Some folks make jewelry. Some folks tell a story through their hands and let the work be their voice. That’s Isaac Dial.
When he sits at the bench, he brings with him both - generations that have come before, and the future he is imagining.
Learning a craft is one thing - being born into it is different entirely. Isaac learned directly from his father, who was taught the art of crafting stone and metal into jewelry before his son joined him on this earth. In the Dial household it was more than a trade, it was a value.
By the time Isaac was big enough there was a place in the shop already set for him.
I’ve spent a lifetime around artists, and there’s an expression in their art that you can follow back to their inspiration. Ask him where his ideas come from and he doesn’t reach for theory. “It all starts with the stone,” he says. “That’s really how it starts. The stone’s the beginning, and then I build out from there.”
In this craft, material has memory. Silver keeps score - rush it and it’ll tell on you. Turquoise holds it’s history in the dance of the color and matrix. Isaac treats both with a respect that is evident in his final product.
He lets the stone lead the way, and crafts the metal around it according to what it was always meant to be - with a design even extending across the back of a piece if that is what it’s called to do.
I remember the day he spotted a particularly nice piece of Indian Mountain in my stash. His eyes said it before his mouth did. I told him I knew this rock was for him.
They have a way of doing that.
He made a ring from that stone - one of those pieces you feel before you see. He calls it a power ring, and I know what he means. Some stones carry a charge that straightens your back a little when you put them on. He likes rings and cuffs because the wearer can live with them - look down and see the work, feel the weight, remember the why.
Isaac talks about turquoise the way some folks talk about prayer. The way he puts it is perfect, “To be able to use turquoise, to me, it’s a gift. It’s got healing power. When I work with it and I’m in touch with it, I feel more. When you wear it, it balances you, it protects you. There’s healing in it. That’s another power of turquoise - it completes things.”
That word complete keeps showing up in his work. On one cuff he created there are lines that radiate outward, channeling the good energy of the piece from the stone to the body, like a current drawn off through the wrist. It’s thoughtful work - not a symbol just for show, but a function you can feel.
He’s not precious about tradition or novelty - he respects both. “You have people holding to that first phase traditional style, and people like me moving more toward contemporary,” he says. “I see it going both ways - and both successfully.” And that’s the truth of Native art right now.
He knows why any of it matters. “For me, it’s cultural preservation,” he says. “I have my ancestors who made, and a father who taught me. I’m just carrying on a legacy.”
There’s a part of his story where a friend told him the quiet truth: your work’s good, but your stone isn’t doing you any favors. The materials an artist uses should match to the level of the hand. Isaac took that to heart.
“A friend told me,… You’re good, so you need to use really good stones. He said, go to Ernie - he’ll take care of you. After that everything changed for me.” - Isaac Dial
When he talks about process, Isaac doesn’t make a struggle out of it. He’s not the type to wrestle a design into shape or sit staring at a bench waiting for lightning. He comes to the work when things are balanced - when his head and hands are both clear enough to listen. The piece takes shape through him more than by him, like the metal already knows where it wants to go.
There’s a flow to it, quiet and certain, and he trusts that rhythm completely. And the true value is expressed over time. Edges softened by life. Scratches that read like pages in a book. A ring handed down with a story attached: who made it, who wore it, why it mattered. Isaac builds for each moment - each handoff.
He knows how to keep the work clean where it counts. Isaac’s pieces feel inevitable after you see them - like they were waiting to be made by him at just this time. They’re generous. They hold. In a world that breaks too easily, that kind of vision is a blessing.