Weaving in Beauty

One of the participants in our seminar completed her first rug today.  Barbara Spelman is an accomplished fiber artist and a partner in Crone Craft Studios in Tucson, Arizona, which makes her a busy person.  Once a year, Barbara comes to Window Rock to study Navajo techniques and has applied many of them to her other work, particularly in the area of dyes.  Over the course of the past four years, Barbara has diligently worked on her weaving when she could and today, her efforts were rewarded.  Here’s a brief video of the big moment!

Barbara carefully folded her rug, and she and Jennie Slick promptly started on another warp.  Tomorrow, we’ll catch up with the other seminar participants projects.

Late this evening as we were finishing a discussion of the Teec Nos Pos rug style, our class was honored with a visit by 98 year old weaver Helen Yazzie and her granddaughter Lynelle Begay who happened to be having dinner at the Diné Restaurant next to the meeting room we are using for class.  Helen expressed admiration for the Henry Lee Dedman hip spindles that we had on one of our tables and told us through translation by her granddaughter and Jennie how she had been a spinner and weaver since she was a young girl.  Helen inspected all of the looms and we gifted her with the spindle that she most admired and some churro roving that we hope she enjoys.  Nizhónígo naniná doo, Helen.  May you walk in beauty.

Helen Yazzie with our weaving seminar group. Standing from left, Roberta Sauerwein, Jennie Slick, Liz Munk, Laurie West, Barb Spelman and Mary Weinzirl. In front, Helen Yazzie and granddaughter Lynelle Begay.

This was day two of our weaving seminar in Window Rock and we were pleased to have a visit with Morris Muskett who is an accomplished weaver and silversmith as well as a civil engineer with the New Mexico Department of Transportation.  (Full disclosure:  I also do Morris’s web site).  Morris’s work encompasses an incredible range of genres and materials.   Some his work is traditional and classic,  some is contemporary and edgy and we thoroughly enjoyed talking weaving, jewelry and art in general with him.  Be sure to check his site for a look at what he does.

The weavers in the seminar are continuing work on their individual projects and two of them, Liz Munk and Roberta Sauerwein are working with raised outline, a complex technique that introduces surface texture to one side of the weaving.  It’s a manipulation of a basic striping technique that Navajo weavers call Coal Mine or Railroad Tracks and conventional handweavers call Pick and Pick.  Basic Navajo weaving is a plain weave technique in which weft yarns go over one and under one thread in each row.  If the weft travels under the thread in one row, it will go over it on the next row meaning that there are two positions or “sheds” for the warp threads to be in.  In the Coal Mine technique, all of the wefts going from right to left are one color and all of the threads going left two right are another color.  Navajo often say the threads are “chasing” each other.  Raised Outline introduces further complexity by varying the colors in the rows as they travel through the row.

Here’s a look at the start of Liz’ project in which she’s also using variegated yarn dyed by Marilou Schultz.

Liz Munk's raised outline project.

Liz is combining areas of Raised Outline with plain weave.  Here’s view of the raised outline area close up.

Detail of the Raised Outline portion of Liz' design.

Roberta is going for a curved look to the raised outline area that she’s working on right now. She’s doing that by flattening the points in a jagged line to create the illusion of a curve. The contrast of the colors she’s using make it easy to see the outlined area.

A detail of Roberta's weaving.

Tomorrow, I’ll post some pictures of the weaving that class insructor Jennie Slick is doing.

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!

I’ve just learned from a reliable source (the owner of the rug) that Jennie Slick’s Third Phase Chief Blanket weaving has won a second prize ribbon at the 87th Inter-tribal Ceremonial currently underway in Gallup, NM.  I’ll be attending  the Ceremonial this weekend, so I hope to have more reports on the weavers and weavings at the event.

Here’s a picture of Jennie (on the right) with her prize winner and it’s also in this year’s Weaving in Beauty Calendar.  That’s Jennie’ mother, Anna Ashley, aged 90, on the left.

Weaver Jennie Slick (right) and her mother Anna Ashley with Jennie's prize winning Third Phase Chief Blanket.

PBS will be showing Bennie Klain’s Weaving World’s documentary this November as part of their observance of Native American Heritage month.  The film was shown at this year’s Austin SXSW Film Festival and depicts the intricate interplay of art, cultutre and economics in Navajo weaving.  There is a trailer on YouTube and I found an extensive review by Chale Nafus of the Austin Film Society.  From what I’ve read, the film is well done and thought provoking.  I’m glad to see Navajo weaving coming to the media in a format that goes beyond a travelogue.   I haven’t had a chance to see the film, but two of my friends, Gilbert Begay and Perry Null, appear in the movie.   Below, you can see Gilbert with me in a picture taken back in May.   We were at a Mini Sheep is Life Celebration in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona.  Gilbert wove the bag that I’m holding and one of the weaving classes that I coordinated bought the bag for me.