Man of the People

From the Olympics to Congress, Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s jewelry reveals a fascinating career.

By John O’Hern

Ben Nighthorse Campbell grew up watching his father make jewelry. The Southern Pacific Railroad was about a quarter mile from his house and was a convenient place to flatten silver coins to get the raw material for his jewelry making. As a U.S. Congressman and, later, a U.S. Senator from Colorado, he kept his jewelry-making equipment in his Washington, D.C., condo. “It was easy to put a piece in my pocket and take it home to Colorado to work on it there,” he explains. Today, he is the winner of more than 200 national and international awards in jewelry design under the name Ben Nighthorse.

Gold Tracks Necklace, 18k gold necklace with brilliant-cut diamonds, with 18k beads with a satin finish on a handmade chain, inlaid with Sleeping Beauty turquoise and flecks of lapis, coral, opal, black onyx and malachite. 19” long, with center petals measuring 2¼ x 1¼”; Center: Gold Tracks Earrings, 18k gold earrings inlaid with Sleeping Beauty turquoise, lapis, coral and sugilite featuring brilliant cut diamonds, 2¼” long, post backing.

He received the name “Nighthorse” in a Northern Cheyenne name-giving ceremony. He explains that he is related to the Blackhorse family. “Indian and English words often can’t be translated literally, so Nighthorse, Blackhorse, Darkhorse are the same.”

While attending San José State University he was on the school’s judo team. “In 1960 we learned that judo would be included in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. I sold everything and got a one-way ticket to Japan. I made my living teaching English. I made friends with a samurai swordmaker who lived nearby. I watched him work and tried my hand at it. The techniques of sword-making are held secret and passed down from father to son, but he taught me how to combine metals like copper, silver and gold. The Japanese call it Mokume-gane which translates roughly as ‘wood grain’ because the different colored metals look like the grain of wood.”

Ben Nighthorse (Cheyenne) and his grandson Luke Longfellow working on jewelry together.

While he was at it, he won national judo titles in 1961, 1962 and 1963 and a gold medal at the 1963 Pan-American Games before competing in the 1964 Olympics.

Nighthorse and his wife Linda were both raised around horses and moved from California to southwestern Colorado to raise their two children as well as prize-winning quarter horses. The horse is a prominent design feature in his jewelry.

Horses were native to North America before the last ice age about 10,000 years ago and came back with the Spanish in the 15th century. “They became an almost symbolic animal for Indians, especially Plains People,” Nighthorse relates. “They became incorporated into their ceremonies, art and lifestyle. Among the Sioux, horses were called ‘god dogs’ because the only four-legged animal they knew for carrying things was the dog and this tall animal must carry things for god.

Horse and Warrior Bracelet, 18k gold, inlaid in coral, turquoise, opal and lapis, 1¼” wide.

“Today on some reservations, there is 70 percent unemployment. There’s a lot of free time for the kids and since they don’t have cars, they ride horses, often bareback. They’ve become the best horsemen.”

Serving in Congress, he wasn’t able to enter shows or profit from his jewelry. Today, he likens his home in Ignacio, Colorado, as the hub of a wheel with the spokes going out to all the centers where he can sell his wares. They are now sold principally through Sorrel Sky Gallery in Durango, Colorado, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, operated by his and Linda’s daughter Shanan Campbell.

Rock Art Square Dome Bracelet, 18k gold with 1.15 carats of diamonds in seven round VS/F, ¾” wide

In Congress, Nighthorse was instrumental in drafting the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. “The market for Indian jewelry ebbs and flows,” he explains. “In the ’70s and ’80s it was really hot. But mass producers got into the market, copying Indian designs and having them crafted around the world, especially in China. It almost killed the market. When I got into office, I wanted to protect artists and tribes. The act keeps honest people honest.

“One day when I was exhibiting at a market a man came up to me and showed me a pin he was wearing. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him it wasn’t a very good piece, the soldering was bad and it wasn’t polished well. He said, ‘Well, you made it!’ He turned it over and my name was on the back. But I hadn’t made it. People used to be pretty brazen photographing things in the glass case and then going off to have them copied.”

While the horse is a prominent design feature in his jewelry such as his bracelet Horse and Warrior, he is also inspired by the designs he sees on ancient rock art as seen in his Rock Art Square Dome Bracelet.

Ben Nighthorse (Cheyenne) works in his Colorado studio. All images courtesy Sorrel Sky Gallery.

“I draw inspiration from those people who were here for thousands of years,” he says. “Native people believe that the person who made those drawings left part of his spirit there. We received permission to do some filming in a remote part of Mesa Verde that isn’t open to the public. Near a crack in an outcropping, there was water trickling down and there were pieces of pottery all around. I looked closely and saw the handprint of perhaps a 6-year-old child. Can’t you imagine a child there with his mother cooking over a fire putting his hand in the mud and then on the rock wall? He left part of his spirit there.”

Today, Nighthorse is passing on his knowledge to his grandson, Luke Longfellow, who is studying at the Gemological Institute of America in New York. Nighthorse has accumulated designs on paper that Longfellow may one day digitize and use for reference. Although computer-aided advances in design are definitely not his forte, Nighthorse is teaching Longfellow his well-honed hands-on techniques. “It’s a bridge between the way I learned and the way he’s learning.”