Verma’s husband, Bob, reminds her of an instance where she had this large solid black stone, probably granite, that sat on a shelf in her studio for a year or more. Every once and awhile something about the stone would intrigue Verma and she would engage with it – hold it, talk to it, turn it over, and then return it to the shelf. Finally, a day came when Nequatewa picked the stone up, spent some time looking at it and then promptly cut a line in the stone and then inlaid the very same line with stones and gold and placed strands of gold (“dangles”) over the side. How this inlaid stone and gold sculpture came to be explains a lot about Verma’s process and explains why Verma regards her work as sculpture rather than jewelry. All Sonwai’s pieces are sculpted into “three-dimensional” forms.
Finally, like her uncle, Nequatewa often works with clients to create custom pieces; and when doing so, she spends a great deal of time with
the client. This is not to come to a “consensus about the design” (Nequatewa only creates pieces she alone designs), but to ensure the person’s essence is expressed within the work. Verma tells of an instance in which her uncle met with a woman, very small in stature, who asked that he create a ring for her. Loloma presented the woman with a large ring, which the woman initially declined because she viewed it as being too large, too flamboyant. Charles suggested she take it for a few weeks to try it out and told her he was more than willing to take it back if she still did not like it. Well, of course, the woman returned to tell Loloma that she loved the piece. It revealed to her she had a great inner strength that she had never realized or embraced, and she would wear it forever as such a reminder. Loloma gave her more than a piece of jewelry, he helped her reclaim her sense of self. Nequatewa’s pieces have the same effect on clients. When a retrospective of Verma’s career was in the
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