#Navajo textiles

[uwmspeccoll]

Winter Solstice 2024

It is cold and it is dark, but the Winter Solstice brings the promise of light's return and the warming of our world. To celebrate this most important day, we feature a naturally-dyed wool weaving entitled Náhookǫsji Hai (Winter in the North) / Biboon Giiwedinong (It is Winter in the North) held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) and produced by Navajo artist D. Y. Begay in 2018. This image, which is only a portion of the slightly larger work, is from our copy of the exhibition catalog Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists edited by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri Greeves (Kiowa) and published by the MIA in association with the University of Washington Press in 2019.

D.Y. Begay (b. 1953), a Navajo born to the Totsohni’ (Big Water) Clan and born for the Tachinii’ (Red Running into Earth) Clan, is a fourth-generation weaver. Begay’s tapestries encompass her interpretation of the natural beauty and descriptive colors of the Navajo reservation, reflecting on her Navajo identity and her family’s weaving tradition. This spiritual connection to the plants yields the natural colors that are transformed into evocative land formations on her loom. Of the weaving shown here, Jennifer McLerran, curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona and a retired assistant professor of art history at Northern Arizona University, writes:

Most of D. Y. Begay's textiles respond to the Southwest landscape in which she was raised and resides today. For this work, a textile produced with all-natural dyes and handspun wool, Begay traveled to Minnesota in the depths of winter to observe the land surrounding the Grand Portage Indian Reservation of the Ojibwe people. Over an extended period she observed changing light conditions as the sun and clouds moved across the sky, altering the hues of snow and water.

D. Y. Begay with her weaving Confluence of Lavender by Arizona videographer Kelso Meyer, 2016. From the University of Virginia Mellon Indigenous Arts Program.

We wish you a most serene Winter Solstice.

View posts from Winter Solstices past.

View other posts from our Native American Literature Collection.

[old-powwow-days]

The first major solo museum presentation of fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody (b. 1983, No Water Mesa, Arizona) spans the last decade of her practice, showcasing over 30 weavings and a major new work produced for the exhibition. Using long-established weaving techniques and incorporating new digital technologies, Cody assembles and reimagines popular patterns into sophisticated geometric overlays, incorporating atypical dyes and fibers. Her tapestries carry forward the methods of Navajo Germantown weaving, which developed out of the wool and blankets that were made in Germantown, Pennsylvania and supplied by the US government to the Navajo people during the forced expulsion from their territories in the mid-1800s. During this period, the rationed blankets were taken apart and the yarn was used to make new textiles, a practice of reclamation which became the source of the movement. While acknowledging this history and working on a traditional Navajo loom, Cody’s masterful works exercise experimental palettes and patterns that animate through reinvention, reframing traditions as cycles of evolution. Melissa Cody is a Navajo/Diné textile artist and enrolled member of the Navajo/Diné nation. Cody grew up on a Navajo Reservation in Leupp, Arizona and received a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts and Museum Studies from Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe. Her work has been featured in The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2022); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2021); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2019–2020); Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff (2019); SITE Santa Fe (2018–19); Ingham Chapman Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (2018); Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock (2018); and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe (2017–18). Cody’s works are in the collections of the Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and The Autry National Center, Los Angeles. In 2020, she earned the Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art.

Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies currently on exhibition at MoMA PS1 through September 9nth, 2024

IDs Under the cut

Top to Bottom, Left to Right: White Out. 2012. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 17 × 24″ (43.2 × 61 cm)

Deep Brain Stimulation. 2011. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 40 x 30 3/4 in. (101.6 x 78.1 cm)

World Traveler. 2014. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 90 x 48 7/8 in. (228.6 x 124.1 cm)

Into the Depths, She Rappels. 2023. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 87 x 51 9/16 in. (221 x 131 cm)

Lightning Storm. 2012. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 14 × 20″ (35.6 × 50.8 cm)

Pocketful of Rainbows. 2019. Wool warp, weft, selvedge cords, and aniline dyes. 19 x 10 3/4 in. (48.3 x 27.3 cm)

Path of the Snake. 2013. 3-ply aniline dyed wool. 36 × 24″ (91.4 × 61 cm)

[sorrysomethingwentwrong]

Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné),

“Woven Landscape: Monument Valley” (2023),

Mixed media: Digital collage of scanned Navajo textiles and photography,

32 x 24 inches (81.28 x 60.96 cm) 

[jadeseadragon]

Melissa Cody, “Navajo Whirling Log” (2019), aniline-dyed threads and hand-died variegated wool (photo Sháńdíín Brown/Hyperallergic)

Why Native Artists Are Reclaiming the Whirling Log

"The Diné symbol was suppressed for decades by a settler-dominated art market that conflated it with the Nazi insignia."

[harvestheart]

ARTIST WEAVER - LUCY BEGAY

NAVAHO NATION

[importantwomensbirthdays]

TahNibaa Naataanii

Textile artist TahNibaa Naataanii was born in 1967 in Shiprock, New Mexico. Naataanii is a traditional Navajo weaver with deep knowledge of her culture's weaving process. Her art has been displayed in US embassies throughout the world, and in 2022, she was honored with a Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

[de-mykel]

Marilou Schultz. Replica of a Chip, 1994.

wool mounted on wood

[aworldofpattern]

Paulina Alexis wearing dresses by Michelle Luna of Bitterwater for Redhouse

1. At the premiere for season 2 of Reservation Dogs

2. At SCAD TVFest 2023

[introspect-la]

WHITE OUT BY MELISSA CODY (2012)

[amartworks]

Ralph Lauren Presents First Artist in Residence Collaboration

Company partners with Diné (Navajo) textile artist Naiomi Glasses to create special-edition product collections for Polo Ralph Lauren

NEW YORK — December 5, 2023 — Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) today launched Polo Ralph Lauren x Naiomi Glasses, the inaugural collection of the Company’s Artist in Residence program, which invites artisans working with a variety of skillsets and mediums to participate in an immersive collaboration with Ralph Lauren’s creative teams. Intentionally focused on the celebration and preservation of heritage craft, the Artist in Residence program is part of the Company’s broader efforts to shift from inspiration to collaboration with communities that have inspired Ralph Lauren. The collaboration with Glasses, a seventh-generation Diné (Navajo) textile artist and weaver, is the first of more to come.

[isaacsapphire]

Article is Very worth reading, don’t let the long section at the beginning about a rug put you off.

[dippedanddripped]

RALPH LAUREN | Artist in Residence: Polo Ralph Lauren x Naiomi Glasses

[old-powwow-days]

Inherited Legacies by Darby Raymond-Overstreet

Currently showing as part of the Nizhónígo Hadadít’eh, They are Beautifully Dressed exhibition through September 29nth 2024

[abwwia]

Florence Riggs creates stunning pictorial Navajo weavings. Her charming masterpieces feature scenes from Navajo life on the reservation. Source

[dramatic-dolphin]

every time i make a tiny mistake in a textile project i smile because i remember the navajo tradition of putting an intentional mistake in a woven rug, because no one is perfect, so neither should be the things we make :)

[rrlexchange]

Loving this gorgeous capsule collection by designer and seventh generation #Dine (#Navajo) textile artist Naiomi Glasses. Naiomi's designs celebrate Navajo pattern work and centuries-old weaving traditions. Traditional motifs, like directional crosses, dragonflies, spider woman crosses, and others are found across this gorgeous collection. #RalphLauren #RRL #PoloWestern#Dinetah #NavajoNation #NaoimiGlasses #RRLwestern#RRLnavajo #RRLstyle