Dreamstarter Creative Jarrette Werk Blends Indigenous Jewellery and Photography

Running Strong for American Indian Youth® Dreamstarter Creative Jarrette Werk (Aaniiih & Nakoda, Fort Belknap Indian Community), 31, of Portland, Oregon, says, “Art is every part to me. I’ve been an artist my entire life.

“It’s how I process what I see, what I feel, and what I move through. It gives me a way to translate everything about me into something that can be seen, felt, and shared.”

While his “home community” is Hays/Lodgepole, Montana, Jarrette considers his broader group to be Indian Country, including, “I’m a Montana boy through and through.”

Jarrette has been creating pictures since he was a senior in highschool and began creating jewellery in 2023.

“Photography is my favorite medium to work with,” he acknowledged in his Dreamstarter Creative software. “I really like capturing my jewellery creations in a wide range of methods, whether or not it’s product pictures with a styled shoot on my eating room desk or full-scale photoshoots with fashions on Cannon Beach.

“I’m always looking for ways to elevate how I present both my jewelry and my photography.”

He describes his work as a mix of conventional Native supplies, reminiscent of dentalium and ermine, with up to date parts like combined metals and Swarovski crystals, making a contemporary, fashionable interpretation of conventional shell jewellery.

His concept is to create a full assortment of jewellery and a stylized editorial photoshoot to showcase the completed merchandise.

With his $2,500 Dreamstarter Creative grant, he plans to speculate all of the funds into buying high-quality merchandise and provides in bulk, commenting that “I want to elevate my jewelry to the next level, and receiving this grant will help make that a reality.”

Jarrette is utilizing his grant funding to buy high-quality dentalium shells, a sort of seashell from scaphopod mollusks. Dentalium shells have been utilized in Indigenous jewellery and adornment by Inuit, First Nations, and Native American peoples and traditionally served as a commerce merchandise alongside the western coast of Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

Additionally, he’s buying pink conch hearts, ermine pelts, Swarovski crystals, gold and gold-plated and sterling silver chains, earring hooks, and many others., to be used in necklaces, chokers and earrings, in addition to a digital camera lens particularly for photographing the jewellery he makes.

Jarrette is an award-winning reporter and photographer, together with his most up-to-date achievement being considered one of 17 artists included in ENCODED, an unsanctioned Indigenous-led exhibition on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (From encodedatthemet.com: “On Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2025, seventeen Indigenous artists from across North America installed their own exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, taking over the American Wing as it ended its centennial year. The exhibition was unsanctioned. The Met did not know it was coming.”)

In sum, Jarrette says the grant will impression the general high quality of his artwork.

“It will permit me to degree up my merchandise, the supplies I exploit, and the way I {photograph} and share them with the world. It will assist present extra illustration throughout.

“Whether I’m telling stories through my words as a journalist, documenting moments through the lens of my camera, or creating contemporary jewelry that echoes the artistry of my ancestors, it all comes from my heart as an artist.”