Not just any buckles
Silversmith seeing success making buckles for rodeo associations
By Krista Allen
Special to the Times
THOREAU, N.M., Aug. 29, 2011
(Special to the Times - Krista Allen)
TOP: Jackson Hoskie's solid brass and copper 2010 Central Navajo Rodeo Association judges' buckles are in the engrave-detailing process. Designs take a considerable amount of time to complete.
BOTTOM: Mariano Lake, N.M., native Jackson Hoskie makes buckles in a shack behind his house and plans to expand his business.
They're individualized, yet shiny, compact and solid and given to the best rodeo contestants. And they're used to join the ends of belts.
That's right, they're buckles.
But they're not just any buckles, they're custom-made belt buckles handcrafted in a small shack behind Jackson Hoskie's house.
"It's fairly small, no bigger than my own bedroom," Hoskie said.
Confined in his workshop daily, Hoskie makes 15 buckles per week for rodeo organizations across the Navajo Nation.
As a child he learned how to make jewelry from his father, John Hoskie Sr., in the mid-70s.
"I learned it from my dad," the 52-year-old Mariano Lake, N.M., native said. "Actually the whole family, we started off as kids."
In the early 1980s, Hoskie found a part-time job at Maynard Buckles, owned by a former world-class saddle-bronc rider named Ralph Maynard.
"He wanted someone to be cleaning buckles, as far as polishing them, buffing them, and all that sort," Hoskie said. "We started working, my brothers and myself. We found out that this whole buckle business was a whole new deal of silversmithing."