Weaving in Beauty

Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete with their class, niece Roxanne and nephew Terry at Grandmas's Spinning Wheel in Tucson.

Tucson, AZ  I just got back from a delightful visit with Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete and their class at Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson, Arizona.  Lynda and Barbara are doing a three day workshop and their students where having a great time.  The class will be repeated February 12-14, 2012, so now would be the time to let Vicky at Grandma’s Spinning Wheel know if you are interested.  You can email her at spinningramma@aol.com or call the shop at 520-290-3738.  Cost for the workshop is $375 which includes use of a pre-warped loom and tools.  Both looms and tools will also be available for purchase.  This is a wonderful opportunity to study with two master weavers who are also great teachers.

Barbara and Lynda have a nephew Terry who is making some wonderful looking tools, some of them beautifully decorated.  There are couple of pictures of one of his forks below and you can contact Lynda if you’re interested in more information on them.  I hope to be able to try some of them out myself! 

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker

The 2012 Weaving in Beauty Calendar is available for purchase in the Mercantile!  The calendar pictures were all taken within the last eighteen months and represent a snapshot of the year in our corner of the weaving world.  Master weaver Emily Malone is on the cover this year and she’s shown holding the start of one of her signature Spider Rock style weavings.  And yes, that’s quite the bracelet that she’s wearing!  Be sure to click on the picture to see a larger image. 

Each month features a weaving, scene or weaver that I hope will bring a bright spot to your home, studio or office.  I’m grateful to Bruce Burnham, Kary Dunham, Laurie West, the Brown family (Lula, Herman and Janelle), Anna Ashley, Pamela Brown, Mark Winter, Linda Larouche, Rena Robertson, Geneva Shabi, Richardson Trading, Niccole Cerveny, Vicky Blair and Virginia Burnham for allowing me to use my photographs of them for the calendar.   The calendar is 8.5″ x 11″, coil bound and locally printed by Alphagraphics.    You can see a preview of the pages below and use the purchase link to order your own copy.  They’re $15 each and can be sent via media mail, USPS or UPS. 

2012 Weaving in Beauty Calendar 8.5″x11, Coil Bound, Full Color, Printed in USA by Alphagraphics Qty

Please click on the picture for a larger view

Emily Malone shows off one her Spider Rock Pictorials, a new twist of the Spider Rock design.

Chinle, AZ  This is day one of our new class, the Spider Rock Girls Boarding School and I wanted to post a couple of pictures before I turn in for the night.  We’ve gotten the looms warped and Emily Malone and her daughter Larissa Blake are getting the students busy with weaving patterns.  Tomorrow, we are off to Burnham’s Trading Post for a little yarn therapy.  You can see two of the students hard art work in the picture below. 

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker

Two of our students get started with their school worK.

A magnificent image of Mother Earth and Father Sky dominates this picture of the weavings of Mary H. Yazzie

Mary at her loom. Please click on the picture and you'll see her face more clearly.

Tempe, AZ   I always spend longer than I plan to in the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills area and I came across the picture above when I was scouting out the Evelyn George picture in the previous entry.   To weave a round rug using Navajo techniques is to be initiated into some closely guarded secrets for both warping and weaving.  There are probably fewer than 20 weavers who can produce a marketable round textile and only a very, very few who can achieve the design sophistication shown in the weavings above by Mary H. Yazzie of Sanostee, NM.  The design depicts Mother Earth and Father Sky, who embody the universe.   Mother Earth holds the four sacred plants: corn, beans, squash and tobacco.  The Sun and Moon appear within Father Sky on the background of the Milky Way.  Hogan designs indicate the four directions of the Navajo compass and signify the Four Sacred Mountains.  This design would be spectacular on a conventional rug; on a round piece, it is astounding.  Did I mention that it is hand spun?  Mary’s daughter Marilyn does most of the spinning for her mother and frequently accompanies her when she demonstrates weaving at shows and events.  Mary’s work is sold through the Toadlena Trading Post.

The use of sandpaintings as a design source for weaving goes back to another resident of the Two Grey Hills area, the legendary Hastiin  Klah, a great grandson of the equally legendary Navajo leader Narbona Tso.     Klah was a noted singer or hataáłii.  He was born in 1867 near Ft. Wingate, as his family was beginning their return from the Long Walk.  As he matured, Klah became very concerned about the rate at which traditional ceremonies and their accompanying chants and sandpaintings were being lost to the onslaught of assimilation.   Klah’s concerns were shared by his close friend, Frances (Franc) Newcomb, the wife of trader A.J. Newcomb.  Newcomb’s book on Klah, Hosteen Klah: Navaho Medicine Man and Sand Painter is the definitive work on his life.  

Hastiin Klah’s obsession, shared by Franc Newcomb, became the documentation and preservation of Navajo ceremonial life.  As Klah sought ways to permanently depict the sandpaintings that draw the necessary deities to a particular place, he realized that they could be woven as well as drawn.  This idea and the whole idea of any type of record of the traditional ceremonies was and still is anathema to some in the community.   Klah and Newcomb persisted, however, with Klah emphasizing that these textiles were not intended to be walked on and were part of an effort to preserve these designs for the future.   At the same time, Klah’s textiles were avidly sought by collectors and he initiated two of his nieces in the chants and protections needed for them to weave in this style, so there are those who believe that his motives were more market driven than cultural.  As the most respected living hataáłii,  Klah had the stature to ignore the criticism and do what he thought appropriate.  Klah’s work attracted the attention of Mary Cabot Wheelwright and he collaborated with her as a founder of the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe., NM.   The picture below is thought to show Hastiin Klah seated to the left of one of his weavings, a Sandpainting design showing Mother Earth and Father Sky.  

Hastiin Klah seated to the left of a Sandpainting weaving. Franc Newcomb appears at right. A.J. Newcomb is in the white shirt at left. The Navajo people are thought to be relatives of Hastiin Klah. The young Anglo woman is the Newcomb's daughter. You can hover your mouse over the picture for a closer view. Thanks to Les Wilson at the Two Grey Hills Trading Post for allowing me to photograph this historic photo.

And as usual, I’ve stayed longer than I’d intended in Two Grey Hills.  I hope you can see how it can happen. 

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker

The Mercantile at the R.B. Burnham and Co. Native Treasures Show

Santa Fe, NM  I’m at Indian Market for the next few days as part of the R.B. Burnham and Co. Native Treasures Show at the El Dorado Hotel Pavillion.  Many of the weavers whose work is included in our class samples can’t get here, and I wanted to show them off and give them some exposure.  I’m not sure how much of the rest of the market that I’ll get to see, but I’ll get out as much as I can.   If you’re at Indian Market you’ll  find me at the table from 8 AM to 6 PM this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.   We’re getting thunder this afternoon, so I’m not weaving today, but I hope to get some done during the weekend. 

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker

Tempe, AZ I first met Alice Chischilly Wilson in 2003.  The Gallup Inter-tribal Ceremonial, which was perennially in financial trouble, was trying to raise money by sponsoring a monthly rug auction and my friends Hank Blair and Bruce Burnham were the auctioneers.  My friend Jennie Slick and I would go each month and help out.  If we were having a weaving class, we’d take them along.  Sometimes, the class constituted most of the bidders.  Let’s just say it wasn’t as well advertised or well attended as it might have been and the Ceremonial gave up on it after a year.  One of the neat things about the auction, though, was that I got to meet a lot of weavers and Alice was one of them.  Alice came from Oak Springs, Arizona, about 35 miles northwest of Gallup and she said that she was 85.  Hank Blair said that he had met her about 10 years earlier, when she was 85.   I bought another one of her weavings in 2006, when she was 85.   Apparently, Alice was of the opinion that 85 was old enough and I have no idea what her actual age is.

In 2003, I bought the rug that you see in the picture above and Alice agreed to have her picture taken with the rug as long as I was in the picture too.  To give you an idea of Alice’s size, I am 5′ 2″ tall.   She was standing right next to me and was not in a hole.  Alice stood a little over 4′ 8″ tall and appeared to weigh well under 100 pounds, even if you counted the substantial amount of turquoise jewelry that she was wearing.  The rug was a design that Alice wove quite frequently as she got older, and she said that she came up with it by looking at things around her home and at church.  She would combine different commercial and handspun wools in her weavings and some of them were vegetally dyed.  She used a lot of Navajo tea, which is also called greenthread, in her designs.  In this rug, Navajo tea colors the handspun wool that is the background for the trees in the upper part of the rug.   The yellowish green at the very top is probably dyed with sagebrush.

Like many of the weavers of her generation, Alice wove to help provide extras for her family.  It was something that she could do at nearly any hour, but Alice didn’t believe in weaving at night or when it was raining.  She believed in getting dressed up to weave, so you can picture her at the loom dressed pretty much the way she is in the picture sans the jacket and scarf.  Today, it is difficult for weavers to sell the kind of weaving that Alice did, simple and full personal idiosyncratic touches that don’t translate into appreciation of value.  My friend, Bruce Burnham, told me that I was doing my “due diligence” that night by buying the little weaving, helping to support a weaver toward the end of her work or at the beginning of it, but I really liked the weaving and Alice, so while I might have been doing my duty, it was also a lot of fun.   Jennie and I used the rug in class for a long time as an example of how handspun and commercial wools can be combined.  At one class, a student fell in love with it (and maybe with the idea of being 85 for 15 years) and it now lives in southern Ohio.

I bought Alice’s last rug at a Friends of Hubbell auction in 2008 (the tag says she was 85), so I can’t do any more due diligence for her work, but I really like Bruce’s idea that sometimes, you need to throw the ideas of profit margins and investment value out the window and just support the weavers.

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker