Coda

Where it all began:

Spider Rock

Odyssey's End

We finished weaving Wednesday afternoon and began the return trip.

My piece

 We spent the night in Gallup, New Mexico and in the morning headed to Toadlena Trading Post.  Once again we were treated to a magnificent display of historic textiles (as well as a magnificeng lunch).

Then it was on to Durango and our last scheduled event, a reception at the Toh-Atin Gallery and more great rugs.  On Friday we went our separate ways.

When I began this account I decided not to mention the name of the tour, in case it should turn out to be unsuccessful and my discussion an embarrassment.  It was, in fact, a great success, and the company is Loomdancer Weaving Odysseys.  It is a small company run by Cari Malver and her husband, and Cari is the one leading the tours.  A weaver herself, she is dynamic and resourceful and has a knack for opening doors, feeding her hungry charges, and solving the inevitable problems.  The group consisted of fourteen during the weaving, slightly less before and after, all but one women.  We were a diverse group in terms of age, geography and weaving experience but all were intelligent and enthusiastic and eager to make everything work.  For anyone interested, Cari’s tours are focused on weaving, on learning and doing, and on the history and social role of a certain weaving type.  There is a useful web site (loomdancerodysseys.com) with more information.

Some Traces of the Ancient Ones

There Seems to be a basic human urge to write on walls

More Canyon Pix

Trying (and failing) to emulate Georgia O'Keeffe

               

Weaving

On Sunday we set up our looms on tables in the canyon.  We had been provided with worsted weight wool -- we chose our own colors and we each developed our own pattern.

The loom as can be seen was already warped.  The gray thread on all four sides is the selvage, and our weaving would fit inside of it.  The two  thin dowel rods, "male" and "female," created the space to place the weft thread.  The "male" dowel was threaded through alternate warp threads.  A batten slid alongside it and then turned sideways created one of the two sheds for the plain weave fabric.  The "female" dowel was lashed to the alternate warp threads.  By pulling it forward (which I found very difficult) the opposing shed was created.  The weaving, all interlocking of different colors and and all pattern shifts begin in the "female" shed, with the yarn extended from right to left, while the weft's return from left to right in the "male" shed simply laid down the yarn as already defined by the "female."

For most of the piece we used no shuttle, but placed the yarn by hand.  The first few rows were woven over and under two warp threads (we were not using the "male" and "female" system"); then, once a stable base had been laid down we shifted to the one/one plain weave described above.

For practice with the system we began with simple stripes in the colors we had chosen; only as we approached the middle of the piece did we introduce the pattern.

This was the first time I had woven a rug (a small one!), and so I was struck by how firmly we beat down the weft with the fork that was provided.  And after we had beaten it Lynda or Barbara came along and banged it down another quarter to half inch.  However, other weavers pointed out that rugs are generally beaten very firmly.

As the piece grew the warp became much tighter, and as it did we changed tools.  First we switched from the wider batten to the narrow one.  Then we were provided with shuttles -- umbrella ribs with a loom of thread through a hole drilled through one end to use as an eye, and eventually needles.  I confess I did not do this; I had fallen behind to the point that our instructors did most of the work on the second half of the piece.



Lynda Pete working on my piece.

April 24:  Denver airport

I've been awfully busy these last few days. Will try to catch up a bit.

On Sunday we moved out to the canyon.  We were accommodated for two days in each of two locations.  Outsiders can enter the Canyon only with A Navajo escort, and only in vehicles approved by the Park service.  A good thing, too.  There are no real roads on the canyon floor; in our three suburbans we rocketed over sand and mud, waded through the wash, and climbed up and down muddy slides from dry land to water and back.  Our drivers were spectacularly skillful, and won our admiratio.

The route we traveled by is visible in a view from the Canyon's rim:

A few views from Sunday and Monday:

Getting started

Last night we met for the first time with our instructors, Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas, two very distinguished from a family that has been weaving ever since the nineteenth-century flowering of the art.  They got us started on the project, with supplies of yarn, graph paper, colored pencils, weaving forks, battens, tools to hold the looms in place and small tools.  They immediately set us to designing our rugs.  We will receive the pre-warped looms today.

The yarn is Lamb's Pride, I chose the colors.  We were advised to use a dark yarn for the background and to avoid heathered yarn for large areas.  Then we were sent off to work.

After several days of looking at rugs, hearing about them from experts, considering purchase, we know far more about them than we did before.  All of which makes the adventure ahead more daunting, not less.

A note on gender.  The Navajos borrowed the weaving from the Pueblos after the Spanish conquest.  But while the Pueblos continued to use cotton, the Navajos adopted wool.  In their society women cared for and owned the sheep, and therefore owned the wool, which they then used.  Men built the looms and made the other tools.  Today weaving remains a predominantly, though not exclusively, female activity among the Navajo.

Canyon de Chelly

Chinle: April 18

We are inside the reservation, where the Navajo Nation is sovereign.  The Canyon de Chelly is sacred to the people, and outsiders are allowed to enter only with special permission and a Navajo escort.  But the rim of the cayon is accessible, and there we spent much of the day.

Durango to Chinle

Chinle.  Travel from the elegance of the General Palmer Hotel

through remarkable scenery.

Durango to Chinle

Chinle:  April 19


Yesterday was devoted to travel and shopping.   We also gained more understanding of what Navajo weaving is and is not through visits to trading posts.  A brief stop at the Four Corners Monument, and several halts at trading posts.

Durango

Durango is an attractive anachronism, a late-nineteenth-century town where tourists and vacationers have replaced earlier industrial development.  The visitor support a wide selection of restaurants, two historic hotels, and a range of boutique shops.  despite bitter cold -- 22 degrees early in the morning --  we spent a pleasant few hours exploring.

Later we returned to the museum, where the curator of the Durango Collection gave us a tour of the treasures in storage and then provided valuable commentary on the textiles in the museum's current exhibit of Navajo and Rio Grande blankets.  A rare experience, and a great send-off as we take off for Chinle and our turn at weaving the Navajo way tomorrow.

Arrival

Durango, CO.

Arrived here by way of Denver.  The first leg, by Airbus, was about as pleasant as one would expect.

 A good view of the airport and Neville Island on takeoff, and some nice clouds.The flight from Denver to Durango was considerably more interesting.  Stark mountain ridges, wonderful compositions in Browns and blacks as we flew over mountains, but sadly between interference from the propellor (Propellor! Yikes.) a dirty window, and no good camera angles the pix were very disappointing.  We flew over mysterious circles -- can anyone identify them?

The black and yellow intrusion is that propellor.

Later a visit to Fort Lewis College for a fine introduction to Southwest history, with special emphasis on woven textiles within that history by Andrew Gulliford.  More on Durango tomorrow.

Reality check

 

Reality check

It is said that in ancient times the goddess Spider Woman taught the Navajo to weave.  Well, maybe.  Certainly, among the various peoples of the southwest weaving is a very ancient acquisition.  By the time the Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century it was an established craft, and several different types of loom had been invented.  All were simple frameworks for stretching and holding yarn, without the mechanisms for creating different pathways through the warp that characterize European looms. 

But although the Navajo wove early in their history, they did not weave the rugs and blankets that now characterize “Navajo weaving.”  They had neither the wool nor the dyes to produce large, colorful woolen pieces.  It takes an effort of imagination to think of the North American southwest with no sheep, no cattle, no horses, but this was the reality before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors and colonists, who introduced the animals. 

Although a few earlier ones have been found, on the whole the tradition dates from the late eighteenth century and became popular in the nineteenth.  Like Irish crochet, Estonian and Shetland lace knitting, and European lace, Navajo textiles were a craft produced by poor women for the luxury trade.  Nor was it entirely indigenous.  The federal government helped breed the sheep that provide the wool, and when the work was most popular insufficient supply meant that the wool had to be imported from Philadelphia.  Although they were (and are) produced on primitive looms, the production of Navajo textiles was definitely a part of a dynamic capitalist system.