Toward the end of the 19th century, Navajo weavers began selling their rugs to traders and travelers. Today, weavers are supporting their families with their textiles, which are slowly evolving from muted, traditional patterns to psychedelic, asymmetrical designs. Meet two very different weavers from the same family: Lena Williams and Melissa Cody.
Lena’s niece, Melissa Cody, has also been weaving since she was a child, and while she was in high school, she began to favor more contemporary rug designs. Ever since, she has received a lot of attention from Southwest museums and art shows. Melissa admits she doesn’t know a lot of people her age weaving rugs, but she insists it’s not a lost art. Lena has her own theories. “It’s hard for small kids to get into it,” she says. “They are too influenced by TV, and this takes lots of patience.” Finally, we met with Steve Mattoon, the manager of Garland’s Navajo Rugs, which has been buying weavings from Navajo artists since the store opened in 1976. Steve gives us an overview of the evolution of rug patterns and rug collecting. To see more work from Lena and her family, visit www.garlandsrugs.com or www.navajorugsart.com. Navajo Rug Weavers:
“I grew up watching my mom and my grandma weave,” says Lena. “On summer breaks, one of our chores was spinning wool and gathering plants to dye the wool. Rabbit brush was a common one because it was within walking distance and it turned the wool a yellow-green color. We used commercial dyes as well, but my mom encouraged us that if we were going to start with plant dye, we stay with plant dye.” Lena’s mom, Martha Schultz, supported her family with her rug weaving while her husband was working up north in Page, Ariz. (Martha, who is nearing 80, still weaves today and has her own flock of churro sheep.) Martha sold her rugs to the Museum of Northern Arizona and then Garland’s Navajo Rugs in Sedona. Lena was 7 or 8 when she sold her first rug. The buyer was an attorney in Winslow, and he bought her first piece for $30. “That’s what motivated me,” she says, laughing. Lena went on to work in the public school system after taking courses in child development at Northern Arizona University, all the while raising three boys and one girl. She would weave in her spare time, and she taught weaving to local middle school students. “I had them build their own looms,” she says. “Most families with weavers pass down their tools, but there were many students who didn’t come from those families so we had them make their own tools.” Two years ago, Lena began weaving full time. She says she works every day – “after I’m done with the cooking” – sometimes for stretches as long as 10 hours, sitting on the floor in front of her loom (with country music, often George Jones, playing in the background). Depending on the size of the rug, it can take up to one year to prepare the wool and complete the weaving. During our visit, she was working on a rug design featuring horses. “I’ve been working on these horses all week,” she says. “My son is my critic – he told me the horse looked like a donkey, so I had to take it out and start again.” One of Lena’s sisters, Marilou Schultz, lives in Mesa, Ariz., and specializes in dying her own wool using aniline and vegetable dyes. She travels all over the country, experimenting with different plants and creating variegated dyes. Lena says these days she purchases most of her wool from Marilou. She says it’s the wool and the different colors that provide the most inspiration, and though she will weave traditional rugs in designs including the Storm pattern and Two Grey Hills, she prefers more contemporary designs such as her horse pictorial or the vibrant Germantown pattern that was stretched on a different loom in her living room. Lena’s rugs range in size from 14 inches by 12 inches all the way up to 70 inches by 47 inches. Melissa has a penchant for the Germantown (also called “eyedazzlers” because of the rugs’ bright colors) pattern while some of her other designs are asymmetrical and feature psychedelic colors. Germantown rugs were originally woven in the late 1800s after the Navajos’ internment at Fort Sumner in New Mexico. The rugs are named after an area near Philadelphia where it’s believed the three- and four-ply machine-spun wool yarn used in rugs from this time period originated. Melissa agrees that not all Navajo weavers are pleased with what’s being produced by their younger counterparts, but she says designs change with the times. “The newer generations are drawn to the brighter colors,” says Melissa. “I also see it as a celebration that we’ve moved on from that period. We have an appreciation for the style and now view it in a positive light. People are afraid the younger generation isn’t going to take up traditional art forms and languages, whereas this can be used as a way to prolong those cultural values.” “I think that’s how my mom sees [Melissa’s] style of weaving,” says Lena, sitting on a couch nearby. “She’s glad the younger ones are learning. She’s always anxious to see what [Melissa] is working on. We know it’s going to be different.” “That’s always an uplifting thing for someone who’s just starting out,” says Melissa. “At times you have the weary feeling of, Am I going to be looked down upon for going outside of the box or will I be embraced? To have my aunts embrace it is very uplifting.” Melissa has been weaving since she was 5, and she’s woven two or three rugs every year since she was 8. She started out with traditional designs but began to branch out in high school. She left Arizona to study fine art at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. After she received her degree, she worked at the institute’s museum until recently returning to northern Arizona. Thanks to her young age and her bright designs, Melissa has received quite a bit of buzz in the art world. In February, she was featured in Native Peoples magazine. She also traveled to South Africa with her mom as part of an artist delegation exchange program where she learned about weaving in Lesotho and Swaziland. Rugs that were inspired by her dad’s battle with Parkinson’s disease were exhibited in Victoria, British Columbia. She also shows her work at the Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Santa Fe Indian Market and the Indian Fair & Market at the Heard Museum (this year, she won the Conrad House Award at the market). Next month, Melissa will travel to the University of Nebraska for textile workshops. Melissa’s formal art education has influenced her working methods: She sketches out her designs first for later reference; in contrast, Lena keeps everything in her head. The design process isn’t the only area where the two women are different. Lena says it’s hard to say goodbye to a rug once it’s been sold. “People don’t understand the process and how long it takes,” says Lena, who doesn’t keep her own weavings but proudly displays one of her daughter’s rugs above the couch. “I always want to know who bought it and where it’s going.” Melissa doesn’t feel the same. “Once it’s off the loom, I’m pretty much ready to let it go,” she says. “I like the excitement of what’s new and what’s the next thing on the loom.” Melissa says there is a demand for rugs that deviate from the traditional designs such as Chinle, Burntwater, Teec Nos Pos, Wide Ruins and Ganado. The traditional designs are specific to different regions on the Navajo reservation, but living in an area like Birdsprings where there isn’t a set pattern opens the door for creativity, say Melissa and Lena. “Trading Post-era weavings are always going to be in demand because that’s what most people associate Navajo weaving with, but there is a niche for other types of weavings, especially those that are more contemporarily influenced,” says Melissa. “Within the same category as Germantown you’ll find saddle blankets, two-faced rugs [ed. rugs that have different patterns on each side; Melissa’s mom, Lola Cody, is one of only a handful of weavers that can do these], circle rugs, twill and raised-outline rugs – other techniques that deviate from the two-heddle tapestry.” Style isn’t the only thing changing in the world of Navajo weaving. Though weaving is traditionally considered a form of women’s artwork, Lena says her sons have all woven once, and Melissa had a brother who wove a rug in junior high school. “I think 10 or 15 years ago, men might have been looked down on for weaving, but now there are male weavers receiving recognition for breaking that taboo boundary,” says Melissa. When the conversation turns to the topic of mistakes, Lena and Melissa say they’re a fact of life. The artists do make mistakes – just as many at home alone as when weaving in public, says Lena – but they can be removed. Lena and Melissa are both adamantly against destroying a rug with too many mistakes. “They are so time consuming and there’s so much that goes into the production of the material itself,” says Melissa. “Also, it’s wool, and we have that connection within our culture that you don’t waste anything – even when we butcher, we don’t waste any part of the animal. We carry those same values with our material. We have a respect for it.” “I think it is meditative,” says Lena. “You forget about everything else. Your focus is on what you’re designing. There are days when I need to get away from it – my kids want to go somewhere, and they are tired of me sitting here.” “It’s therapeutic, but it can also be somewhat tumultuous because you’re sitting there with your own thoughts, even if you have music or a movie on,” says Melissa. “Your attention has to be focused on your piece just because of the attention the technique requires.” Melissa also sees weaving as a way of communicating and connecting with elder family members, but the same could be said about communicating with collectors and other cultures. “My grandma doesn’t speak English – I’m connecting with her through textiles.” • Garland’s Navajo Rugs
Steve says weavers established regional rug patterns in the early 20th century, and books written about Navajo weavers emphasized those styles. While it’s not taboo for an artist from Chinle to weave a Ganado pattern, Steve concedes that some collectors only want rugs from weavers who are from the region of their design. Yet just as young weavers are beginning to experiment with different patterns, collectors are becoming more interested in modern textiles. In the 1980s, as the Navajo people began leaving what is now the Hopi Reservation, colorful and asymmetrical styles such as Newlands and Blue Canyon began to emerge. “There always has been and always will be rugs that don’t fit into specific categories,” says Steve. “Now collectors are more open to the expression of the weaver. Rugs are being looked at and appreciated as art. Collectors aren’t as concerned with the region.” Steve uses terms like “tapestry” and “textile” as often as he uses the word “rug” because he believes “rug” is a bit of a misnomer. While there are still weavers who create large, tightly woven rugs meant for the floor, most collectors tend to display Navajo rugs on walls the same way you would hang a painting. “There’s a reverence involved,” says Steve. “Buyers don’t want to walk on the rug; they want to give it a place of honor.” After speaking to Lena and Melissa and learning that they can spend up to one year on one rug, the price of a weaving becomes easier to understand. But Steve is quick to caution that rugs are available in a wide range of prices and a variety of sizes. He also points out that, as with Native American jewelry, the market for fake rugs has exploded in recent years. Rugs that are made overseas and sold as authentic Navajo tapestries can be found all over the Southwest. “The best thing you can do is buy from a reputable dealer and educate yourself before you purchase,” he says. •
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Looms of various sizes framing rugs in different stages of completion stand in Lena’s living room while Rebecca, on break from school, quietly works on her own small striped weaving. Patiently, Lena brings out the tools of her trade, pointing out spindles, raw sheep’s wool, carding brushes, clay collected locally that brightens white wool, warp, heddles and a flat board called a batten. Lena comes from a family of 10 girls and three boys, and she speaks fondly of the days when all of her siblings would gather in her mother’s house for carding, an early preparation process in weaving where the wool is combed until the fibers all lie in one direction.
Steve has been working at Garland’s since 1981, and he’s witnessed the evolution of Navajo textiles firsthand. Bill Garland and his son, Dan, opened the rug shop in 1976 in the same spot where it still stands at the intersection of State Route 179 and Schnebly Hill Road (411 SR 179; 928-282-4070). Word quickly spread among weavers living on the Navajo Reservation that the Garlands were paying top dollar for quality weavings – Martha Schultz, Lena Williams’ mother, began selling her weavings to Garland’s around 1980. Today, the gallery represents several hundred artists (some as young as 10) and includes an antique room filled with 19th century Navajo blankets and early 20th century rugs.
© 2006-2007 Bar225 Media Ltd. All rights reserved.
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