Heard Museum Indian Market Part III
D.Y. Begay has been busy designing a mural for the wall of the Heard Museum. You can see a picture of it at the lower left of the photograph above. The prize winning piece that she’s standing next to goes back to some of her earlier work in dimension and combines an a spare design with D.Y.’s trademark asymmetrical southwestern landscape striping. Most of D.Y.’s yarns are hand-dyed, a trend with many top weavers. D.Y. uses the soak water from black beans as a source of color for some her darker yarns.
TahNiiBaa Naataanii was already busy talking with commission clients when I arrived, but she graciously posed with her shawl, entitled Mother Earth, a 2008 Divisional First Prize winner. TahNiiBaa also hand-dyes many of her yarns and does interesting work with shaped pieces. She also had a shaped vest that I didn’t get a picture of and she’s understandably protective of the techniques used to produce this type of weaving.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll visit with Sarah Natani, Gloria Jean Begay and Mary Henderson Begay.
Mary did indeed retire from Hubbell shortly before her mother, Grace Henderson Nez, passed away in 2006. She is still very actively weaving and sells her work through Shush Yaz in Gallup and at Hubbell. I saw her recently at the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction. Anne Hedlund’s Reflections of the Weaver’s World contains a biographical article on Mary as does the more recent Weaver’s Way by Carter and Dodie Allen.
Mary is a delightful and gracious lady in addition to being a highly skilled master weaver.
I’m interested in Mary Henderson Begay’s weavings when she was a Master Weaver at Hubble Trading Post. We traveled through the Post about 5 years ago and had the pleasure of observing her weave. So inspiring it was that we purchased a beautiful rug that reminded us of a similar one that parents purchased from HTP in early 1930’s.
I’ve heard that Mary retired recently????? I’d realy like to know more regarding Mary and if she continues to weave.
Thank you so much,
David Byrd