Some rings put a stone on top of your finger. Delford Yazzie apparently looked at that entire concept and thought, Absolutely not. We’re building a staircase.

Five pieces of Dry Creek turquoise climb around the hand in an open, sweeping curve—beginning with an enormous teardrop and ascending through four wildly individual stones. Between them, polished silver raindrops punctuate the design like markers on some ancient map.

It’s strange. It’s monumental. It’s a little bit architectural and a little bit geological—and it refuses to sit politely in the category of “ring.”

Why This Piece Matters

Dry Creek turquoise is prized for its exceptionally pale coloring, appearing here in shades of ivory, cream, powder blue, warm sand, and rust-colored matrix. Rather than selecting five calibrated stones, Delford Yazzie assembled five distinct geological personalities into a single composition.

The open center is especially important. It prevents the substantial 20-gram construction from becoming visually dense while allowing the arrangement to wrap around the finger with movement and dimension. The stones appear to orbit an invisible center rather than forming a conventional symmetrical cluster.

This is also an unusually ambitious example of a Dry Creek statement ring: five large cabochons, a sculptural asymmetrical silhouette, a substantial handmade band, and enough silver presence to balance the scale of the stones.

Artifact Registry

• Artifact Name: The Pale Staircase Ring
• Artist: Delford Yazzie
• Nation: Navajo (Diné)
• Hallmarks: D / Sterling
• Materials: Natural Dry Creek turquoise and sterling silver
• Construction: Five individually bezel-set cabochons with applied sterling raindrops, oxidized recesses and an open sculptural backplate
• Ring size: 9
• Weight: 20 grams
• Era: Contemporary
• Collector’s Gallery Value: $1,295

Curator’s Field Observation

The composition is held together by difference rather than repetition.

The enormous teardrop acts as the visual anchor. A long horizontal cabochon establishes the base, while three progressively placed stones climb upward and outward. Each contains a different concentration of pale blue, ivory, sand, and reddish-brown matrix, allowing the ring to display an extraordinary range of Dry Creek within one object.

The heavy silver raindrops create rhythm between the stones, while the darkened negative space makes the entire arrangement appear to float above the hand.

Eric’s Notes from the Field

Okay, this is completely unhinged in the best possible way.

It looks like Delford collected five tiny landscapes from the same alien desert and built a staircase out of them. Every stone is doing something different: one is almost blue, one is sandy, one looks like cracked porcelain, and the giant teardrop is just floating there being dramatic.

And somehow, despite being huge, it doesn’t feel like a lump of turquoise strapped to your finger. That open center gives the whole thing air, movement, and a slightly impossible sense of balance.

This is jewelry for someone who understands that “too much” is frequently just another phrase for “finally enough.”