and Irene Clark bring to bear in their remarkable jewelry. Their current work is a magnificent sum of their past experiences, and long years of study and research. Employing some of the best micro-mosaic inlay, or more accurately, a form of intarsia that they developed, in the craft business, each piece presents thousands of individually cut and ground chips of semi-precious stones to the viewer. The effect of so many miniature stones, so closely laid together, titillates the eyes and generates a sense of wonder the closer one looks. Rather than being set with pitch or another type of adhesive, the Clarks shape each stone perfectly so that they fit together with barely a whisper of a gap between them.
Their journey to this level of skill has been a challenging one, as it is with so many artists. Carl taught himself how to make jewelry in 1973, with his first piece being constructed on pure impulse. He was the shop manager for a store that employed some twenty-odd silversmiths, who made work on site. One day, during the height of the sun at lunchtime, his curiosity, and his inner calling to create, pulled him to try his hand at making a pendant. Taking two turquoise stones, he fabricated the whole design in just half an hour of concentrated work. A client who was present on the shop floor saw him construct the newborn pendant, and offered to buy it. That moment burns bright in Carl’s memory. Out of his element, unsure of whether to accept the offer, he was saved by his boss’s wife, who had been nearby, calmly reading her magazine. Two simple words, “Sell it,” led to the passerby offering twenty dollars for the pendant. Again coming to his rescue, she told him to take the offer. Twenty dollars was five times his hourly rate, and a surge of emotion flooded through him as a hundred heady feelings filled him. Sometimes we have those moments, where what we knew and were certain of are all swept away. It can be a sensual thing, or a piece of knowledge that strikes true in a way we never knew before. In that moment, Carl could barely hear the reasons the boss’s wife was giving for why he should keep the twenty dollars. A new world had opened up before him.
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LARGE HINGE BRACELET (obverse and reverse) of silver, Turquoise Mountain, Kingman and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, coral, lapis lazuli, mother of pearl, and jet, 6.4 x 7.6 x 3.2 centimeters, 1990. The Clarks made this Hinge series bracelet throughout the 1990s. It has two half sections with a hinge at the bottom and fastens on top. This specific example has seven thousand micro-fine inlay stones, and took about a year to make. DRAGONFLY PENDANT of silver, turquoise, coral, lapis lazuli, sugilite, mother of pearl, and jet, 6.0 × 7.0 centimeters, late 1990s, early 2000s. Irene designed and silversmithed the pendant, while Carl Jr. did the inlay. The Clarks made a series of dragonfly necklaces through the 1990s and 2000s. MOON WITH HORNS IN NIGHT SKY RING of silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise, red and pink coral, red jasper, mother of pearl, and jet, 3.8 x 5.1 x 2.5 centimeters, 2010. Irene designed and silversmithed the ring, while both Clarks collaborated on the inlay. Photographs by Bill and Michael Faust.
Carl Clark is a member of the Manygoat Clan, from Redhouse, while Irene is of the Edgewater Clan. Navajo family affiliation is matrilineal, with four clans being associated with that person’s heritage; mother, father, maternal grandfather, and paternal grandfather. The phrase “born for” refers to the father’s clan, which for Carl is Bitter Water, and for Irene is the Towering People. Careful stewardship of these family trees trace back one’s history across twelve hundred years. While art and the making of objects suffuses every aspect of Navajo culture, Carl did not have a parent who taught him his craft. After that heady first experience, he continued to learn on his own, through trial and error, with a dedication that derived itself from an insatiable passion for making jewelry. In 1974 he taught Irene how to metalsmith, and would go on to teach their late son, Carl Jr., in that same practice. While Carl did not have immediate family to teach him jewelrymaking, he can trace his background to a great uncle, the famous Peshlakai Atsidi, which means White Metal Maker in Diné. Atsidi was of Wupatki, which is known to tourists and travelers for its ancient Hohokam ruins. He was one of the first silversmiths of the Western Navajo Nation, working in the 1970s.
MAN’S BRACELET of silver, Blue Ridge, Kingman and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, coral, lapis lazuli, sugilite, mother of pearl, and jet; stamped, 5.1 × 7.6 × 2.9 centimeters, 2023. At the base of the bracelet is the Rainbow Man figure. He is used in Navajo sand paintings as a symbol of protection, for he guards the South, the North and the West. The eight figures in the middle are Blue Corn Yei spirits. These Yei are used for healing. Photograph by Bill and Michael Faust.
SOAP STONE BRACELET by Tom (Monk) Baldwin Jr. of variscite, Sleeping Beauty turquoise, sugilite, silver, and opal stones, 15.2 x 1.9 centimeters. COCKTAIL RING of Kingman, Blue Gem and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, jet, coral, lapis lazuli, sugilite, and mother of pearl, 1.8 centimeter diameter, 1990-2010. Tom Baldwin Jr. is Irene’s brother, and his family moved with the Clarks to Phoenix from Winslow. Carl taught Tom and Irene how to make jewelry in 1974. This photograph was taken by Robert on an early visit to a Sedona collector many years ago. Photograph by Robert K. Liu.
Carl’s mother was a nurse assistant, working for low wages at the Indian Hospital in Winslow, Arizona, where the train that runs between Los Angeles and Chicago makes its stop at the lonely station there. They lived in the camp that resided near the hospital. It was a simple life without many comforts, always crowded with around five of his brothers in a small two-room home. But with life so stripped down to the essentials, imagination had fertile earth in which to blossom. Carl and his brother, Donn, would find ways to turn the simplest of household implements and detritus into the wildest of toys. “My younger brother, Donn Clark and I would play with our shoes as toy cars and clothes pins for people that drove our cars,” Carl remembers with fondness. “We put cloth capes for super heroes and mop threads to make Tarzan hair. We played beside my story teller mom as she weaved her rugs. We made dirt roads for our cars, used wood blocks or bricks for homes. We used our two pointed fingers for our guns and a stick for our rifle or bow and arrow. We made our sling shots.”
This connectedness with objects, an understanding that even what we may consider mundane bears its own special potential, gave Carl an intimacy with the world, which was further enriched by the natural beauty around him. Irene also flourished in the homeland of her family, Birdsprings. “In the Southwest, the land is vast and the sky is the limit,” Carl explains. “We are rooted in the balance of harmony with Mother Earth.”
BRACELET of Carico Lake, Cripple Creek, Manassa and a touch of Royston turquoise, lapis, mother of pearl shell and jet, early 1980s. This bracelet has roughly 7,000 inlaid pieces of stone. Photograph by Bill and Michael Faust.
On the subject of stories, Carl’s mom would retell their family’s history, ancient and stretching back for hundreds of years. We often forget that stories, in all their flawed glory, are the oldest way to pass on memories from one generation to the next. For certain families, like the Clarks, a robust storytelling tradition contains more seeds of truth than most. As his mother tugged the shuttle through the warp of her yarn, she would remember great grandpa Chisii Nez, born in 1834 and living to the ripe old age of ninety, his life spanning a whole century. Great uncles, and ancestors stretching back even further than that were passed on to Carl and his brothers, instilling the knowledge of their ancient family to those residing in the present. From her, he learned that their family made turquoise bead necklaces and earrings hundreds of years ago. They were also runners, which was how valuable trade items crossed hundreds and even thousands of miles in those days. There are tales of Mexica emperors who established a system of runners who brought such extravagant delights as ice and fresh fish across vast distances. Every several miles was an outpost with a fresh runner, who would carry the precious item on the next leg of its journey.
The Clark’s ancestors, rather than serving the emperor of the Mexica, traveled to the Colorado River, which served as a hub for trading. From there, they would go further afield, to the Hohokam and the Gulf Coast for parrot feathers; to the West Coast for shell; and to Nevada for turquoise. Their items of currency for these trades were the turquoise jewelry that they had made. Sometimes there was no need to journey so far. When a ceremonial dance was held, all who gathered were eager to see what those in attendance had brought, to barter and sell.
Coming back to the present, or at least the not-so-distant past, she shared how their great uncle Atsidi made deer antler bracelets. He boiled the antler to soften it, then bent it, so it would fit comfortably around one’s wrist. At the base of the antler, where it had once connected to the deer’s skull, he carved out a hole on the inside, where he set a small piece of turquoise using tree pitch. This technique has been in use by Native Americans since 1,100 to 1,400 A.D.
Making, then, has resided in the blood of Carl’s family for generations, as it has for so many Native people. It is in this way that the Clarks have forged a new tradition for their family, a rebirth that manifests itself in their unique voice. Because they taught themselves, they were free to create in a way that those who are following in the steps of their parents often find themselves unable to. Both Carl and Irene have an insatiable curiosity and a deep love for learning, and so rather than having a person teaching them a specific technique, they would go to libraries and bury themselves in books. But before then, Carl and Irene learned on the job. They worked at manufacturing companies so they could cut down the time it took to make a piece, sharpening their abilities through assembly line production. At the time, Carl’s work resembled sandcast silver, even though it was entirely fabricated from silver sheet. Since his knowledge came through experimentation and practice, he didn’t have the vocabulary to know that what he was doing had been discovered and taught by metalsmiths for centuries. Fusing, reticulation, both of these were already in his repertoire.
RAINBOW MAN BRACELET by Carl, Irene and Carl Jr. Clark of turquoise, pink and red coral, purple sugilite, lapis lazuli, tufa-cast silver, and jet, 7.6 x 3.2 x 5.1 centimeters, 1995-1996. This collaborative project by the Clarks and their late son involved Carl designing and tufa-casting the silver bracelet, the three of them preparing the stones for inlay, and Carl Jr. inlaying the stones. His father says, “Carl Jr. was a lapidary perfectionist that I cannot accomplish with my best effort.” Photograph by Bill and Michael Faust.
“Sometimes, I’m slicing and grinding, for hours on in, sometimes for days or weeks. I have a lot of time to think of how to make pieces of jewelry that I haven’t made yet. Another time is when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. I seem to be more revived, uninterrupted and can think better then. These are times I create jewelry designs and make memories.”
The next stage of their evolution as jewelers came through visitations to the Phoenix Library, which was as beloved as a playground to the young couple. Within those shelves, stacked high with books, was the wisdom of the whole world. With the appreciation of those who have come from very little, the Clarks dove into history and jewelry books, and from every culture and people that they read about, they learned. The buried treasures of ancient Egypt, with the richness of the many cultures that lived in the Levant, taught them about chasing, planishing, repoussé, and doing insets of inlaid stone. Etruscan jewelry and its reappearance through archaeology in the nineteenth century fascinated them. Studying jewelry from East and Southeast Asia connected them to an aesthetic fraternity that spanned oceans and continents, as those peoples similarly valued objects and materials such as coins, coral and beads. They learned about mokume-gane from the Japanese, and Damascus steel from India, Persia and Sri Lanka. Irogane, black and white shibuichi, niello, urushi (lacquerwork), cloisonné, an endless procession of the ingenuity and skill of artisans of the past came with each turn of the page.
It was this willingness to use and openness to other sources of knowledge that taught them both gratitude and comprehension, which enhanced their own work and led to its steady progression. While his earliest jewelry began in the classic Navajo style, Carl rapidly began to incorporate other techniques. He brought in Hopi overlay, and added Zuni-style inlay. This led to what he called his “Three Nations” jewelry, which would form the base of their distinctive style.
WUPATKI EAGLE BOLO TIE of silver, Turquoise Mountain, Kingman and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, coral, lapis lazuli, and mother of pearl, 5.1 x 7.6 centimeters, 2010. The design comes from a Wupatki Hopi legend of “Boy Changing to Eagle.” The feathers and body have the Milky Way constellation, as well as the Moon. Photograph by Bill and Michael Faust.
In 1975, Carl and Irene were still living in Winslow, Arizona. They had been refining their inlay technique, incorporating lessons from the books they had studied with such fascination. One day, Carl felt called upon to create an inlaid box. It was made of silver, with a giant piece of Turquoise Mountain turquoise carefully set into its cover. Coming in at 2,700 carats, the stone resembled a vast cloud. On top of the stone, he inlaid a Zuni thunder god, and on its sides, cloud motifs with lightning streaking down. To fully finish the piece, he planished the silver, taking inspiration from the work of those ancient Egyptian artisans that he’d seen in the library. “This was the first financial problem I would face in the passion of jewelry making,” Carl remarks matter-of-factly. “It took so extremely long to make thisbox that sometimes it seemed that I was going backwards in time than forward. The box was valued at $15,000. Somehow I didn’t care if I lost $35,000 to $50,000 on the box. I was just happy I made it.”
The first example of micro-fine inlay that Carl created was a silver ring. “I used a large manufactured ring blank. The top diagonal half of inlay, I inlaid a hogan with smoke coming out of the stove pipe. And a cloud in the sky,” he remembers. “The bottom half, I made wedges that seem to radiate out like perspective rays. The silver bottom of the ring blank, I filed it to look like a 3-dimensional whirlwind. Then, silversmiths were making rings for $8 to $12 per ring, I sold mine for $75. Little did I know it’s worth $4,000 today.”
It took two years for Carl to refine his micromosaic inlay technique, and five more to find a fresh source of inspiration in the works of Fortunato Pio Castellani, the 19th century Italian jewelry master, and founder of the Castellani jewelry company. Castellani was enthralled by Etruscan jewelry, which was making a resurgence at that time. He practiced micromosaics utilizing glass rods, drawn out until they were very thin, then sliced into small rounds that were inlaid into gold frames. A miniature painting was placed at the bottom of the bezel to provide a guide as he placed each slice of glass. “Its individual glass pieces are sometimes twice as fine as our stone work,” Carl muses with deep appreciation. “A large piece of jewelry would probably take about three weeks to make.”
Castellani’s incredibly fine technique pushed the Clarks to elevate their own work further. Many of their larger pieces, bracelets, belt buckles, and bolo ties, are inlaid with thousands of minute pieces of precious stones. Each is first cut, then ground by hand. In the old days, the Clarks would begin with a design illustration, planned out carefully on a draft grid. They would go over the layout, choosing what stones would be used where, and then buy the materials. As their experience and skills have matured over time, they now on occasion skip that step, instead figuring out the design on the fly.
Their process would take another leap forward in 1986, when Carl developed his color blend and curvature techniques. There were impetuses besides the creative drive behind these innovations, as the Clarks were trying to keep one step ahead of copycats and imitators. This solution was time-consuming and material intensive, as it required twice the amount of stone ground away as their previous micro-fine inlay work. In 1995, Carl Jr. successfully trademarked their design, protecting his parents from having their unique work copied abroad.
3 DIMENSIONAL FLOWER RING of silver, mother of pearl, lapis lazuli, red and pink coral, red jasper, and red spiny oyster shell, 2.5 x 3.2 x 3.2 centimeters, 2023. Photograph by Bill and Michael Faust.
Carl and Irene have never stopped growing, and their newest work, having only taken shape in the last few years, has born spectacular fruit. This new three-dimensional inlay technique is sculptural and sensual, incorporating their color blend inlay to yield bold gradiated hues from deep blue to red and finally, the opalescent white of mother of pearl. So far they have completed a bracelet and ring in this series, with a necklace and set of earrings still to be made. The bracelet took two and a half years to make. Surprisingly, Carl mentioned that part of the inspiration for this collection was a brooch I had worn to the Heard Museum Indian Fair & Market, in the years before the pandemic. This brooch, which featured an enameled butterfly and flower, was made by Taiwanese artist Hsiang-Ting Yen, a SCAD graduate who now lives in the United States as a U.S. citizen. Yen rendered it in the style of Chinese paintings, and it was striking enough to catch Carl’s eye, back in 2018. This was the last trip that our family took together to the Heard Fair.
That Carl’s imagination was lit by Yen’s piece is no surprise. He and Irene have demonstrated a lifelong drive towards growth and excellence, drawing strength and confidence from their spiritual connection to jewelry artisans across time and space. Their love and respect for other human beings, who have worked hard to forge items of beauty, makes them a part of a global family of creators. As they draw upon the spiritual imagery of their people, they honor the realm of the invisible that surrounds us, touches us, gives us power and life.
All of this has not come easily, and Carl ruefully acknowledges that many times, the financial aspects of their craft do not figure into the making of a piece. It is the inner pull, that insatiable desire to push one’s own boundaries and limits, and to shape the materials of our earth into an object that astounds and mystifies the viewer, that the Clarks live for. For making a piece of craft, with thought, care and attention to detail, is very similar to giving birth, although on such a different level and scale. But there is one similarity between a newborn and a freshly created piece of jewelry. They both add to the world, and make it more beautiful.
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Patrick R. Benesh-Liu is Coeditor of Ornament and a lifelong participant in his parents’ creative journey. From growing up in the Ornament office on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles to his first administrative work in the Vista, California building during high school, Benesh-Liu has had the fortune of being immersed in craft, culture and wearable art. What he enjoys most about working for the magazine are the people, past and present, who he is able to connect with, whether by writing their stories, or through the conversations he has with them. In this issue he feels privileged to convey the life and work of Carl and Irene Clark (Navajo), whose jewelry he has admired for many years. He also covers “MOVE: The Modern Cut of Geoffrey Beene,” an ongoing exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum. Having been passed down one of his grandfather’s old black dress shirts, designed by Geoffrey Beene, he revels in this personal relationship.
