Lynn Bullock at the Heard Museum let me know this morning that the Heard Museum has scheduled a second Gathering of Weavers Marketplace for November 7, 2009.
Mary Walker
Phoenix, AZ I was out of town during the Gathering of Weavers on November 1 and Roberta Sauerwein graciously offered to write an article and take pictures of the event. I’ve heard heard that the event resulted in several sales for the weavers. I’ll be sure to let you know if it will be repeated next year. Here’s Roberta’s report followed by a gallery of the pictures that she took at the event.
Saturday, Nov. 1, was a lovely day for the Gathering of Weavers in the tree lined central courtyard at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ. The entire area was filled with weavers of all ages and tables covered with beautiful rugs of every style and colour imaginable. Gilbert Begay had several small rugs made from handspun, hand dyed yarns. He is also making small handbags from natural coloured yarn. Nathan Harry was weaving a round rug with natural handspun on a bicycle wheel. Marie Dedman had a beautiful Second Phase Chief’s Blanket and a Germantown Revival rug. Helen Edwards was demonstrating the hand spinning that is used to create lovely natural dyed rugs. She made it look so easy. Valerie Allen was demonstrating dyeing with walnuts. D Y Begay was demonstrating dyeing with Sandalwood and Navajo tea. She was getting a beautiful orange from the tea. There were also several of D Y’s beautiful rugs as examples of the range of colours that come from natural sources.
Just outside the courtyard is a newly finished mosaic mounted on the wall. It is a representation of a D Y Begay rug titled Floating Weft Mosaic.
D.Y. Begay's Floating Weft Mosaic on the northwest wall of the Heard Museum
D.Y. at the dyepot.
A Raised Outline rug by Florence Manygoats
Florence Riggs shows her seasonally approoriate pictorial. Ya'at'eeh Keshmish (Merry Christmas)
Gilbert Begay (left) and Nathan Harry.
Jane Hayden shows some unusual and innovative biil dresses.
Here is a close-up of the orange shade that D.Y. was getting from the Navajo tea that she was using.
A view of the weavers set up in the Heard courtyard.
Another view of the Gathering of Weavers exhibit area.
All pictures are courtesy of Roberta Sauerwein.
Cortez, CO I came straight to Cortez when Jennie Slick and I returned from our Boston workshop to attend the Southwest Traders Rendezvous. This event is sponsored by the Cortez Cultural Center and provides a venue for traders to discuss their stories and the past, present and future of the trading business. As you might imagine, there were some great stories and I’ll post some of those in the next few days. I need to get back to Phoenix, but I thought I’d post a couple of quick pictures while I’m having a second cup of coffee here in Cortez.
The picture below is a group photo of many of the traders and their families. I’ll try to identify the people that I know and I’ll fill in the details on the others as I get them. First row from left, Camy Begay, Kira Simpson, Grange Simpson, Georgia Kennedy Simpson, John W. Simpson, Minnie Malone, Bill Malone, Steve Getzweiller. Second row from left: Clarenda Begay, Steve Simpson, John D. Kennedy, Claudia Blair, Mrs. Steve Hassler, unidentified, unidentified, Virginia Burnham. Third row from left: Harold Burnham, Jim Blair, Vonda Blair Garland, Elijah Blair, Larry Tanner, Hank Blair, Larry Tanner, unknown, Bruce Burnham, Jeff Burnham. Fouth row from left: unidentified, Joe Tanner, undentified, Steve Hassler, Mark Winter, Jackson Clarke II.
Yesterday, the Rendezvous concluded with a rug auction and I purchased a piece by 17 year old weaver Cheyenne Flatrock. Cheyenne has combined some traditional elements in a fresh and contemporary way that I really like. Here she is with the rug.
Cheyenne Flatrock with her contemporary weaving. That's an 1880's blanket in the background.
Weaver Ursula Begay shows one of her Burnham style weavings prior to a Crownpoint rug auction in September of 2007
The Crownpoint Rug Weavers Association has released their auction schedule for 2009. The auction is held on the second Friday of each month at the Crownpoint Elementary School in Crownpoint, NM. You can get further details on the auction at www.crownpointrugauction.com. A typical month’s auction features 200+ rugs in all sizes and styles. The auction preview starts at 4 PM Mountain Daylight Time and the auctions begins at 7 PM. A stop at the auction makes a great addition to any trip to the southwest! Mark your calendar with the following dates:
Master Weaver Roy Kady (seen here at the Heard Museum) invites you to a Spin Off at his family's sheep camp.
Master weaver Roy Kady sent a note today inviting one and all to a Spin Off at the Kady family sheep camp near Teec Nos Pos, AZ in the Four Corners area. Please note that this is a camping experience on four wheel drive roads. Roy has included suggestions for the equipment you’ll need if you plan to attend. You can contact Roy for more information. If you are interested in this type of event, but can’t attend this one, I’m sure that Roy would be glad to know that so that he can build a contact list for future use. Here’s the information just as Roy sent it.
I’m finally getting the word out about the Spin Off Retreat that I had mentioned awhile back. It will take place on September 4, 5, 6 & 7, 2008 at the Kady sheep camp, Carrizo Mountain, Teec Nos Pos, AZ. If you would like a map and/or directions to the camp, please email me back and I will get them to you as soon as I can.
Thursday September 04, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm, meet at the base of the mountain at the residence of Raymond Jim Redhouse, about 2 ½ mile south of Hwy 160, see posted florescent signs, that’ll read “Spin Off Retreat” and follow them. We will then follow each other up the mountain, or carpool to set-up camp.
Friday and Saturday September 05 & 06, start with a morning circle, morning land walk abouts with Cindy Dvergsten and/or Arnold Clifford, anything from land monitoring, restoration, plant identification will be shared by participants and facilitators. In the afternoons after lunch we will immerse ourselves in Fiber Arts, until dinner, after dinner we will have a fire talk to discuss whatever we want to share. The Fiber Arts instruction available includes
- Navajo Weaving
- Navajo Cinch Weaving
- Wool Rope Braiding
- Vegetal Dyeing
- Knitting
- Felting wet/dry
- Other European Fiber Arts
Sunday September 07 at or around 10:00 am we will have a meeting to discuss future projects, share more ideas, and have our closing circle; people are more than welcome to stay around and see the rest of the mountain and/or spend another night.
Registration fee for the retreat is $25.00 paid the day of the retreat. This is a primitive camping experience, please bring all your camping gear, materials/equipment for your fiber arts, food for 4 days, sunscreen, hat, long sleeve shirts, warm coat for the night, etc…
If you have any questions please feel free to ask them, and please help spread the word to others on your email list, thank you and see you soon.
Today was the first day of the advanced weaving seminar that I’m coordinating for my best friend, master weaver Jennie Slick. We’re using a meeting room at the Quality Inn in Window Rock and everyone is off to a great start with the their projects. The idea behind the class is provide participants with concentrated time for weaving and research (not to mention retail therapy with area artists and traders). It’s also a chance to study the techniques of other weavers because so many weaving resources are concentrated in the Window Rock area. Some of us took advantage of that opportunity this afternoon and we started with a visit to the Inter-tribal Ceremonial in Gallup. Of course, we were interested in seeing the rugs and the display was truly astounding. Pictures aren’t allowed in the Exhibit Hall, so all I can say is that we were awed by the magnificent weavings. Many of the prizewinning pieces were not only masterpieces of design and weaving skill, but they were woven with custom dyed yarns. The judges had a difficult task that I certainly wouldn’t want to do.
Leaving the Exhibit Hall, we visited the pow-wow arena and enjoyed seeing some of the men’s Fancy Dance and Grass Dance events. We’re fiber people, so the colors and designs of the costumes and the strength and grace of the dancers are a real attraction for us; it’s easy to see why these events are some the most popular at pow-wows. Here’s one of my better pictures from the arena.
A dancer at this year's Gallup Inter-tribal Ceremonial
After we left the Ceremonial, we went to visit Perry Null’s Tobe Turpen Trading Post in Gallup and saw more inspiring weavings, including this wonderful pictorial by Cheryl Yazzie. This rug depicts the Ye’i Bi Chei Nightway Ceremony in fine yarns and wonderful detail.
Ye'i Bi Chei Nighway pictorial by Cheryl Yazzie of Chinle, Az. Photographed at Perry Null's Tobe Turpen Trading Post.
Another wonderful rug at Perry Null’s was this small Burntwater by Lillian Joe.
Burntwater in fine yarns by Lillian Joe. Photographed at Perry Null's Tobe Turpen Trading Post.
We stopped next to visit with trader Bill Malone at Shush Yaz and got too involved with discussing rugs with Bill to take any pictures before closing time, but we’ll try to make up for it next week when we stop by again. Bill tempted us with a 30% discount on some Native American themed clothing, so we should be a good looking group in upcoming pictures.
We had some dinner at Earl’s Restaurant, a Gallup favorite with good food and strolling Native American vendors and then attended the nightly Native American dance event, which is held at 7 PM every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day on Gallup Civic Plaza. The Talking Eagle drum and dance group was performing tonight and we got another chance to see Fancy Dance and Grass Dance performers. One of the younger performers couldn’t resist getting into the circle and that seemed to be just fine with the older dancers. Here’s a picture of the youngster during the performance.
A young dancer learns his moves at the nightly Gallup Native American dance series.
I’ll post more on the weaving seminar tomorrow!
Navajo Weaving in the Media
