Thursday 29 September 2016

Suzanne Venker is the voice of reason about modern man woman relationships

Suzanne Venker is a welcome voice of reasoned
argument in the gender situation, nay crisis of today

In 1976 the equality act came into being in the United Kingdom. Designed to end discrimination between men and women, it solved some problems and created a minefield of litigation cases and situations where women wanted to act like men.

The 'stay at home wife' situation became negated,
largely through high housing costs meaning both partners had to work

Gone or going was the notion of the stay at home wife. The 70's had brought in a burn the bra militancy in which women demanded 'rights.' In some respects, they were needing the balance redressed, but as we have seen things have swung too far the other way.

Feminism at its worst

The 1980's brought us a decade of the 'young professional woman.' A decade where women came to the fore in business and led business.

Power dressing with big shoulder pads and big balls attitudes, big legal cases of discrimination and the 'have it all' new generation of women, juggling childcare, a high profile job and a marriage were the new normal.

The women were largely being sold a lie. The glossy magazines relentlessly pumped out issue after issue of girl power edicts, but the reality was not an orgasm every time you had sex, it was a general decline into Wine, for the women who wanted it all but the reality was that they were just worn out by trying to juggle too many things.

Suzanne Venker can see that it is not possible to have it all in the way it was being 'sold' to women. She is taking a more realistic and sensible approach and has a welcome input and outlook. She is saying the things that women need to listen to.

The future of humanity is about working together to reduce our consumer addictions, to care more for people and if we don't mend the man woman relationship situation, we are likely to expire due to lack of replacements.

The American Indian people had a great approach to the man woman relationship, they found boundaries and regarded the Earth as a mother, nurturing and creating life and the sky as the father.
Russell Means, American Indian activist and speaker of much sense

The Indian peoples built a great nurture based clan system that looked after young and old and those in need. The women were accorded respect and the man and woman were equal parts, like the bow and arrow, one is not much use without the other.



The late Indian activist Russell Means said of feminism, why was it necessary for Women to want to be like men? Of course the Chief Sitting Bull had drawn an obvious conclusion in his quote above many years before. Eagles do not have to be Crows.

One does not want to go back to a situation where women were treated as second class citizens, you only have to look at the Middle East to see that situation is alive and well there, sadly.

That is where the hard ball feminazis should be directing their efforts to helping their sisters there, not picking on easy targets in the West.

You only have to look at the dating site profiles to see why some women are 'Seeking Mr Darcy,' no, you're just seeking a fantasy, lady. Men are turned off by some women who think they are able 'to get' by hard bargaining.

That's why many men seek women to date from other countries, places where the rules are different. Now women are wondering why they don't get asked on dates or asked out.

The reality is most men don't want what they're selling. They think they can still have it all, but the reality is men do not want a finger wagging hardballer. You don't get that from a Thai bride.

Now the hardballers are left retreating to 'girls nights out' clasping at their white wine in glasses and going home alone. Some years ago, I started receiving a round Robin email from a person that worked with my mother as my mother didn't have email or use a computer.

What I got on a weekly basis was a man hating set of 'jokes' (I call them that with some reservation), in the end I got so fed up with this childish situation, I took issue with the sender. I got really annoyed with one of the missives and said that they ought to grow up and that the man woman problems were being created by this sort of thinking, strangely I never got any more of these emails.

If women get on through their own merits, fine, I have no problem with that. If they work for success and get it, fine. I only have issue with the ones that are power crazy zealots.

Women are being bombarded with a constant 'look good, feel good' barrage of adverts, they fail to look at what they have and enjoy it, they are striving to achieve what is most cases a 'what they don't have ' or being sold to as 'what they need' must haves that is the problem.

Men are now confused as to what these women want, they see a 'hard shell' that seems to be self sufficient and can get by without their help, even denying help. What do they do?

The attitude of some women towards men and their interests is quite sad. If a man likes his cars, sport or hobby, as long as it is not harmful and he enjoys it, so what? As long as the woman in his life is respected, loved and cared for what is the problem? The man it seems.

The problem is that the feminists see themselves as victims of nature and victims of nurture. In the American Indian society women nurture and have a very respected role, in western society, women are told to have it all and it they can't, they employ people to  'do' for them, a housekeeper, child minder, dog walker etc, etc. so they can.

That is 'having it all' that is not having a man and woman rubber band relationship of give and take, sharing. More an 'I am a woman, I am in charge, I can do all this.'

You can only spin so many plates, before they start to crash to the ground.

Keep talking Suzanne, we need a voice of reason to help right things.

Wednesday 28 September 2016

Hey VOX we need a new VOX Valvetronix VT amplifier - with more on-board patch storage capacity!

The Classic VOX AC15, Watkins tape echo & Stratocaster

So, we all may know VOX from the heady days of the 1960's when the iconic VOX AC30 amplifier seemed to be the must have amplifier for any player into the music of the time and any player wanted to be Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Keith Richards or George Harrison, not to forget the Monkees to come with their Vox stacks.

Yet from the success of that iconic amplifier range, a range of guitars and effects, the VOX company were victims of fashion and by the late 60's the Marshall stack was the new must have. And VOX was struggling.

The AC30 was the main amplifier of the early 1960's

Sadly, VOX went solid state at the end of the 1960's and the company was sold on and moved away from the AC30 in time to wonders such as the VOX Venue, adequate but a world away from the 30. I had a 1964 VOX AC4 in the 80's and that was everything my Venue wasn't. My first Venue caught fire and the second one was pretty awful.

Fast forward to the Korg ownership and we were blessed with the AC30 reissue in the 1990's. Yes the 6 input leviathan was back. Twin speakers and all. Still as weighty.

The Tonelab SE and the Pathfinder 15R amplifier
the Pathfinder is a 'new' take on the AC4, but solid state and sounds good

But new was to come in the form of the VOX Valvetronix series. Here, an amplifier modelling brain was built into an amplifier, styled on the old AC30 and the TV Cabinet 1959 AC15 size amplifier, the VOX AD120 and VOX AD60 amplifiers.

Also built as a studio module and as the SE stage version floorboard with expression and volume pedals, the VOX Valvetronix delivered very realistic amplifier sounds with the capacity to store 96 user editable patches on the SE and Studio version.

The VOX AD60 Valvetronix, practical and portable

The building of the Valvetronix brain into the AD series amplifiers was a master stroke. The single speaker AD60  with 32 on board user editable patches supplies plenty of scope from early 50's rockabilly to present day sounds, allied to a VC12 footboard which can store its own patches to upload and can be used to select patches and guitar volume.

The brains of the beast - old school VOX chicken head knobs

The partner to the 60 was the 120, a twin speaker amplifier which is lighter than the old AC30, but still in the same retro style, with the stylish Blue cloth speaker cover which I like. Also an on-board tuner is so handy and can be engaged in silent mode for onstage use. This amplifier has everything, so what could be done next? Blow it.

The VOX AD120 - best of old school looks, best of modern modelling

So the AD series amplifiers were king of the hill in the early 2000's and we then saw a new version come in, the VT series. Although styled on the lines of the AD's with traditional styling, the lack of on-board patch storage reduced to 8 was abysmal.
 
The VOX VT30 part of the VT Series

The VT dropped the on-board tuner function, perhaps the AD had been expensive to make and at over £700 for the 120, they were pricy but they had so much functionality.

The VT by a contrast was basic and poorly appointed. The updated range of VT+ amplifiers reinstated the tuner but the same few patches storage, why? Memory is cheap these days!

I contacted VOX and asked why they had gone backwards, essentially they needed an AD with more patch memory. It was hinted that a new version would come out, but to be honest they need that AD or Tonelab capacity of storage.

The VOX AC30 continues to be popular some nearly 60 years after it first made the stage, today there are Valve Reactor versions which are less costly and have the same look, but no patch storage. You have to bring your own pedal board to the party here.

So the challenge to VOX  is, go and give us a new AD series with more patches on-board and that nice beefy foot controller!

The New VT40X does have an on-board USB socket for modelling, perhaps that is the way forward or to produce a Donkey controller box to set up patches that can be disconnected for playing, but with on-board patch storage in the amplifier. Oh and whilst there, put a bigger LCD like on the Tonelab so we can name patches and see the names.

Then you'd have another market leader. Go to it.


Monday 26 September 2016

A flag for the American Indian people - the Thunderbird Nation flag

The late Russell Means, Indian activist

I came across this picture of Russell Means today and it fitted with something I had an idea for recently. That being a flag for the American Indians, their own.

Russell is a man I admire, he was looking to make change, change for all. His wisdom was another thing that I liked. He spoke a lot of sense.

My design was what I call the 'Thunderbird nation flag.'

I realised that those Indian people who crafted items had no 'brand' to say this is a genuine item made by a person with Indian heritage. So I designed this to perhaps be adopted as a recognised mark.

I love things that are made by people with that 'real' heritage going back generations and not something made half way across the world that is not authentic.

I also thought perhaps it was time that the Indian people had their own identifying flag, something that could combine elements of their heritage, be simple, recognisable and theirs.

So, I put together some ideas. I thought that a simple symbol would be best and the Thunderbird was what I thought worked best, initially using the 3 US flag colours in the design and then I adapted the design to use the Medicine Wheel colours.

Here are my ideas.

The basic, solid, Thunderbird symbol flag

The stars added version, 50 stars

The Medicine Wheel colours version


So that was my idea and I hope it is liked.

In my view as a non-Indian, I think that something like this reinforces the heritage of a great people that need greater recognition for their culture and heritage.




Friday 23 September 2016

Brian Jones - the visionary founder of the Rolling Stones - will we see his like again?

Brian Jones at left with Gretsch 6118 guitar, Rolling Stones 1964

Its a sad thing to reflect on, but will we see the like of ground breaking bands from the 1960's who are now all but retired from the scene?

In those days, these musicians did an apprenticeship of sorts, playing along to records, learning new material and playing techniques. The post war late 1950's had seen American Rock n Roll come in and the British youth wanted a piece of that.

The half-arsed musical art form of skiffle, a sort of acceptable cod attempt at trad American music, was acceptable to a largely square older generation. The young Elvis, gyrating movements et al, were not, nor were leather jacketed creatures aping Gene Vincent.

To the old guard, they were a temptation, a route to trouble. The scenario would repeat itself 20 years later when Punk Rock erupted.

Turn on the radio these days and you get a studio perfect manufactured pop act, the days of the group that evolved and morphed into a credible musical ensemble, often via the pub circuit are pretty much over.

YouTube and the Internet have killed it off with wall to wall mediocrity. In the old days, a band played in a pub, if they chose the right pub where the record company scouts, the A&R men trawled, they might get somewhere, get signed or get good advice.

From that process, the most marketable would get a studio tryout and perhaps a recording contract. Now, it is likely  that a viral youtube performance gets them a deal. The problem often comes with the 'difficult' second album, 'difficult' because the act has little talent.

Once the crowd stops screaming and the mayhem subsides, the reality is that even autotune vocals can't hide the one dimensionality. And they're gone in moments.

Television shows finding 'new talent' expose it and a year or so later, the new talent is gone, never to be heard of again.

Back to the early 60's and people like Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton for example were all trawling the obscure records bins for obscure records, in their case, real old down home American blues, recorded by the original artists.

It is ironic that the 'British Invasion' of the USA in the early 1960's actually raised awareness of the largely 'forgotten' black music performers of the Blues genre.

Without the British Invasion, who would have created the Monkees? A sort of Americanised version of the Dave Clark 5 or the Beatles but with a television scripted kids TV series?

But moving on from the Blues, the Rolling Stones explored multi-instrumentalism. Brian Jones was at the vanguard of this evolution, introducing Harpsicord, Sitar, Recorder and Marimba into the music.

One wonders what he could have gone onto achieve had not drugs and an early death ended the promise of his abilities?

Having Mick Jagger freed up to be a main vocalist gave the band a freedom that the others in the music scene, bar Cliff Richard could not enjoy, his Shadows as backing band and band in their own right gave Cliff the option of backing music.

The arrangements of the early pop even to the 1980's was well thought out, nowadays it is mostly musical wallpaper, delivering a sausage factory lyric that the performer never had a hand on nor did their band mates, who may not even be playing on the record.

Today is all about image. The music is not the most important thing, money is the driver, but with the traditional avenues of music play feeling the demand of demand media, what you want, when you want it, then we may slowly drown in manufactured, musical mediocrity. Sadly.

Even the pubs with music licences are dwindling, the pub clientele has changed and a modern media rich world with content vies for our attention.

At least we have through the internet, the videos of the old bands, a reminder of how it was in the heady days of the 60's.

Saturday 17 September 2016

Electric cars - you're going about it the wrong way...

Small, electric car by Renault

So, you might think an electric car is 'greener' but is it and are the main builders going about building the electric cars the right way?

Firstly, unless you're going to harvest the sun power for later use in a non-hazardous storage system, then the 'green' argument for powering a car is fatuous. That's because your juice is going to come from either burning fossil fuel or from nuclear. Oh, and the battery is its own little eco hazard area where it's made. But there is hope...

Its the way manufacturers go about the design that may be in need of change. Like the forklift and the milk float, they tend to harness the linking of heavy batteries to get the amps for motive power. Which means you end up dragging a ton of lead about which gets more of a problem the more your battery potential energy is used up. 

Maybe they're missing a trick. They should use a small battery to drive a small rotor over a stator coil and get high amp but low voltage power to drive something else and step up to real cooking volts. Just like and ATV stator does.

With high capacity capacitors and solar panels, you could charge up an underfloor power cell during the day and start your drive on free energy. Then, with rotor units in the wheels, you can start to generate more power as you drive, so that hopefully at 30mph you could be making your own volts in excess of what you need to get forward motion. 4 wheels, 4 rotors, no real drag, free power.

I've seen how an ATV stator can kick out over a hundred volts at idle, so scale it and drop all the heavy batteries with their eco disaster problems. Less weight to move and less weight to drag the thing down.

Many electric cars are made just far too heavy, they are over engineered to accommodate heavy assemblies. So lighten it all by using aluminium, more strength for less weight.

Think different, think light, think power and rectification of power.

Look at trains, they are diesel powering generators to provide the power, not direct drive to the wheels.

Meeting Human Aliens - Real Close Encounters of the Third kind

Human clones have been among us for many years

It has been the staple of many science fiction works over the years that non-humans in human form can walk amongst us often unnoticed. Truth or fiction? Here's my experiences.


Real human or not?
This lady has much larger eyes than normally found in our species

So lets start with our picture above. Many reports of human encounters with off-planet but human looking life forms often report that the creatures are human looking, Scandinavian or Nordic looking, blue eyes and blond hair, around 5feet 8 to over 6 feet, slim, some have slightly larger eyes and 'sharper' defined features than most humans.

Our lady above would fit the classic 'Nordic' reported figure. This picture has appeared in a number of videos and on websites and there is no confirmation of her status or identity.

So what have I encountered?

I have encountered a couple of Nordic types, there are classic giveaway signs, usually they just look too good, too perfect.

Often the hair looks too uniform, almost artificial. The eyes are very vivid and attract you to them. The colour is vivid and seem to have infinite depth. The skin is often flawless. The woman I saw just looked too good to be true. She was not outstandingly attractive, she was attractive but did not stand out overtly in a 'look at me' way.

This lady served me in a bank where I was paying in a cheque, now here's the weird thing. Some years before I had looked into getting a credit card but was not successful, anyway this day, the lady asked me as I hadn't got a card would I consider one, I said I thought it was useful and in a few minutes I had filled out a few basic details on a form.

I wasn't that hopeful about getting a card and in truth I didn't really need it, but a few days later one arrived through the post. It all seemed too easy. I picked up a feeling in the bank that made me think that the person I was dealing with looked too good and I thought about this for sometime afterwards. It is said that these hybrids are psychic and can pick up things you are thinking. I can see her face now, she just looked 'too good', if you know what I mean.

Second one more recently was someone collecting waste oil products. He was a male about my height and had perfect skin, the 'right' hair and vivid blue eyes. I got the feeling he was 'reading me' as I have psychic abilities.

I didn't feel uneasy, perhaps they are part of a greater monitoring plan and looking to identify people for some future plan. I guess we must give off some psychic 'key code' like a frame number that they have in their system? Like they know who to look for, maybe pick up the psychic signals that people like me have the ability? Perhaps they detect the psychics and sometimes avoid them, but sometimes may seek to identify them.

These were two Nordic types, Bridget Neilson has talked about Hybrids and Insectoids in true form in some of her videos, here are some instances of a couple of hybrid Insectoids I encountered in the last 6 months.

Most recently I have had two 'Insectoid' hybrid encounters. So how do you tell these? In both cases and this is spooky, they almost looked identical humans, the first was older by about 10-12 years I would say but here's the comparative list:

Both were:

Women, the second one aged 40's, the first one around 60 but early decade and did not look her age, both wore red dresses, were incredibly slim, were attractive and looked younger than their apparent years, had short dark hair, slight frames and were slim with no fat on, nice personality, friendly, welcoming dark eyes (brown), seemed interested in me professionally and not just superficially. Neither wore a watch or rings. Skin was very good and showed no age signs.

Encounter one was in a music venue I was playing at in April. This hybrid was with a Nordic looking lady a bit older but not a hybrid, or a Nordic in ET terms. My mother had come to see the group I was in playing at the venue and these two had joined her at a table.

I sat down during the interval and the hybrid one I felt was interested in me, was talking a lot and I had a feeling of some connection as if there was an invisible bridge between us. It sounds strange but sometimes you meet people you instantly connect with. Others can be just bland. The Nordic didn't speak much.

This hybrid lady seemed very chatty and I stayed there for about ten minutes until I was called back on stage. By the time I had finished playing, the pair had left and I did not see them again.

Encounter two was at a recruitment agency.

I had been for a job interview and in the meantime waiting for news on this, had been asked to go and see an agency I had applied for a job with. Just in case the job fell through I thought I'd go and see them.

The lady I met there was an almost carbon copy of the first hybrid as above. She was taller, the first was just over 5 foot, this one was about 5 foot 9. My immediate thought on seeing this one was 'Insectoid' that just came into my head from nowhere.

I had the meeting with this lady and it was all fine, the thing about both these encounters was that on both occasions, the entities seemed switched on, attentive, not 'tired' or indifferent. They both had very slight build frames, insect like you might say.

I have this ability to pick up the vibe in the air and often can see a person and know I won't like them or get on with them, I am almost never wrong. These did not give off a negative vibe. Quite the opposite.

Meanwhile, I recall another Insectoid build female I met that was right in the mould with the other two, it was in 2015 and I had been asked to play at a wedding and the bride was pretty much a carbon copy of the second recent insectoid hybrid at the agency.

In a video interview with the American author and ET experiencer Barbara Lamb, she spoke of her encounters with Insectoid creatures, but they were in their 'true' insect like form and not in a 'human' looking version. They were she reported friendly and highly intelligent.

Obviously a human looking version would not arouse suspicion down here, but Barbara said that the beings she encountered were friendly and highly intelligent. The same impression I got from both my encounters in this section.

One other off-Earth being encounter was from a distance some years ago. I was on my mountain bike and taking in the view from an old Bronze age hill fort mound when I noticed three figures in fluorescent green next to an electricity pylon, this did not seem out of the ordinary as I thought they could be line engineers doing inspection or repair work.

I noted for some reason, their height against the pylon structure, looked away and in a few seconds looked back and they had gone. I stayed watching the location and a few minutes later a woman on a horse rode by, I noted her head height and thought I had made an error, those figures were according to my estimate 8 feet tall. Surely I was wrong. No, I wasn't it would turn out.

Some weeks later, I found a book on Russian UFO sightings by Philip Mantle and in it was a sighting of 3 green glowing human shaped entities in a park in a place called Voronezh. They were reported as 8 feet tall. Perhaps from the same origins?

A patch I had in around 1972 when I saw a similar figure in some woods

But we go much further back in time to my first sighting which was around 1972. I was with my grandparents walking through some woods and I had two strange sightings in this same location.

The first one was a Wolf. Now these have been extinct in the wild where this happened, for hundreds of years. It was walking away from me and went into some undergrowth, it was not an Alsation dog of that I am sure.

(Around this time, there were people who were permitted to own wild animals without a licence, this changed in 1976 under the Wild Animals act. This sighting predated that by 4 years. Some animals had escaped before that time into the wild and were often unreported as they did not carry ID or microchips back then and people probably didn't want the problem if they had attacked something and the matter was reported to the Police.)

The second sighting in this location was a human type figure, seen only from the back. It was wearing a brown suit (like in the above picture on the patch) that is called in the US Army Air Forces equipment book by Sweeting, a 'Tomato worm' suit because the segments look like a Tomato Worm caterpillar. Another equivalent of this is the 'Bibendum' figure used to advertise Michelin tyres you may be more familiar with.

The suit looked like light brown canvas covered innertubes and the figure was seen as it walked into some foliage and out of view, from about 30 feet away from the back only. It had a matching colour helmet on. Both were a flat and non-reflective type of material. To me it looked like flat canvas material. There were no clothing designs like that in fashion at the time.

I did not mention the figure to my grandparents, but I did mention the Wolf, although I was told it must have been a dog as Wolves were not in the countryside then. I know that was no dog. So I kept quiet about the figure I had seen in case that was rubbished too.

About 6 years later, I had my first and most amazing daylight UFO sighting, about 6 miles from that wooded location. Like all these encounters listed here, I can see all of them as clear as day if I think back to them.


Craft near identical to the one I saw, this rendering from a 1950's USAF Airman's sighting



The nuts and bolts of this story is we are not alone in my opinion. Check out a book called Encounters with Star People by an American Indian author Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, there is one story in there where an Indian man encountered a car load of human looking creatures dropped off from a craft on his land. They got a flat and he changed their tyre. I have been doing some work with one of the Indian tribes and have read much about the people, their beliefs and their wisdom which is amazing. Check this out for yourself.

Return to Vagenda - because you've gone too far - 40 years of equality

Well, I think this says it all...
Just that as a man I would be criticised for saying it

So 40 years after the Equality act came into being, how have we fared? There is some debate that women are still under represented in some situations, less well paid than men in the same jobs and discrimination seems to still exist, sometimes.

But, as Barbara Ehrenreich has stated above, some women have just gone 'too far' and have become like men. The late American Indian activist of the Lakota people Russell Means stated something along the same lines as Barbara Ehrenreich, that women had just 'become like men.'

In the American Indian society there was always a reverence for the female, the Earth was described as Mother Earth. The Indians had a greater understanding through their spiritual based belief of the role of things. I think they had it right.

Organised religion belief systems have done much damage by their dogma, take those that deny the use of contraception, they not only condemn women to years of childbirth and child care, they create in often poor areas of the world more poverty by extra mouths to feed where this is completely unnecessary.

The American Indians did use natural family planning and as such maintained more viable communities which did not suffer because of lack of resources.

The American Indians had an appreciation of the man and woman relationship
This was how their society was able to function so well for all, for centuries

It served them well enough

You don't have to be anything that you are not


A mere 3 years after the Equality act, Britain got its first female Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher. She was the right person at the right time to sort out a country that had just about become beyond repair thanks to strikes and the previous government.

Mrs Thatcher was the person who showed the rest of the world that Britain was open for business and with the success of the Falklands campaign, that Britain could not be messed with. This was one opportunity where a woman could behave robustly because it was the right thing for the right occasion.


Margaret Thatcher may have made some unpopular decisions
but then again, Medicine doesn't always taste nice
I had a lot of respect for her in her heyday

Snowflake generation upstarts do just this, sadly...
They should stop hitting easy targets like Western men
and direct their efforts to furthering women's rights in the Middle East

It is now time for a re evaluation, the balance seems to have swung too far the other way. Do you know I was pushed out of a job recently because a female Director wanted 'an all girl office.' Well she got that and her sales dived back downwards I have heard.

She announced she was taking over Sales and Marketing of which she had no experience and which was quickly apparent, I had 20 years experience. So she engaged a female friend of hers to advise them on this area.

Feminism at work? Well if that's how it is, you can keep it. I have worked with women for over 30 years and have never had any experience like this in any other job, thankfully. This included service in the Police where I worked with women at Senior rank with no issues.

We are approaching a time where things in our world will have to change for the future if we are to survive as a species. This means we are also going to have to revise our way of operating as a species and as men and women and to re-evaluate where we are going.

One thing I have noted in mostly female offices is sometimes a woman saying 'I'll have to get a man to do that.'

So I guess until someone invents a vibrator that can also put up shelves, men still have some relevancy.




Tuesday 13 September 2016

Amazing American Indian Navajo Turquoise Jewellry and pieces from other American Indian makers

North American Turquoise has long been revered by the Indian peoples

The Navajo Indians were taught silver smithing by the Spanish and have made a good industry from their great skills.

A very fine inlaid pendant by Clayton Tom, this is truly outstanding quality

Combining Silver with precious stones and attractive mineral and shell, they are creating some outstanding traditional and modern pieces. The good news is that many are still affordable and the pieces that the artists that created them may become collected and recognised, which they certainly should be.


Calvin Begay inlaid Horse head, using Lapis, Turquoise, Onyx and Oyster shell into Silver

The Navajo are not the only people producing these fine items, many other peoples are also producing some great artworks in metal.

Dina Huntinghorse an Apache taught by her Navajo husband to make jewelry
An outstanding 'story' bracelet which is pierced and set with a Turquoise centrepiece

The Navajo were using Turquoise as decorative wear and in crafts before the combination with silver and learning the skills with silver, the Turquoise stone was associated with the sky and also with good fortune. It occurs in Nevada and Arizona, adjoining states and there is a strata of quality and desirability in the stones. 

Beautiful variations and colours often caused by mineral inclusions

The stone varies in hardness and quality and the harder and more attractive, so is the level of price. Sleeping Beauty is the most prized, Kingman, Bisbee and Nevada Creek are also highly regarded.
The Thunderbird is a highly regarded symbol by many American Indian people

Here is a 'shadow box' ring by Mike Arviso, the Turquoise is Kingman and set in a clasp over fixing.

Nevada Creek Turquoise ring

A fine piece of inlay by Ella Cowboy onto a ring base made by Richard E.Hoskie, The Nevada Creek stone has iron inclusions which give a vein effect to the stone.

A fine Thunderbird inlaid ring by Ella Cowboy

The fine work of inlay artist Ella Cowboy, a Navajo is top quality and her abilities to use the materials with the design should make these pieces very collectable.

Sterling Silver plain Thunderbird next to inlaid version

The inlaid ring at right has Meteorite crystal in which I did

Ella Cowboy inlaid Turquoise chips into silver ring

Large Indian Chief Head, Turquoise and Red Coral

Turquoise, Lapis, Red Coral and White Pearl

Fire Opal Thunderbird ring
By Richard E. Hoskie and Herman Tom

Ella Cowboy and Richard E. Hoskie Gemset Navajo ring

Covellite Thunderbird Ring by Richard E. Hoskie and Herman Tom
Zuni design Inlay, red Coral, Onyx, Turquoise and Pearl

Royston Turquoise Thunderbird ring
Thunderbird Gemstone ring by Richard E.Hoskie and Herman Tom

Silver Fox Thunderbird ring with Turquoise Chip inlay

Ring by Dina Huntinghorse, Turquoise and Lapis

Thunderbird Lapis inlay onto Silver by Silver Fox
These rings are available at

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Little-Silver-works?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

Dina Huntinghorse pierced Silver bracelet with Turquoise centre stone

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing these magnificent pieces of jewelry which are all made by American Indian people, they are just so much better to own than something soulless and mas produced, each one has the artist's own stamp making them truly exclusive.