Thunderbird Style

The Patania’s shops in Santa Fe and Tucson were the training ground for a stunning array of Native American silversmiths

This article was originally published in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Native American Art Magazine. It is an adaptation of Chapter 7 of Legendary Patania Jewelry.

In 1927 Italian immigrant Frank Patania Sr. opened the Thunderbird Shop in Santa Fe which sold Native American handmade arts and crafts. Patania, a trained goldsmith and fine jewelry designer, had become enamored with Native American jewelry. He quickly turned his talents to designing and fabricating sterling silver and turquoise jewelry inspired by Native designs, developing a new type of Southwest jewelry, termed “Thunderbird style” which combined Mediterranean elegance with traditional Native American materials. He became known for his exquisite craftsmanship and unique jewelry designs which displayed great attention to detail. 

As his business grew, Patania required assistance in the workshop and in 1932 hired Charles Begay, a skilled Navajo silversmith. He became the first of many Native Americans to work for the Patanias as silversmiths in the Thunderbird Shop in Santa Fe, and later also in Tucson. Some of these artists remained employed until retirement, while others, after becoming versed in the Thunderbird style, departed to work on their own, carrying with them the influence and inspiration of Patania family designs. Those who carried the Thunderbird style into their own successful careers were Lewis Lomay, Julian Lovato, Jimmie Herald and Harry Sakyesva, whose talents and body of work still resonate long after their passing. 

Lewis Lomay (Hopi), from Oraibi, enrolled in Santa Fe Indian School about 1932 where he attended the silversmithing class taught by Navajo artist Ambrose Roanhorse. In 1934 Lomay arrived in Santa Fe too late to enroll for the fall term, instead he found employment at the Thunderbird Shop where his friend Waldo Mootzka was working. Mootzka, also from Hopi, was known primarily as a painter but worked for Patania as a silversmith until his death in 1938.

Lomay was taught fine jewelry techniques by Frank Patania Sr. and later recalled, “Working with Patania I learned about modern jewelry and how to finish pieces in any metal as perfectly as they did in gold.” After the United States entered World War II, Lomay left the Thunderbird Shop to work in the defense industry. Returning to Santa Fe after the war, Lomay embarked on his own career making jewelry from a studio in his home. He entered pieces in fairs and exhibits and quickly built a reputation as a master of his craft and, by 1947, was winning multiple awards whenever he entered competitions. 

Through the following decades, his jewelry was represented by notable southwest galleries, such as Shop of the Rainbow Man in Santa Fe. His jewelry reflected the influence of the designs he absorbed from his years working at the Thunderbird Shop; his pieces were carefully and painstakingly made with a fresh and imaginative beauty. Throughout his career, Lomay combined traditional Hopi designs with new ideas and modern techniques in silver and gold. 

Julian Lovato was born at Kewa Pueblo (Santo Domingo) in 1925 into a family of jewelry makers and as a child he observed his father and grandfather create silver and turquoise jewelry. In his teens he started making jewelry on his own, but enlisted in the Army in 1944 and served in the Philippines during World War II. Upon returning to New Mexico, he married Marie Oyengue of San Juan Pueblo in 1946 and the couple moved to Santa Fe. 

Lovato worked as a silversmith in various Santa Fe shops for a number of years, until 1952 when he was hired by Frank Patania Sr. to work in the Thunderbird Shop. Julian was assigned the work bench next to Frank Patania Jr., who later recounted that he learned some soldering techniques from Julian who was already well-trained in Native American traditional designs and techniques when he was hired. Julian easily adapted to working in the Thunderbird style. 

Patania Sr. introduced Lovato to new techniques and modern jewelry designs that influenced his career, also teaching him to initially sketch his ideas on paper. Lovato worked all day in the shop and then during the evening at home he spent hours in his own workshop, refining his talent. He had become the Santa Fe shop’s chief silversmith when Frank Patania Sr. passed away in 1964. 

When the Patania family closed the Santa Fe shop at the end of 1964, manager John Wheeler bestowed the Santa Fe Thunderbird Shop hallmark die upon Lovato, and Patania’s widow Aurora gave him permission to use the stamp on his work. Julian Lovato became known as “Keeper of the Thunderbird,” and was proud to be able to incorporate that mark with his own hallmark.

In 1991 Lovato recalled, “Frank Patania was just like a father. That’s where I began to get the idea that if I concentrate and work hard, I can do it. He helped me develop into what I do.” Lovato moved back to Santo Domingo Pueblo and worked on his own, creating his own unique jewelry designs and built a very successful career. 

Lovato’s contemporary style utilized clean, elegant lines with layers of materials that he referred to as “raised” or “dimensional,” a technique he learned from Frank Patania Sr. He designed his pieces around the shape of the setting and was able to work the bezel in such a way that the gemstone or coral settings appeared to float above the surface of the piece. His wife Marie worked with him, and while Julian designed and fashioned the jewelry, she did some of the more intricate finishing of pieces. Marie was also well known for her modern design dot-and-dash necklace chains, adapted from a Patania design.

Harry Sakyesva, born in 1922 at the Hopi village of Hotevilla, was hired by Frank Patania Sr. in 1952 to work as a silversmith in the Thunderbird Shop. Prior to that he graduated from Santa Fe Indian School and received treatment in an Albuquerque sanatorium between 1941 and 1945 for a lung disease. Afterwards, he moved to Santa Fe where he painted depictions of Hopi life for various galleries.

While employed by the Patanias, Sakyesva’s summers were spent working in the Santa Fe shop. During the winter months he moved to Tucson to work, where he was frequently seated at the bench set up in the display window. Frank Patania Jr. remembers Sakyesva worked for them for five or six years and during that time was in treatment periodically at the Indian Hospital.

After leaving the Thunderbird Shop, Sakyesva relocated to the Phoenix area where he opened his own silver shop in Scottsdale in 1961 with his Hopi friend Morris Robinson, where for a few years they made “fine custom-made Hopi overlay” jewelry. He also made commissioned custom designs that were heavily influenced by monogram work he would have learned from the Patanias.

Jimmie Herald’s employment by the Patania family occurred by chance. He was born into a family of silversmiths in 1914 on the Navajo Reservation near Gallup, New Mexico. He was educated at the government boarding school at Crown Point. Having learned basic silversmithing skills from being around his family, he had no desire to work as a silversmith, but fate intervened.

Herald offered to drive a friend to Tucson in 1938 where he ran out of money before he could return home. Since silversmithing was what he knew, Herald went to the Thunderbird Shop and asked for work. Frank Patania Sr. told him that if he wanted to be a good silversmith, then he would train him; inevitably Jimmie became one of the most valuable silversmiths at the Thunderbird Shop, and was trusted to work on the most important pieces. 

During World War II Jimmie Herald served in the Army, after returning to Tucson in 1945 he married Hazel Enos, a Pima (Akimel O’odham) woman from Sacaton, and they had two children. Jimmie’s older brother Herbert Herald also worked in the Tucson shop in the 1940s and 1950s.

Jimmie later recalled something Frank Patania Sr. said to him, “It’s not how you look or what you are that means your reputation. Let your work speak for you. Always do your best.” Herald kept that thought in mind, endeavoring to always improve his work, and wanting customers to be satisfied. 

In the early 1970s Jimmie retired from the Thunderbird Shop, but continued to make some jewelry on his own in his home studio. Most of the designs he used in his personal jewelry were modern and based on those he made while working for the Patanias.

Daniel Enos Jr., Pima (Akimel O’odham), was the lone Native American silversmith to work for the Patanias who only made jewelry during his time as a Thunderbird employee. He was born on the Gila River Reservation in 1927, attended Presbyterian Indian Training School in Tucson as a youth, then served in the Marines during World War II.

Returning to Tucson after the war, he worked as a heavy equipment driver, wheat combine operator and welder. In 1950 he was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Jimmie Herald, to learn the intricacies of silversmithing. Enos said he would try it for two weeks, and after 42 years with the Thunderbird Shop, he retired in 1992. He was a highly skilled and trusted silversmith who worked continuously in the Thunderbird style for all three generations of Patanias. 

The modern designs incorporated within these artist’s creations have influenced subsequent generations of Native American silversmiths, though some may not be aware these styles and techniques originated with Patania family designs born in the Thunderbird Shop.