Weaving in Beauty

Southern Arizona is blessed with glorious weather right now; the days are in the low 80′s and the nights are cool. It’s perfect weather for outdoor art markets (and spring training too, I guess). The Southwest Indian Art Fair was held last Saturday and Sunday on the grounds of the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. The Museum is on the University of Arizona campus in a beautiful building which also houses the Gloria F. Ross Tapestry Center. The Center coordinates with several weavers to create an area where people can see demonstrations and gain a greater appreciation of the work that goes into Navajo textiles. This year, Martha Schultz, Lola Cody, Melissa Cody and Michael Ornelas were demonstrating and there was also a contingent from Tucson Handweaver’s and Spinner’s Guild on hand each day to help teach weaving and spinning to anyone interested.

Although I was busy demonstrating the hip spindle, I did take some pictures. I was very pleased with the picture of Martha Schultz at the right. She was working on a beautiful vegetally dyed rug and it was one of those unposed moments that happen now and then. I did crop out a pizza box that was in the background. Martha and her family members wove the rugs that you can see behind her.

Martha’s daughter Lola Cody and her granddaughter Melissa Cody were also demonstrating. Lola was working on a handspun and handcarded rug and Melissa was doing a Germantown piece that she’s given herself a year to finish. Melissa said that she enjoys her job as a museum curator in Santa Fe, but it does cut into her weaving time, which is limited to mostly weekends. You can see Melissa at left chatting with some visitors as she works on her rug. It may be a little hard to see in the picture, but Melissa is superimposing geometric patterns over traditional Germantown Eyedazzler patterns. She graciously answered at least 100 questions about how in the world she was keeping the pattern straight.

Lola had just started on her rug, but you can see the pattern emerging in the picture at the right. Her beautiful handspun yarns are in the basket to her left. I’m always glad to see weavers still spinning their yarns, and I hope that collectors will see the added value in pieces like this.

While everyone else was starting a piece, Michael Ornelas, the handsome and affable son of Barbara Jean Teller Ornelas was patiently finsihing a piece with a weft count of (now sit down if you aren’t already doing so) about 114. The yarn was literally as fine as sewing thread. The pattern was a simple and elegant chief blanket variant that promised to advertise any small error, but I certainly couldn’t see any. Michael worked all day and finally decided to complete the last couple of rows at home because his eyes were refusing to focus after six hours of meticulous work. That’s Michael working on the finishing at the left.

To get an idea of how fine Michael’s piece is, take a look at the picture at right. The yarn that looks super chunky is fine warp thread. I’m hoping that Michael brings the completed piece to the Heard Museum Indian Market this weekend. He’ll be there with his mother, aunt Lynda Teller Pete and sister Sierra.

Not demonstrating but also at the show were The Spider Rock Girls (mom Emily Malone and her daughters LaVera, Larissa, Laramie and Alyssa), Isabel and Mark Deschinny and the Laughing family. I didn’t get to visit with the Laughings, but I’ll try to amend that next week at the Heard. It’s getting a little late, so I’ll catch you up on the Spider Rock Girls and the Deschinny’s tomorrow morning, but I’ve got to include a picture from each of them. At left, you’ll see Isabel in her booth, and at right are LaVera and Laramie Blake with some of their Burntwater designs.

In case you’ve been worried about where you’re going to get your next Weaving in Beauty t-shirt or tote bag, you’ll be relieved to know that I’ve gotten a new vendor.  You can now find Weaving in Beauty exclusive designs at http://www.printfection.com/weavinginbeauty.   I’ve been very happy with the items that I’ve received from Printfection and they carry a tote bag that is large enough to hold a C-Cactusflower or Deschinny  maxi loom, which is very nice for people like us.

Printfection is a print on demand service which provides small volume customized merchandise for individuals and businesses.  I had been using Cafepress.com, but the image quality on their products has deteriorated markedly and they frankly just don’t seem to care about customer satisfaction at all any more.   I probably would not have noticed how bad Cafepress had gotten until I ordered new shirts, but I have recently started teaching a series of classes that concentrates on one particular rug design.  Students in the class learn the elements of the design and have an opportunity to create their own version of it.  We assemble the designs into a class composite and then design a tote bag or t-shirt that students can order if they want to.   The first seminar was on the Teec Nos Pos pattern, and the class produced a set of terrific designs as you can see at right.   Cafepress did an absolutely rotten job of printing this design on the tote bags I ordered  as you can see below.  They cheerfully refunded my money,  but didn’t seem one bit interested in finding out why I was dissatisfied or fixing the problem, so I started looking for someone who was interested in to doing a better job and found Printfection.  If you order something from them, please let me know if you’re happy with what you get.  Printfection does not carry as wide a variety of items as Cafepress, but their committment to quality seems to be much, much higher.

I’ve put a few shirt and bag designs on Printfection, and you can see all the class bags too.   I’ve just finished teaching a second class on the Ganado Red design, and those designs will be appearing shortly.  I think that it might be possible to do these classes as a web seminar, so if you might want to do that, please let me know.   The cost would probably $10 to $15 per participant for a toll free phone connection, downloadable handout and instruction on doing a design using Excel.

It was just a little too cold to wash rugs this morning, so I wandered out to the Dine’ be Iina’ (Navajo Lfeway) web site and found that planning is already underway for the 2008 Sheep is Life Celebration.  The site for the event next year is Tuba City, Arizona.   This event is low-key and high authenticity and brings together people with an interest in sustainable lifestyles.  Check the DBI site or the Weaving in Beauty Weaving News on my home page for more details.

During our October class, we had some great visits with people from the Navajo community. Barbara Jean Teller Ornelas dropped by (but, drats, I was gone) and Charlene Harvey visited with her son, Kyle (see them in the picture at right. When you talk with the weavers, you come to understand how important this craft has been in enabling people to provide for their families. Today, Charlene works at a school, but when Kyle was small she wove a large rug every month to keep a roof over their heads. I’ve often heard weavers talk about how they have been able to provide for their families through their work at the loom, even if sometimes they thought that the trader or buyer didn’t really pay them enough money for the finished rug. In fact, if weaving were only done for money, I’m not sure it would have survived. Weaving, however, is integrated into the whole life of the weaver and the whole life of the Navajo people.

The loom itself is a metaphor for the world; the loom is a little world for the rug. The rug itself has a spirit that will live as long as the rug is intact. To weave is to follow the Beauty Way, to seek harmony and balance. Jennie Slick says that when she puts the first row into a rug, she submits herself to the rug and “the rug just pulls me through. I’m just as anxious as you to see how the rug will turn out”. Some elders say that weaving chases away the evil spirits of poverty, that it is a good way to provide for your family; if you know how to weave, they say, you will never go hungry. Even as life in the Navajo community becomes permeated with satellite dishes and mp3 players, there is still an appreciation for weaving, which in the Navajo context encompasses everything from the sheep to the rug. There is still a desire to keep the craft as part of life, even among people who have no economic reason to weave. Weaving, it is said is a good way to make a living. Weaving is a good way to live.

On August 17th and 18th, Rose Dedman and her family instructed a third Weaving in Beauty Natural Dye Retreat in the use of some of the plants available in the Navajo homeland as dye materials. Rose opened her home and several members of her family participated over the course of three days, and there is preparation that is done up to a month in advance of the class.

Most of the plants are harvested the day before the dye session within a few miles of Rose’s home in Ft. Defiance. There are two plants that are somewhat hard to find, and those required some advance preparation. One is a plant called wild carrot, a member of the rumex family. It’s also called dock root or canyaigre. Depending on the age of the plant, the chemistry of the water and the dye pot used, the plant produces a highly colorfast yellow to burnt orange color that has been prized by Navajo weavers for many, many years. The rug at right has yarns dyed with wild carrot over 100 years ago that retain their vibrant color today.

The plant grows only in areas which have sandy soil and the right mix of moisture and temperature. Rose’s brother, David Bryant says that the plant migrates over areas where it grows depending on where the seeds blow and water is present. The dye bearing part of the plant is the tuberous root, which is found a foot to two feet below the surface. Some people harvest the plant near Rock Point and others prefer the Crownpoint area. We won’t say where we went, but we did take in a well known rug auction after harvesting the carrots.

Other plants that we used were mistletoe, sage, large and small rabbitbrush, coreopsis, ground lichen, Navajo tea and black walnut hulls. Here’s what the dyepots looked like before the yarn went in and I’ve labeled them to the best of my recollection. We also used freeze dried indigo and cochineal, which gave us access to a rainbow of colors.

Rose, her daughter-in-law and I are going to get together sometime this fall to do some more experimentation with the cochineal and indigo and see how many shades we can come up with so that we can make next year’s retreat even more colorful. I’ll write another entry on where and how we harvested the plants, but I wanted to get some news on the retreat published, and as always a give Rose and her family a big thank you for their help and hospitality. Another big thank you goes to the retreat participants, who come from all over the country to learn vegetal dyes the Navajo way.

As we were finishing our lunch break today, we noticed that one of the celebrated Navajo Code Talkers had entered the dining room. He was going to another one of the conference rooms, and we quickly realized that a camera had been set up for an interview. We were given permission to witness the interview on the condition that we be very quiet, and we were privileged to listen to Keith Little and Samuel Tso talk about their experiences in World War II. Both had been in various campaigns in the South Pacific and on Iwo Jima. After the interview, Mr. Little and Mr. Tso were kind enough to pose for a picture with our group . From left, you’ll see Barbara Spelman, Jennie Slick, Code Talker Samuel Tso, Judith Sutton and Code Talker Keith Little.

Much has been written and said about the contribution of the Code Talkers to victory in the Pacific, and it is gratifying to see that people are now documenting that contribution and honoring it. There will be an event honoring the Code Talkers tomorrow morning here in Window Rock, and many Marine Corps members are here this evening. Today, we were not only weaving in beauty, we were weaving among heroes.