ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Indian Arts and Crafts Association supports its member artists through its Artist of the Year competition held each spring. These awards for artistic excellence are based on creativity, craftsmanship and appeal by a panel of former IACA Artist of the Year winners and IACA officers.
This year, the top award “2009 Artist of the Year” went to Navajo jeweler Alfred Joe. He is one of two artists who have won this prestigious award twice. The other two-time award winner is Charlie Pratt (1985 and 2004), a Cheyenne-Arapaho sculptor who served as honorary co-chair of the awards banquet where the award was presented to Joe.
Joe is a jeweler who has mastered a variety of metalsmithing techniques, from hollow forming, overlay and raised metal. He works in gold and silver, often setting his pieces with high quality natural turquoise stones from famous older American mines. In 2001, he won the Artist of the Year for one of his prized double-sided pendants set on each side with a different stone and different design strung on exceptional handmade silver beads. This year, his handmade, hollow, fluted gold beads won his second Artist of the Year award.
Established in 1974, IACA has an international membership of artists, tribal enterprises, retailers, wholesalers, museums, collectors and others who support the mission of IACA, “to promote, preserve and protect” art made by American Indian artists in the United States and Canada.
