Wright's Indian Art > Artist: Marian Denipah (San Juan Pueblo (Okey-Owingeh), Navajo)

"I think of jewelry as little paintings in stone," says Marian. Working with and beside her husband, Steve LaRance, a notable Hopi jeweler, she is as highly reputed for both jewelry and painting.

She grew up sharing the cultures of both her Navajo father and Pueblo mother. While attending high school, she became interested in painting portraits. After high school, in Santa Fe, she attended the prestigious Institute of American Indian Arts and studied painting, photography, modern dance and ballet. Her Fine Arts degree is from Northern Arizona University, closer to the Hopi mesa where she and Steve live.

While her training and expertise is in the style of the old European Masters, she has become more experimental and contemporary. Whether in jewelry or painting, she is an artist whose mastery of technique and creative vision has brought her many honors.