Weaving in Beauty

Bll Malone opens the door of the Hubbell home for the group

Ganado, AZ The final event of this year’s Traders and Their Neighbors gathering organized by the Navajo Nation Museum was a tour of the Hubbell home at the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic site.   The home is behind the trading post and has been kept as much as possible the way it was when Dorothy Smith Hubbell left it in 1967.  The home is built in the style of a Hispanic hacienda with five bedrooms surrounding a great room in the main house.  A kitchen and dining area were added after the main home had been built and are separated from it by a small courtyard to help reduce the hazard of kitchen fires.  Dozens of people ate their meals at the home on a daily basis, and I often think that if J.L. Hubbell were to come back to the place today, he would wonder why things were so quiet and where everybody was.  You can see a plan of the home below.  The drawing is part of Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site: An Administrative History, published in 1993 by Albert and Ann Manchester.  The entire text of the publication is available online.

Although I’ve been to the Hubbell home many times, this visit was special because traders Bill Malone and Steve Getzwiller and former historic site superintendent Tom Vaughn were part of the group.  Tom was the superintendent of the site during some of the formative years of National Park Service management,  from 1974 to 1978.  He was able to provide insights into the philosophy behind keeping the home as the last resident left it and into the daily operation of the site.  Tom told us that there were some people involved who wanted to return the home to it’s 1910 appearance, reasoning that this was the heyday of the home as J.L. Hubbell knew it.   I think it’s fortunate that the decision was made to leave the home in a state that reflects the organic nature of the building process versus a peek into a point in time.

Former site superintendent Tom Vaughn (left) tells Bill Maline (center) and Steve Getzwiller (right) some of this experiences at Hubbell

Hagoshíí (so long for n0w)
Mary Walker

Karen Mittleider (left), Linda Fasel and Barbara Nicodemus working on their projects in Window Rock

Window Rock, Arizona We continued weaving today, and tonight several students were approaching the halfway point in their work.  The picture above shows three of the students earlier in the day.  We made a switch in our itinerary due to the winds in the area today.  We’ll be doing natural dyes with Rose Dedman in Ft. Defiance tomorrow morning.  Unlike the last two years, temperatures are running above normal and the afternoon conditions are too windy for safe dyeing over an open fire.

This afternoon, several of the students went into Gallup with me for a tour of trading posts.  We started with lunch at Earl’s Restaurant.  The food was very good and we had the chance to purchase jewelry from Native American vendors as we were eating.  After lunch, our first stop was Richardson’s Trading which is home to the largest rug room in the world.  It’s a good place to talk about design and also to see historic rugs.  The early Ye’i Bi Chei below was one of several historic pieces that we  examined.

A 1930's Ye'i Bi Chei weaving, probably from the Lukachukai area

Going on from Richardson’s, we visited City Electric Shoes to check out the moccasins and western wear.  Leaving the downtown area,  we visited with Bill Malone at Shush Yaz Trading.  Bill told his history in the trading business and shared several unique rugs with us, including the special piece below by weaver Jenny Thomas.  Jenny has combined Wide Ruins and Teec Nos Pos elements for a striking composition.

Bill Malone shows Jenny Thomas' unique Wide Ruins/Teec Nos Pos composite rug

Our final trading post stop was at Perry Null’s Tobe Turpen Trading Post where we discussed the origns of the Gallup throw and examined the Wide Ruins weavings of the Clyde and Francis families.  Perry Null’s has recently acquired several fine weavings, and I’ve included a picture of a strikingly beautiful Burntwater by master weaver Lillian Joe.

Liliian Joe's Burntwater rug shines with vegetally dyed yarns at Perry Null's. Note that Liilian's rug is the green weaving. The picture was taken with it over another rug.

It’s close to midnight here and I need to be up early to get ready for some of our own vegetal dyeing, so I’ll write more tomorrow.

Hagoshíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker

A visit to Gallup

Our field trip for today was a visit to several of the trading posts and businesses which cater to the Native American clientele in Gallup, New Mexico, about 24 miles from where we are holding our class.  We started our day at Glenn’s Bakery, which is strategically located across the street from Navajo Spirit, the Western fashion business owned by Navajo fashion designer Virginia Yazzie Ballenger.  Since we’re a large group of ten, we went to Virginia’s in shifts so as not to crowd the showroom.  From Navajo Spirit, we went to the largest Navajo rug room in the world at Richardson’s Trading Company.  A visit to Richardson’s is always inspiring and rug buyer Larry Fulbright pointed out several of the more unusual rugs in the room right now.  One of the interesting examples was a pictorial rug woven by Pauline Glasses of Chinle, AZ depicting a Native American church ceremony, the first I’ve ever seen with that subject matter.

This pictorial by Pauline Glasses depicts a Native American Church ceremony.

Larry also showed us some unique Tree of Life weavings including a very large one by Eva Begay of Round Rock, AZ.  This rug depicts not only birds but flowers and animals, which is a bit unusual in a Tree of Life weaving.  Note the realistic fawns and ducklings at the bottom of the weaving, a hallmark of pictorial weaving in the area of northern Arizona around Dennehotso and Kayenta.

This ornate Tree of Life by Eva Begay depicts a variety of birds and animals.

Leaving Richardson’s we walked to the Code Talker mural on Second St. in Gallup.  Gallup has a very active program of municipal art and the Code Talker mural is one of the largest of many murals in town.   I took a series of shots and used Photoshop to merge them into a panoramic view.

The Code Talker mural on Second St. in Gallup, NM.

Here is a view of the inscription on the mural. The turquoise script in Navajo is a bit hard to read due to some weathering on the mural.

The inscription on the Code Talker Mural

We also went to City Electric Shoes and some of us got belts, boots and moccasins to complement our Western garb.  Louis Boniguidi, the owner of City Electric, talked with some of about his work with the Inter-tribal Ceremonial.

We went on to Perry Null’s Tobe Turpen Trading Post for a look at the rugs there, which were also wonderful and then had lunch with more shopping at Earl’s Restaurant, which is favored by the Gallup and Native American communities.  Earl’s allows Native American vendors to sell their work to the diners and our group made some wonderful purchases. Ralph Richards, one of the members of the family that owns the restaurant, stopped by our table to talked about the development of the business and the vendor sales program.

After lunch, we stopped by Shush Yaz Trading and looked at more rugs, notably some beautiful vintage Crystal rugs.  Back in Window Rock, we worked on our weaving and I’ll close with a picture of Bob Rosen working to complete the design portion of his rug.  Bob expects to complete his rug tomorrow.   Our class closes on Sunday morning and we’ll be doing a lot of weaving tomorrow!

Bob Rosen nears completion on his rug.