Denise Wallace, Chugach and Aleut Jeweler

Denise Wallace was born in 1957.  She is an acclaimed jeweler whose work is deeply inspired by her Chugach/Aleut Alaskan Native heritage.

Education and Career

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hottinger honed her craft in the late 1970s at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She and her late husband, Samuel Wallace, established a long-standing creative partnership, producing distinctive jewelry that fused their talents with her Native heritage.

Legacy and Recognition

The couple maintained a successful studio gallery in Santa Fe for over 20 years before relocating their practice to the island of Hawaii in 1999. Their collaborative jewelry has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, most notably the major traveling exhibition, "Arctic Transformations: The Jewelry of Denise and Samuel Wallace," which was organized by the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in Anchorage, Alaska.

TAGS: Southwest Indian Jewelry, Eskimo, Aleut and Chugach Indigenous Alaskan Groups