LOCAL BUSINESS
Techniques and jewelry that last for generations
Navajo Metalsmithing is an artform made by people that take pride in its construction; the pieces are sturdy and made to last a lifetime. Edgewater Jewelry Company, owned by husband and wife duo Orrin and Deborah Mc-Cray, is a San Marcos artisan business that produces handmade pieces with a blend of Navajo and contemporary style, using techniques passed down in the McCray family for generations. Edgewater Jewelry pieces are heirlooms that can be passed down for as long as the techniques that produced them.
“We are a jewelry company that comes from authentic roots. We named our jewelry company after both of us,” Orrin said. “I am Orrin McCray. I am Edgewater people born for the Mountain Cove clan. My grandfather on my mom’s side is Where the Water Comes Together clan, and my dad’s grandfather is the Towering House clan. So I am Edgewater, and Deborah comes from the Aransas-Ingleside coast, so she is also Edgewater.”
Orrin is from Gallup, New Mexico, a border town on the edge of the Navajo reservation. As far back as he can remember, there has always been a jewelry table in his house as well as in the house of every member of his family.
“This is a family business,” Orrin said. “I thought everybody grew up with a jewelry table in their house.”
Orrin started his artisan career making Navajo bows and actually never wanted to become a silversmith but was forced to take on the craft when he needed the money. In 2016, he was telling his late father Victor McCray that he might have to move home.
“He comes to me with a shoe box, literally pulls out a couple of plastic bags, throws them on the table, picks out a couple of pieces of silver, throws that on the table and looks at me with disgust, and he literally says, ‘Get yourself out of this mess.’ Goes into his bedroom. And that was that,” Orrin said.
After spending the entire night on his first piece of jewelry, his dad walks out in the morning, takes it and pops out the stone with his hands. Then, to add insult to injury, he fixes it in under a minute. But Orrin managed to make his first batch of handmade jewelry. He then had to swallow his pride in order to sell them at a local restaurant - walking customer to customer asking if anyone was interested – as many Navajo artisans in Gallup do.
In 2021, Orrin taught Deborah his family trade, which she took to like a fish in water, developing her own style – clean and simple – and signature lines like her jellyfish pendants – a nod to her beachtown roots. The transition into metalsmithing was made easier by her many years of artistic experience. She has a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, does graphic design professionally and used to make and sell stained glass pieces, which was an artform that she really “loved and embraced.” She has learned through this practice that you can’t rush the process or it won’t meet the Navajo standard.
“If the material that’s around the bezel is kind of wonky, if it’s not touching the bezel in all places or if it’s lopsided, then it gets cut,” Deborah said. “If the stamp work isn’t up to par, it gets cut. If it’s structurally going to have some sort of issue, it gets cut.
Orrin’s cutthroat style of apprenticeship is not without reason as Navajo jewelry is meant to last a lifetime.
“Every time we put jewelry together, there’s a purpose for every bit that’s on there. It’s not just decoration; There’s a structural purpose to it,” Orrin said. “We’re basically engineers that create baskets for beautiful stones.”
Orrin’s Mother Joyce Hudson is a fantastic Navajo beader, taking pride in each weaved bead. She also learned to metalsmith when she married a man who had learned from his dad, who had learned from his dad and so on. With her first piece, she said she thought about redoing it until Orrin pointed out that it told a story about exactly who she was at that point in her life. She now wants to pass it down to her daughter, so she can understand her mother a little better. She also vends her wares every year at the Edgewater Jewelry Company booth at the Sacred Springs Powwow, located at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment.
“I think with silversmiths, each piece of jewelry they make is a story in their lives – what’s happening, how it’s happening. And when I look at the pieces my son makes, they’re so beautiful – through the chaos in the world, in life and family, global warming – you still can see the beauty of everything that comes out of his mind,” Hudson said. “If you can do that and make a piece that awes a customer inside their heart, whatever they’re purchasing it for, then that piece will forever be a part of their lives, and they’ll never forget who made it.”
Last time Hudson was in Texas, Deborah begged her to teach her to bead, once again passing skills down the line.
“Her work is so immaculate and very creative and different from most of the things that I’ve seen,” Deborah said. “She’ll take a single piece of thread and start putting beads on it and then weave them in and out a certain way. She was telling me how the thread represents life, and when you’re weaving the jewelry, it’s similar to how you’re living your life and how things progress. That’s why she takes such pride in it and doesn’t break the string at any time, or she’ll back it up and make sure that everything is perfect.”
Hudson said that Navajos believe that it is important to live a balanced life, and this practice shows up in their work.
“With the silversmithing and beadwork and all the craftsmen, they always have something that they ask the creator to help balance,” Hudson said. “He or she will share it, and that’s very personal; that’s what comes out in the work.”
History plays a part in each piece that a Navajo artisan makes. Navajo metalsmithing originated in the work done to outfit horses. The Navajo style is defined by its stampwork among many other techniques. The stampwork is a continuation of the practice as used when stamping leather saddles.
“The story goes that Atsidi Sani learned from a Mexican captive how to silversmith, which came from blacksmithing; that came from making bridles, came from making horseshoes and eventually making saddles,” Orrin said. “So a lot of the stamp work that we have comes from saddle making. Because if you ever look at a saddle, the saddles are all intricately stamped.”
The McCray family are considered stampers and also casters, using a technique that involves carving into Tufa, a type of rock only found on the Navajo reservation.
At some point in the future, Orrin and Deborah plan to start teaching free classes for the community as a way to give back but also to share the knowledge so that even non-native jewelers may be able to make pieces that last a lifetime. Check out the company’s instagram @ edgewaterjewelryco and the website at edgewaterjewelryco. com.
