Benson Ration

Benson Ration is a full blooded Native American who was born in 1953 into the Navajo Nation. He comes from a long line of silversmiths. His Father, John Benson, taught him all the fundamentals of silversmithing just like his father before him. Benson has been working with jewelry since the age of 13. He helped his father with his jewelry and watched with a careful eye so that someday he would be able to create his own style of jewelry.

Benson has developed a unique style of jewelry, which includes necklaces, bolo ties, and earrings. He fashions traditional kachina dancers from raw silver with a coping saw. He draws all of his designs on the metal freehand, no stencils involved. The unique aspect of his jewelry is that you have several pieces within the necklace for example, you can remove certain parts of the necklace and it becomes a pendant, or it becomes either a lapel pin, or other pieces of jewelry, which you can fashion into whatever you would like to wear. Benson also paints with acrylics and oil paints. His trademark is the fancy kachinas which he constructs. Benson signs his jewelry as: B.R. followed by a hoof print to denote his clan origin.

Benson is related to the following artists: Bennie Ration (brother) and Nelson Morgan (brother-in-law).