Fannie Ann King,
Navajo jewelry maker
Fannie was born in her family's Hogan near Mariano Lake, New Mexico, and raised in the same area. She is a Navajo belonging to the clans Bitter Water and Cliff Dwellers. She has eight grown children and many grandchildren.
When she was young, like most Navajo children of her generation, Fannie spent her days herding her family's sheep. Even today, Navajo family life often revolves around herding - finding water and green fields in which the animals can graze, protecting them from coyotes and foxes, lambing and shearing the the spring.
Learning to care for livestock is one of the traditional ways of teaching a child education, but when she was fifteen years old, her aunt and her grandmother taught her the art of beadwork. She credits them with inspiring her work. During the past eight years, Fannie has given up working with tiny seed beads, but has continued to string beads and stones.
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