Gems used in Southwestern art are usually what you may be familiar with from Native American jewelry.  Turquoise would be the most familiar one of course.  However, as good turquoise becomes more hard to find and expensive artists have been forced to use other materials. 

Other materials also allow artists to get away from the sterotypical creations and develop their own vision.  In additon, some of the other materials, such as coral, were traded from Mexico during the pueblo times, so they are at least as traditional as turquoise.

Many of the variations, such as malachite, are also copper based and found in the same deposits as turquoise.  

Now that power tools are available to work the stones and they can be polished with diamond grit, stones that were impossible to work with hand tools become valuable.  You can enjoy lots of pictures which show the state of the art with contemporary jewelry at Akalas Jewelry .

You can learn more about the subject from books and other items for sale on Ebay.  The list below shows some of the current auctions.  Clicking on one of the links will take you directly to that auction.

We are working on Gem Trails, a website where we are updating information from the Gem Trails books recent site pictures and maps and first hand information from recent visits by rockhounds. If you are a rockhound who has recently tried to use the gem trails books you know they are seriously out of date.  On GemTrails.com we are using the website to collect and organize more recent information.  Please visit the site and contribute.