Abstract White with Central Band of Multi-Color Crosses

Untitled (10" x 16.25" - approx. 60 wefts per inch)
Photo by: Kevin Whitney Russell

I only wanted to do a couple of things when I started weaving this textile. I wanted to weave something abstract and fluid-looking on a light background. Like paintbrush strokes on a clean piece of paper. But that couldn't continue, obviously. So, in the center band, I threw in some hard-edged crosses.

My favorite parts of this piece are where the ends of yarn taper off into the white. They do so at the tops of the crosses, but also at the ends of some of the organic elements. Also, I love the colors in this piece, and I don't have a favorite. I am just as enamoured with the strong dark green, red, and yellow as I am the more subdued purple and light grey.

I think every one of my other textiles has very clear symbolism or story attached with the design. Pictorial elements are allowed in only after I can justify to myself how it is they move the story or support the theme, because I was a writer before I was a weaver.

Untitled (10" x 16.25" - approx. 60 wefts per inch)

With this textile, though, I only thought about the beauty of the colors I was weaving with. I didn't even think about shapes until I got to the crosses. Or at least I didn't let myself build the organic shapes from an outline, but built each form from the inside--what I felt it should be.

I thought a lot about what the inside of a dye pot is. Water and contents bubbling, awaiting a skein of wool to be dropped in. Then, the smell of wet wool, some stirring, and when the chemist-dye artist-color creator was satisfied the fibers were saturated enough, the wool being fished out of its bath with tongs, and drips of color across the sand to where the wool will be hung. I wove to this scene in my mind on loop. This scene in my mind on loop.

Colors Riot Along Lightning Bolt Rift

Colors Riot Along Lightning Bolt Rift (15 1/4" x 10" - approx. 62 wefts per inch)

I've had the wonderful pleasure of being a co-curator of a Navajo textile exhibition titled, Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles. It's on view through September at the Heard Museum, so if you're in the Phoenix area, go see it. See it many times, even!

As part of the process of choosing textiles, we got to visit and spend time with textiles from private collections. Some of these textiles, woven between the late 1800s and early 1900s, could have been woven today. I found one beautiful striped textile about 8 feet tall by 5 feet wide in the collection of Carol Ann Mackay and thought I'd weave my own miniature version of it.

This was a fun project that I wove quickly because I didn't want it to sit stagnant on the loom waiting to be finished. I imagine the original textile moved the weaver to weave it in the same way. We may never know the weavers who wove such beautiful, exact, and contemporary-looking pieces of art, but their creations continue to inspire and to instigate.

Nemo Hadeist'ii' Tree of Life

Nemo Hadeist'ii' Tree of Life (24.5" x 17" - approx. 64 wefts/inch)

In 2012, the Navajo Nation Museum, in collaboration with Lucas Films, dubbed its first movie into Navajo. In 2016, they partnered with Disney to dub Finding Nemo into Navajo.

For both films, they used Navajo-speaking voice actors. In anticipation of the release of Nemo Hadeist'ii' (Finding Nemo), I watched Youtube videos, especially clips of one of the younger voice actors, Quinton Kien, who played the voice of Nemo. I can't find any of those videos now, but click here to be linked to a news story.

These movies are so fun to watch! We have DVD copies of them both. You should be able to purchase them through the Navajo Nation Museum gift shop, but I didn't call them to verify, so don't be mad if they yell at you when you call to ask. #badjoke

When both films were released, they had screenings in various places, and as is always the case, Navajos showed up! I know, one of the main intents behind this project was to encourage or inspire young people to want to learn Dinebizaad (the Navajo language), which is great. I'm sure these movies are doing this. But what really tugged at my heart strings was a story I heard from a friend of a family who brought a grandmother to one of these screenings. This grandmother, a Navajo speaker, sat in the theater seats with her grandchildren and their parents, and laughed and engaged along with everyone else.

When I heard this story, I imagined my own great-grandmother, who only spoke Navajo. She and I conversed in fragments and gestures. So much of what we wanted to share or say to one another fell to the floor and was swept up as fine jagged-edged particles with the desert sand. There was always so much sand.

Although I visited with her, I could never have the blessing of knowing her. Now and then, my cousin (who was my same age and a fluent Navajo speaker) would drop by while I was visiting. I really did envy the free-flowing two-way exchange of banter and story that took place. Even though that wasn't me, I was grateful for my great-grandmother and for my cousin, that their relationship existed. How wonderful for them both.

So, some of us don't have the blessing of being able to converse with our elders because of a language barrier. But if I was ever lucky enough to even just share a movie with my great-grandmother and have us both experience the same story together, it's a small-ish thing some would say, but it's one that I would be willing to travel back in time for. I don't even know if she liked movies, but she might have if there were some in her language.

For this textile, as an homage of sorts to the Nemo Hadeist'ii' film, I thought I'd adapt the Tree of Life design by setting it underwater in the world of Nemo. Some key features of the Tree of Life design are the Navajo wedding basket with a corn stalk growing out of it and birds. These are meant to represent positivity, progression in life and spirit, as well as symbolize the interrelationships or connections between human beings and our world and universe.

For my Nemo version, I chose to color the wedding basket a coral color, as that is Nemo's home. From this, springs forth some anemone and seaweed. Swimming around the seaweed are: Dory, Pearl (squid), Marlin (Nemo's dad), Nemo, Gill, and Peach (starfish). Swimming on the outskirts facing alternating directions and serving as my design's side borders are light gray jellyfish.

I started this textile two years ago and put it aside (while I wove other projects) for a long while before returning to it. It was a fun piece, and I'm so happy it's finally finished. I'm absolutely in love with the background "teal" color I used for the ocean. For my yarn, I used yarn I purchased from Burnham Trading Post. Thank you for reading & come back again.

Hozho

Hózhó (17" x 14" - approx 64 wefts/inch)

When I was slightly older than a newborn, my parents were driving to my grandma's. Somehow, the vehicle slid off the road, and when it was all over, my baby self was the only thing no longer in the cab of the truck. They found me a distance away, still snug in my cradleboard, the triangle "feet" of my cradleboard stuck solid into the snow.

I might have made up the snow. But we slid off the road.

I don't think I made up the snow.

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I've heard this story a few times growing up, and each time I think, "Wow. If I hadn't been swaddled and secured into a cradleboard. . ."

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When I was slightly older than a newborn, my parents were driving to my grandma's. My mom had just picked up my father from jail. Before this, in some alcohol- and jealosy-fueled rage, he set our home on fire. He set our home in the city on fire while we were sleeping next door at our neighbor's because she knew he'd been drinking heavily and was all too familiar with what that led to. When he found we weren't home, it led to his setting any nearby thing that would light onto the burners and turning up the heat.

I know I'm mixing stories together.

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What I learned about trauma and memory is sometimes, the person who has undergone trauma experiences every painful thing as a sort of soup. All the messy parts from long ago and just yesterday simmer alongside one another with no real order, getting more and more stirred and melded together each time they're regurgitated by the post-traumatized brain. Which is why I don't blame anyone for leaving out the left out parts of the early story version. Sometimes, it's the only way the story can be told or heard until it's ready to be told or heard another way.

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My young mother was exhausted and hurt and fearful.

On this drive, with me sleeping soundly in her lap, she told my father of the things that needed to change or she would leave. He pressed the gas hard, gripped the steering wheel harder. He rolled us off the road, and after they found me a distance away safe in my cradleboard with the triangle feet stuck solid in the ice, 

she stayed.

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It was difficult for me to feel at home anywhere after that.

We lived several places--with shimasani, in the basement of my uncle's, in a hogan at my nalii's, and finally into our own home again, which we outgrew almost as soon as we moved in.

I think about those first years living with shimasani. But now instead of focusing on my pre-school self, I try to feel what my mom was feeling, carrying more than her share of the work of raising three children under the age of three. What I learn by doing this (and I'm being kind to myself in saying it this way) is that I was too hard on her.

Hózhó (17" x 14" - approx 64 wefts/inch)

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"As humans we straddle the border between health and sickness, good and evil, happiness and sadness. According to hózhó, the purpose of life is to achieve balance, in a continual cycle of gaining and retaining harmony."

~unknown

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This weaving had me thinking of what hózhó looks like, in particular, as it pertains to the individual and to the family.

It had me revisiting the moments of my life that I have yet to make peace with and do things like list for myself those factors that I had no control over and own those elements that I did, and also know that how well I did or didn't handle things was largely due to how equipped I was at the time.

It had me tell myself that maybe I'll never gain peace over everything, but that didn't mean I couldn't still move forward. It had me allowing myself a dose of anger to be kept, and in doing so, allowed me to rid myself of way more, making space in me to fill with hopefully goodness.

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Hózhó is recognition of the healing/destructive power that is you--ownership of how your words and actions create your part of this world we all share. It is starting anew each day with a more grown perspective that builds upon the previous day.

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Which brings me to my post script.

I love my father. This and these are moments my parents have moved past and grew from. The ideal for everyone would have been that our safe place did not ever become a place flooded with disharmony. But things did, and as they stand now, my father is 40 years more settled and more patient and more kind. He laughs easier, at himself and everyone else. He isn't just dad anymore, but also grandpa, and his children and grandchildren are lucky to have him.

Water Is Life

To 'Ei 'Iina (13 1/2" x 10" - approx 64 wefts/inch)

I heard an elder speak once on why, traditionally, running peoples pray when we run.

Water is everywhere, he says.
Water is found in liquid and solid form,
in and above the ground, in the plants, in the animals, in the air.

Water is in us and all around us.

And when we speak and think harmonious words and thoughts, the surrounding water hears and feels that harmony.

And when we speak and think disharmonious words and thoughts, the water also hears and feels that disharmony.

To 'Ei 'Iina (13 1/2" x 10" - approx 64 wefts/inch)

This is our power,
this knowledge that when we run,
our feet move across
as much earth as as our feet move across,

that when we run and pray, the vessel that houses our wishes and gratitudes connects with more than when we sit or kneel

that when we run, our lungs take in and expel
air--part water molecules--H20 times two, times three, times four.

Creators, pray.

DNA & Music

DNA & Music (18 1/2" tall X 12 3/4" wide - approx. 26 wefts/inch)

I've been interested in integrating more traditional designs into my weavings to juxtapose alongside my more contemporary ones. For this piece, I settled on the 3rd Phase Chief Blanket design. I just really like the move from blue, black, and white stripes (1st phase) into the merging of stripes with a broken border of step diagonals (2nd and 3rd phases).

I also was aiming to move away from my "very bright" color palette and wanted to step out of my box and try out more natural grays, greens, and browns. So, for the 3rd Phase Chief Blanket portion of my design (background), I stuck to those colors as much as possible and only allowed myself the smallest amount of blue for the music notes and for the "sparkles" at the ends of the arms of the crosses because this blue is so gorgeous, who could resist? Not me.

The main part of my design, you might recognize as the DNA double helix. The colors that make up the two spirals of phosphate backbone are the colors of the rainbow and the same colors used to represent the LGBTQ community. For the DNA strands, I used audio tape. Feel free to visit the blog post prior to this one for more insight into the music and artist(s) recorded on the tape and the reason for the incorporation of audio tape as weft.

I am very proud of the way this weaving came out, both visually and technically. This project felt "complete" when I sent it away to its new home, which is not something that happens with every piece. In my experience, there are always those tweaks that you wish you could make to a finished piece. Not with this one... It may be because some creations create themselves.

     

Cassette Tape as Weft

Music on cassette tape by Ryan Dennison.

My current piece and the next few are my attempt at exploring the relationship between sound and self-actualization or sound and Creation. Or, the voicing of either oneself or a people into being, into existence, or into newness.

We've perhaps all heard the story of how light was born. All was dark and quiet, and then Someone said, "Let there be Light." And it has never left us since.

And the story of a Five-Fingered People declaring themselves so, and they were, are.

And that People giving names to Places, and Plants, and Animals so that they too would be.

And that People, too, when one of them passes over to where dead people go, don't ever voice his or her name again.

It must be because sound breaches boundaries and dimensions and it is tangible waves that can reach and pull and bring forth.

Babies, before they are born, wrap themselves in the sound of their mother's heartbeat. They stay warm with that sound, and there is nothing else that will keep them here until they are strong enough.

And they would stay there in the womb and be crushed by it if outside sounds didn't draw them out.

So, I incorporate into my current weaving the only "string" I know that has sound attached.

Music on cassette tape by Ryan Dennison.

I saw Ryan Dennison perform a couple times, the last time at the 1Spot Gallery in Phoenix, Arizona. It was an enthralling performance in which he used a "Navajo loom" to create music. Perfectly fitting, don't you think?

Even more perfect is earlier this summer, I ordered a hat from Ryan. Along with my order, he enclosed this tape. I was so excited, especially since I haven't played one of these in at least a decade, and my son and I had an enjoyable night of listening together. Afterwards, I sent Ryan a note asking his permission to allow me to use his tape in my current project. How could I not? When the Universe sends you something, it is already done and you don't question, just move forward. ;)

I've included a link to Ryan's music above and in the photo caption. Please, listen and send Ryan your wonderful feedback.