Continuing a ‘way of life’
Jewelry-making family return to Winter Indian Market
For Kyle and Trent Lee-Anderson, the annual Santa Fe Indian Market is a regular part of life. Indian Market regulars were able to watch the twin boys grow up. With a well-known jewelry maker and silversmith as a father, the brothers never missed a year as kids, wandering the downtown streets while the family made sales.
Now, they say the market has become all business, full time. The 24-yearold, award-winning siblings have now been making traditional Navajo jewelry for half of their lives, and their abilities can surprise visitors.
“People are always shocked how young we are when we go to market and have a booth,” said Kyle, adding that he and his brother are usually the only twenty-something jewelry makers around.
“They (say) ‘are you the artist?’ We have the name tag on and everything, and they still don’t believe we’re the artists.”
But their age, they say, has garnered excitement from the rest of the Navajo jeweler/silversmith community, as a younger generation continues the traditional art form. Their father, Allison Lee, began teaching them when they were 12 years old and needed something to pass the time during summer breaks.
This weekend, Kyle and Trent will be showing at the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’
Winter Market — SWAIA’s off-season complement to its bigger and betterknown summer event.
The twins began winning SWAIA awards in the youth division, with Trent winning Best of Class in 2008 and 2010. Most recently, Trent received a first place award in 2016 for a squash blossom and diamond-shaped bead necklace.
Though they attend the market and sometimes create pieces together, the brothers have different creative interests. Kyle has mastered beadwork with both plain and fluted beads used for necklaces and earrings, while Trent is known for pieces like bolo ties, belt buckles and rings.
While in their Albuquerque home studio, which they share with their father and 27-year-old silversmith brother Wyatt Lee-Anderson, they showed off some pieces the duo made together, including a silver necklace lined with Kyle’s fluted beads and squash blossoms from Trent. A large turquoise stone hangs in the middle of the necklace and the piece is connected with a handmade clasp they learned to create from their father. They said squash blossom necklaces are among their bestsellers.
When envisioning a piece, Trent said he’ll often ask Kyle, whose work desk is connected to his, if he has a certain bead or other material handy and from there they will craft it together. “We try and help each other out,” said Kyle.
Art has now been a part of both sides of the family for several generations. Lee, a Gallup native, began creating jewelry in the ’70s after learning from his mother and uncle. The twins’ uncles, jewelers Ira and Gary Custer, are also longtime market vendors.
And Kyle and Trent said they hope to teach the craft to their future generations and keep the skill-set within a “small circle,” like their dad did.
When they were kids, Lee would teach his youngest sons after they wandered into his studio to watch him work.
“(They would come) into my shop and (start) banging on stuff,” said Lee, adding he would give them pieces of copper — a predecessor material for working up to silver — to keep them occupied. After a while, their skill at stamping the metal to impress designs evolved to where they could move on to the more expensive material. “After that, it just kind of took off,” said Lee.
Lee, who is not showing in the Winter Market, but hasn’t missed a summer show since 1988, said he has enjoyed watching his sons’ abilities blossom and how they create together.
“When I was their age, I wasn’t building stuff like they are right now,” he said.
As part of the industry’s small crowd of young people, Trent says what keeps him connected to keeping the tradition alive is the support he receives from the family.
But Kyle said that, for him, the craft goes beyond that. “It’s more of a way of life than a tradition,” he said.