Makeing silver native american shadow box jewely

Looking for on makeing s/s native american shadow box
jewely

Not sure what native american shadow box jewelry is, and found a
site where a person is asking about the shadow boxes that might help
somewhat…

http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep7zjs

Barbara, on a sunny day on the Island and the temperature is 90
degrees F! How’s that for a Chilly Beach in Autumn~~~~~~~

I’m Native, did a lot of N.A. Markets, have never seen this or heard
of it. I’m curious as to what it looks like.

Sharon

Looking for on makeing s/s native american shadow
boxjewelry 

I didn’t see this until I saw the reply about picture frames… There
are always variations of anything, but you get your stone and make a
bezel for it. Get a piece of sheet metal of the appropriate size and
solder the bezel (probably) in the center of it. Then you get another
sheet of the shape you want in the end - round, oval, whatever. Dome
that up until it’s what you want, cut a hole in the top that exposes
your bezel however you want, and solder THAT down in the proper
place. Easy. I used to make shadow box rings that were more like
signets. I’d make a sheet in the shape of a whole ring - a wide
center part with legs tailing off either side, as long as the ring
blank I needed. I’d dome that up and make it into a ring, and then
solder another ring as a core on the inside, and of course the
bezel. Harder but not so hard…

I'm Native, did a lot of N.A. Markets, have never seen this or
heard of it. I'm curious as to what it looks like. 

The book, “Navajo Jewelry, a Legacy of Silver and Stone” by Lois
Essary Jacka and Jerry Jacka has an unassembled shadowbox belt buckle
by Harvey Begay on page 62. I know you have to find a copy of the
book to see that but it shows how to make shadowbox jewelry.

The best I could come up with quickly is the following. Shadowbox is
something like overlay, except with overlay the two layers are
surface-to-surface flush. With shadowbox, the top layer floats over
the bottom layer rather than rests on it. Take a look at the “Corn
with Coral” pendant, top right here:

“Corn with Coral” is overlay. Picture the top silver layer more
domed and the blackened bottom layer flatter, so there would be empty
space between the two layers (except at the circumference where they
are joined). That would be a shadowbox effect. The Harvey Begay piece
is more complex in its construction, but that is the general idea.

Neil A.

Thanks for description & info, Neil…I’ve got a lot of old Indian
jewelry books, will go back & look & maybe I can find Begay’s work on
this in internet. I used to do a lot of shows with Abram Begay,
haven’t seen him in several yrs…but all the shows are off…not
like it used to be for sure.

Sharon Perdasofpy