Josef Reiter, born in Minnesota to an Anishinaabe mother and a German father, began metalsmithing in the early 1970s. A chance encounter in Oregon presented him with the opportunity to trade one of his paintings for a gold and silver smithing apprenticeship in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he learned to make solder, to roll out silver, draw wire, do everything by hand without modern conveniences. From his teachers, Josef learned Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni silverwork styles, each requiring their own special techniques. When he returned to Minnesota, however, he struggled to find an artistic identity of his own. “The work I was doing was still in the Southwest style and I never felt comfortable doing it,” he says. For years he tried to find an approach that spoke to him both as an individual artist and as an Ojibwe Minnesotan.

Yet as Josef says, silversmithing is not an indigenous Ojibwe practice. “There’s no real tradition to fall back on. What I feel comfortable in is adapting the old traditions and designs into my work.” Eventually Josef developed his own vision by drawing on his heritage and incorporating Anishinaabe visual and conceptual motifs like birch bark etching, sweet grass braiding, native wildlife, and traditional stories. Josef’s innovative synthesis of Southwestern silversmithing technique and Anishinaabe themes has also set an example for a new generation of Native artists. “I believe that people have to teach their kids about the cultures and things that have been, but not stifle the culture by saying, ‘this is what it is limited to,’” he says. He believes the flourishing of the new Indian jewelry will require a broader perspective on Native art: “People’s perceptions of what to expect have to change and they have to let go of stereotypes. On the part of both the artist and the consumer.”

by Will Fraser, Birchbark Books and Native Arts