Product Description
Handmade Gorgeous Natural Variscite Heishi and Tab Necklace by Santo Domingo Artist, Ray Lovato. The variscite in this necklace is a lovely greenish and black color. It measures 21″ Long.
Santa Domingo artist Ray Lovato is known for his use of natural turquoise, which is both more valuable than treated turquoise and more difficult to work with. Born in 1946, Ray began to learn his craft by age eleven and would help his mother, Tonita Reano, drill turquoise. His father, Ike Lovato, made and sold jewelry and traveled across the region, and taught Ray his craft. As a young man, Ray enlisted in the army and did two tours of duty in Vietnam; when he came home, he struggled in construction before returning to jewelry: “Then I started to do what my father taught me, my own work. Then everything was okay.”
