Explore Arts & Culture: Design

Tony and Gayatri Malmed met and fell in love on the road in Afghanistan in 1970. The pair later traveled into India and lived in an ashram, and that’s where Tony learned traditional methods of Indian jewelry-making. The couple later discovered Santa Fe while visiting friends, where the eclectic atmosphere was immediately arresting: “It was funky and creative and comfortable,” says Gayatri. Santa Fe was, adds Tony, “progressive and regressive at the same time, and it still is.”

The funky and comfortable vibe that they feel in Santa Fe is reflected in their store, Spirit of the Earth. The roomy space (by downtown standards) is awash in the rich desert reds and river-rock bl...

At Patina Gallery, owners Ivan and Allison Barnett are interested in the surface of things. Even the name reflects their devotion to “beauty over time,” says Allison. The couple have displayed jewelry, wood and clay sculpture, and textiles in their downtown space since 1999, when they wanted, says Allison, to fill the “void in the [fine] craft venue” in Santa Fe.

Now the two show what they consider “soul-stirring” work. The phrase has become a business conviction reflected in the couple’s sense that a deeply refined personal aesthetic can also stir others with the glories of what can be made.

Says Ivan, “We do not pick based upon marketability; we pick based...

Michael Carroll and Tonya Turner Carroll began renting their gallery space on Canyon Road when they were in their twenties and so poor, they recall, that after paying the first and last months’ rent, “We had 50 bucks,” says Michael, laughing. But they say it was all worth it.

The skill of the artist is tantamount in the work Tonya and Michael exhibit. Says Michael, “The value of the artist’s hand has always been really, really appealing.” The couple show graphic art, such as work by Romanian printmaker Traian Filip, who studied engraving in Bucharest, and Russian painter Igor Melnikov. The gallery owners say they strive to be as skillful at showing art as their artists...

Just what Santa Fe’s bookshelves need — one more book about American Indian jewelry.

Old-timers may be forgiven for rolling their eyes at the sight of Mark Bahti’s “Silver + Stone: Profiles of American Indian Jewelers” ($40, Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2007). But a quick flip through this longtime trader’s sumptuous, four-color tome reveals a sophistication of design pushing the work away from its curio stereotype and toward fine art.

The owner of Bahti Indian Arts galleries in both Tucson and Santa Fe, Bahti says the book began as an overview of the history of Southwestern jewelry, then took a decidedly left turn when he decided to give the artists the chance to tell...

Many years ago, when I lived in Dallas, a friend’s mother came to visit from out of town, and we took her shopping at Neiman-Marcus. At the jewelry counter, a perky Southern Methodist University coed guided the petite Mrs. Z toward tasteful and feminine rings, the kind with rows of small gems in delicate filigreed gold and ladylike solitaire stones in platinum princess settings. I could feel Mrs. Z — a woman whose attitude could be as brassy as her hair color — getting more and more irritated as she shook her head at every ring the girl proffered. Finally, she stabbed a finger toward the biggest ring in the case, an enormous topaz on a wide gold band that would overwhelm her small h...