PIAM 2023 Featured Artist: Patrick Smith

We’re excited to announce Patrick Smith as our featured artist for the 25th annual Prescott Indian Art Market.

Patrick is a full-blood, enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation, born on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. After studying computer programming and business administration in college, Patrick traveled across the U.S. in an old Ford truck for a year, financing the trip by selling his own hand-made Navajo jewelry on the road. After crafting old-style jewelry for a while, he yearned to acquire more advanced metalsmithing techniques to create the exciting contemporary designs he envisioned.

Eventually he returned to Flagstaff to study art in earnest, earning his M.A. in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from Northern Arizona University. Patrick later won an Arlene Feddes fellowship for Excellence in Art from the Southwestern Association of Indian Arts (SWAIA). His jewelry was selected to travel across the U.S. as part of ArtTrain USA, has been purchased for display at The British Museum in London, and featured in exhibits and art publications.

Today, he describes his experimental jewelry pieces as a stylistic collision of natural-world elements and contemporary shapes that combine texture with three-dimensional artistry. We can’t wait to see Patrick’s work in-person at PIAM, September 16-17. See more of his work at his website.

For event information about PIAM, click here.