Kevin Ray Garcia is from the Santo Domingo Pueblo. He started making jewelry at the age of 4 when he helped his older sister and their grandfather string beads for the traditional Heishe jewelry made on their pueblo.

Today, Garcia mainly gets his inspiration for his jewelry from the shape of the stone.

“I try to keep the original shape of the stone as much as possible when I begin making a jewelry piece,” says Garcia.

Garcia favors utilizing green/blue turquoise such as Bisbee, Blue Gem and Carico Lake for examples. The work most closely linked to the work of ancestral Puebloans is the stone and shell work produced at Santo Domingo Pueblo and Kevin Ray Garcia’s jewelry is one of the most beautiful of the Heishe artists.