Weaving in Beauty

Two young fair visitors try their hands at weaving.

Tucson, AZ I spent yesterday (2/21/2009) at the Southwest Indian Art Fair, held on the grounds of the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  The fair draws a large group of artists from the Southwest and beyond but is smaller and more accessible than the much larger Heard Museum Indian Market that will be coming up in two weeks.  The fair features a “Learn to Weave” demonstration tent that hosts several Navajo weavers and a group of volunteers and demonstrators from the Tucson Handweaver’s and Spinner’s Guild.   Visitors to the tent can try carding, spinning and weaving Navajo style.   For me, it’s a great reason to drive to Tucson, see old friends and meet some new ones.

Barbara Jean Teller Ornelas spins a fine yarn for her Two Grey Hills style weaving

Barbara smoothes the yarn and coaxes out any thick spots as she spins.

This year, Barbara Jean Teller Ornelas, her sister Lynda Teller Pete and their families were doing the weaving and spinning demonstrations.  Barbara’s using a wheelchair right now due to a nasty fall that left her with a broken ankle and 14 stitches in one of her knees.  That’s Barbara at left using a support spindle to do a final spin on some of the extremely fine yarn that is needed for the 100+ weft per inch Two Grey Hills tapestries that Barbara and her sister are famous for.   Here, she’s fully draws out the yarn and is getting ready to wind it on to the shaft of the spindle.   I suggested that we might try a spinning race, and she said “OK, but I’m going to win!”  She had a good point.  I’m not too bad at spinning for a bilagáana (white person), but you’ve got to know your limits.

At right, you can see Barbara working to smooth the yarn before she adds any additional twist that’s needed and winds it on to her spindle.   I should have taken another picture later in the day to show how much yarn she’d spun.  It was incredible how much she’d been able to do considering all the people who stopped by to chat and lean more about the process.

Barbara’s sister, Lynda Teller Pete, also attracted large groups of people to her loom (see picture below at right).  She is working on a very fine Two Grey Hills tapestry that has a weft count of over 100 per inch.

Lynda Teller Pete shows her weaving technique to some visitors to the weaving tent. That's Lynda's grand-neice weaving in the foreground.

Lynda Teller Pete manipulates the weft threads of her tapestry grade Two Grey Hills weaving.

Lynda uses a black back cloth to help her see the fine weft yarns and passes the threads through the warp with a sacking needle to avoid damage to the warp.   At left below, you can see a closer view of Lynda’s hands as she works on the tapestry.   Although it might look like Lynda’s nearly done with this weaving, she thought she would be working on it for several more weeks.

Also demonstrating was Barbara’s son, Michael Ornelas, who is a very active weaver in addition to being a full time student at the University of Arizona.    Michael is working on a tapestry grade red background piece that he hopes to have completed for the the Heard Museum show.  That’s an ambitious goal when combined with his academic load.  I didn’t get the dimensions of the weaving, but I think it’s about 18″ by 24″ and even an inch would take several hours to complete.  You can see the partially completed rug below at left.  At right, you can see one of Michael’s completed pieces, a Transitional Blanket design.

Michael Ornelas' tapestry in progress

A transitional style tapestry by Michael Ornelas.

The show was well attended and although the artists say the have certainly felt the effects of the economy, they are adjusting their offerings and working to maintain the quality of their work at a high level.

Mary Walker

Many people, especially people who read this site, are familiar with the $500,000 Chief Blanket that was featured on the Antiques Roadshow and occasionally I get an email from someone who really, really, really hopes that they own a similar treasure.  I haven’t found one so far, but I have gotten to see some really interesting pieces and I hope I’ve been able to help the owners understand better what they have even if it wasn’t a six figure 401k in disguise.  Determining the worth of a vintage textile is a calculus that involves fiber identification, dye analysis and examination of design geometry and motifs to build a picture of historic context.  One of the factors that comes into play with 19th century examples is the use of bayeta, which places a textile into the period before the 1880′s and also greatly increases the value because it is very rare and seldom seen on the market.

The source of red coloration usually seen in Navajo textiles is aniline dye, either used to dye commercial Germantown yarns or to dye wool hand spun by the weaver.   By the 1880′s these dyes had almost completely replaced the earlier source of red coloration used in Navajo textiles: bayeta, a red woolen flannel cloth that was raveled and usually respun.  The  red color in bayeta usually came from carminic acid derived from the Mesoamerican cochineal beetle but laccaic acid from the lac beetle found in Asia was sometimes used.  The blanket in the picture below allegedly is woven with some of these raveled yarns, but is this claim accurate?  Let’s see…..(click on any picture for a closer look)

Is the red color in this Third Phase Chief Blanket bayeta?

From a design perspective, the weaving is a Third Phase Chief Blanket.  This is the last and most complex of the Chief Blanket design geomeries and it consists of nine diamond and triangular design areas superimposed over a striped background.  Second phase blankets use square or rectangular design motifs and First Phase patterns are simple stripes.  Third Phase blankets emerged prior to the 1880′s and were woven during the period when bayeta was being used, so nothing about the design rules out the use of bayeta.  Now, let’s take a close look at the yarns.

A close view of the yarns used in the blanket

You can see that the yarns used are smooth plied yarns with a beautiful patina.  This particular close-up also shows a distinctive detail that I’ve never seen in a any other Navajo piece: a twill weave section that seems to be a sort of signature.  You can also see that the red matches the other yarns in terms of size and in another view below, you can also see how evenly the yarns are spun and that the colors of both the red and black are very even.  You can also see the plies in the red yarns and you can see how well they match.

A close view of the black and red threads

The plies themselves don’t rule out raveled bayeta.  Bayeta yarns usually are respun and have two to six plies, and black cloth could have just as easily have been raveled as red although I’ve never seen any references to this.  The even spin of the plied yarns suggests commercial yarns to me, but this is based on what textile analysts call the “experienced eye” technique for dye analysis.   Further corroboration is the appearance of the areas which look purplish because early blue aniline dyes often fade to these shades.  How to tell for sure?  We would need to submit a sample of the wool to a lab that does scientific analysis.  Here, a small sample of the wool would be spectrographically analyzed and compared to known samples.  This is a technique that is usually done by museums or when a determination will mean a significant increase in the appraised value of the textile.   That hadn’t been done in the case of this blanket, but absent that analysis my opinion is that this blanket was woven with commercial yarns and not with raveled bayeta.

After I’d seen Marilou and Martha Schultz, I quickly checked my program and found that Roy Kady, D.Y. Begay and TahNiiBaa Naataanii were where they usually are, which is behind the museum.  While I was chatting with Roy, Brenda Spencer came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.  That’s Brenda at the right in the picture above.  She is working at the Arizona Public Service plant in St. John’s Arizona and weaving in her spare time.  It’s great to have her back in Arizona, but I know that her friends in Dallas miss her.

Also in this picture from left are Tyra Richards, Roy Kady’s mother, Mary and Roy.  The skeins of wool behind Roy are millspun Navajo-Churro wool that Roy uses in his work, often custom dyeing them to achieve the colors he wants.  He had won an award for the tack set that you can see behind him.  I also got a picture of Roy with his prize winning set, which you can see below.

Roy will be participating the 8th Annual Dibe’ Nitsaa Sheep and Wool Days in Teec Nos Pos on May 16, 17, and 18.  More on this event later this week.   Roy and his family continue their support and encouragement of the traditional Navajo lifeway and it is good to see his work earning awards.

That’s all for this evening.  Tomorrow morning, I’ll post a picture of Tyra’s rug and we’ll visit with D.Y. Begay

I’m trying out a new picture processing plug-in called PicLens. Once I have things working correctly, you’ll be able to see a full screen slide show of any post with pictures. Since I have some great ones from the Heard Museum Indian Market, I thought that this would be a good time to try it. You’ll need to install a free plug-in for your browser to fully use PicLens. Please let me know if you like this functionality or whether it’s just not worth the trouble.

I usually have to teach on Saturday, so I didn’t get to the show until Sunday morning. There was a line to get in, but it went quickly. I visited with Marilou and Martha Schultz first. Marilou reports that she’s not teaching as many classes this year so that she can finish some projects. She is doing quite a few of what she calls her computer rugs, which have patterning that resembles a circuit board, a very very complex circuit board. Here’s a picture of Marilou with her mother at left. They were both spinning and I wanted to sit down and join in, but if I had, I wouldn’t have gotten to see as many people as I did.

I visited with Roy Kady next and both his mother and niece Tyra were also in the booth. Roy had woven a full set of tack for a horse including a felted saddle pad, saddle cinch, bridle and saddle blanket. We both agreed that any horse blessed with this ensemble would look really good. I will add a better picture in the morning, but you can click on this one, or use the PicLens arrow to launch a full screen image or see a slide show. If you do, you’ll see Tyra, Martha and Marilou and Sallie Parker. I’ll be writing more tomorrow! In the meantime please try the PicLens slide show if you have a chance.