12/19/2025
BO JOE for JACQUES MARIE MAGE
I am very grateful to contribute in JMM longstanding commitment to celebrating indigenous art & culture, supporting Native artists & communities thru meaningful partnership & philantropy.
It brings me to walk on spiritual lands, meet and spend some very precious time with dedicated & highly skilled Navajo artists.
Every shoot i did for « The Last Frontier » collections felt to me more like spiritual journeys, awakening moments & gratitude feelings.
For this extraordinary collaboration, my work started 2 years ago when i received that call from : « Dim, we were struggling to put our hands on higrades stones, but Bo Joe just got informed that a special turquoise Apache Blue vein just got discovered in Nevada »
2 weeks later i was driving to meet Bo in Tonopah and spend a day at the mine with him.
He confesses how special this day was for him.
No jewelry artist gets the opportunity to be invited to dig & chose himself the stones straight out of the mountain.
Bo Joe only works with the highest and rarest quality of stones, what he discovered this day in terms of quality & quantity was litteraly unseen in contemporary turquoise mining !
Just witnessing his joy & enthusiasm was touching & made me understand how much this day meant to him.
Almost 2 years later, i travelled to Sheridan, Wyoming & spent time with him in his workshop to complete the job.
I got to see him work on those stones, and hear him telling me the meanings of every symbol, every detail & design. It goes way beyond being just beautiful, every design has a symbolic meaning related to cosmology, and paying tribute to Native traditions, ceremonies, ancestors, earth & his community.
Bo Joe’s dedication to his culture, and craft is emotionnal to see & feel.
I left Wyoming with a warm heart, at peace and feeling blessed my job as a photographer gets me to live such deep connections & meet such amazing & rich humans.
A special Thanks to Jerome & Steffy at JMM for making me cross path with such rare souls, witness amazing craftmanship, learn more about the Native culture & somehow help me grow spiritually while doing my own craft ✨🙏🏼
