Yazzie, who is from the Honey Combed Rock Edge Water and Red Running into Water clans, is half Navajo and half Kiowa Comanche.

Artistry runs in his family, dating back to his third great-grandfather Haungooah — whose paintings are featured in a Washington D.C. museum — and his grandfather Cody Haungooah, an established artist in the West.

“The talent I have, I want to pass it down,” Yazzie said. “It came down from my great, great, great grandfather to me. My little sister wants to learn, and I want to pass that on. Passing on your talents to generations is a very important thing. We want to keep our culture going, we have to pass it down.”

Growing up, Tree taught Yazzie’s sisters sewing and beadwork. She has now been part of Indigenous fashion work across the country.

“I just barely picked up my talent maybe eight years ago,” Yazzie said. “When I turned 30, I started doing beadwork. My older sister and my mother taught me.”

Yazzie attended last year’s Sycuan Fashion Show as a guest, and asked if he could be part of it this year. The show’s director, Angelica Labrake, wanted to see his menswear designs.

Yazzie decided to decoratively bead men’s ties and hats.

“I emailed her a photo of my first tie, and she fell in love with it,” Yazzie said.

He was offered a contract to produce eight designs by September of this year.

“I am really honored by the Sycuan tribe including me in their fashion show,” Yazzie said. “I never knew I would make it this far, having professionals out in this world telling me ‘You are going to be signed to a contract for this fashion show, we want to see your work’.”

Tree is designing shirts and ribbon skirts to accompany Yazzie’s designs.

The show focuses on embracing and appreciating oneself.

“Our beauty is not defined by other people; we have to find that beauty within ourselves. I can see that happening with a lot of the girls here. That is my number one mission, making sure the models know that they are beautiful. They find their confidence on that runway,” Labrake said in the show’s promotional video.

Yazzie’s models, also local to Cache Valley, include his younger sister Keena Yazzie, Cody Cowboy, Nizhonii Anderson, Ryan Summers, Amanda Summers and their children Hunter Summers and Akai Summers.

Keena Yazzie and Cowboy will join Yazzie in California as models in the show.

“It has been an honor to be asked to do something like this,” Amanda said. “To represent the culture. It is something a lot of people don’t understand so it is nice to put it out there more publicly.”

The Summers family is from the Northern Ute tribe. Amanda said modeling for Yazzie and being recognized publicly means a lot and gains respect within the tribe.

“Being three-quarters white and one-quarter Native, it’s really hard to fit in,” Akai said. “Having my hair long and being darker, at school I get called a girl a lot. When I go to the reservation, I am not dark enough, I get called white. It is hard for me to fit in here and there. Modeling, I get to show that side of me more. It is an honor to do this because not every day you get to wake up and be asked to do this.”

Yazzie said everything he makes has a story and carries meaning.

If he was to stop working his day job and only bead, it would take a week of beading full-time to complete a beaded tie. However, Amanda said beading can only be done when one has good energy.

“You only bead with good thoughts and you only bead with good intentions and you are putting in good energy to your artwork,” she said. “If you are angry or frustrated, you do not do any of it. You put it down. He said it could take him a week, but if he has a bad day, he has to put it down and wait. There is a lot of energy and spirituality that goes into this work. It is not just an art; it is deeper than that. For him to make all of this stuff is impressive.”

“He has had a lot of good days,” Ryan said.

Yazzie said beadwork was difficult to get into, but because of his talent he has started getting faster and better at it. He started learning to bead with headdresses.

“Headdresses are very sacred; we do not allow other people to wear them,” Yazzie said. “I don’t make them for anybody. I give them to close family members.”

Out of appreciation and gratitude to Yazzie for including them in his work, the Summers gifted him an eagle feather. Yazzie was honored, he said.

“The Eagle feather is like the United States flag for us, it never touches the ground,” Ryan said.

Both Yazzie and the Summers said it is important to them to show Cache Valley the work they do and the cultures they represent. Yazzie said there is not a lot of Native American work shown in Cache Valley.

“Being a local, I want to show Cache Valley there are Native Americans here that do beadwork and art. We are still here, and we are showing our work,” Yazzie said.

“We are here, we are still living here,” Amanda said. “We are still living our culture and traditions.”