“It comes from arid, dusty, stripped-down, skinned-earth places. It occurs almost exclusively in the geography of asceticism, in broken lands of bare rock and infrequent green. Set against the palette of desolation, a piece of turquoise is like a hole open to the sky.” (Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise, p.105.)

Turquoise: honored as the State Gemstone of Arizona, it often is spotted on bola ties, the official State Neckwear. Although it is identified with the southwestern United States, turquoise is ubiquitous to many of the world’s deserts. Unlike other gemstones, the stone is valued not for its hardness or translucence but for its color and the color’s effect on the person; historically, people of desert cultures around the world invested turquoise with similar properties to protect, heal and balance the body and soul. Consequently, the precious stone was carried on trade routes from Persian mines to India and Russia, and from sources in what is now Arizona and New Mexico to Aztec and Maya people of distant Mexico. In what is surely a match made in heaven, turquoise and silver are beautifully wedded in jewelry crafted by Navajo and Zuñi silversmiths. One cannot imagine a southwestern trading post or Indian art gallery without a display case of shimmering turquoise jewelry.

Turquoise as a color may be called aqua, cyan, blue or green. It exists as oxidized copper, deep-hued desert skies, and the lacey travertine pools of Havasu Falls deep in the Grand Canyon. Our exhibit, featuring fine examples of Native American turquoise jewelry and contemporary artworks in a variety of media, will explore aspects of the color and the stone to reveal its significance to the Southwest and to the region’s native cultures.