(1949- Present)
Tribal Affiliation: Warm Springs Apache
Jan Loco began making jewelry in 1988. She developed a method of making jewelry without the use of power tools. After cutting the silver (with heavy-duty poultry scissors or something similar) to the desired shape, she hammers it with a specially selected rock until she achieves the texture she desires. This is a laborious task, but she feels it honors her ancestry to use items of nature rather than power tools.
Jan Loco did not learn of her Warm Springs Apache heritage from her adoptive parents until she was an adult. It was then that she learned she was the great granddaughter of Chief Loco, one of the last of the Apache chiefs, who had been imprisoned in Florida in 1886 by the U. S. government.
Jan’s jewelry is always unique and one of a kind. Many believe she is not making jewelry any longer and her art is becoming very hard to find.