Weaver of the Month - Helen Bia - June 2018

Helen Bia started weaving when she was 15 years old, taught by her mother Mary Yazzie Bia and her older sister Lucy B Begay. 

Steve and Helen have worked together for over 40 years now.  When he started the Navajo Churro Collection Helen was one of the very first weavers he turned to.  Her first churro weaving was completed in 1996.  Since that time she has woven over 20 rugs for the Churro Collection - and counting.  Click here to see Helen's available weavings.

Helen has won many awards at the Gallup All Indian Inter-Tribal Ceremonial. Her weavings have been in exhibitions at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg Arizona,  highlighted in the 1974 Arizona Highways Magazine and featured on page 6 and 33 of “The Fine Art of Navajo Weaving”, circa 1984 written by Steve Getzwiller and Ray Manley.

Thank you Helen!  Here's to many more years!

Here is Helen's bio:
Master Weaver: Helen Bia 
Born: December 5, 1945 
CLAN : Tangle Clan :Ta’neeszhni (Mother). Coyote Pass :Ma’iideeshgiizhnii (Father)

Helen writes, "Weaving is very important to me as it keeps me stable, brings me knowledge, wisdom and strength. Though weaving is a lot of work, and I mean a lot of work – I think of my weaving as my baby, so also love. I also enjoy the challenge of making new designs, it keeps me strong. My mother has been a major influence in my life and rug weaving.”


Enjoy a trip through time with Master Weaver Helen Bia, 1985 through today!

1985 - with her Two Grey Hills on the loom

1996 - Helen with her Teec Nos Pos/ Burntwater, Churro # 26, 4' x 6'

1997 - Helen with her Teec Nos Pos/Pictorial, Churro # 88, 4' x 7'

 1998 - Helen with her Teec Nos Pos, Churro # 160, 30" x 47"

1998 - Helen with her Ganado, Churro # 198, 41" x 61"

1999 - Helen with her Burnham Style,  Churro # 270, 30" x 42"



2000 - Helen with her Teec Nos Pos,  Churro # 225, 5' x 8'

2001 Helen with her Teec Nos Pos, Churro # 374, 41.5" x 61"

2002 - Helen with her Two Grey Hill,  Churro # 480,  43" x 63"

2011 - Helen and Steve with her Two Grey Hill, Churro # 1189, 3' x 5'

 
2012 - Helen with her Two Grey Hill,  Churro # 1261, 38.5" x 60"

2013 - Helen with her Two Grey Hill, Churro # 1320, 38" x 60", at Spider Rock

2016  - Helen with her Ganada,  Churro # 1477, 40" x 62"

 2016 - Helen with her Klagetoh/Three Turkey Ruin, Churro # 1512, 48" x 74"

Helen - 2017 with her Two Grey Hill, Churro # 1527,  40" x 61"

 
2017 - Helen with her Two Grey Hill, Churro # 1544, 2'5" x 3'3"

2018 - Helen's current Two Grey Hill rug under construction!  Size will be about 4' x 6'.  

Keep on weaving Helen!

Robin's Navajo Klagetoh Weaving of the Week June 5, 2018

KLAGETOH/THREE TURKEY RUIN NAVAJO RUG : HELEN BIA : CHURRO 1512

Nizhoni Ranch Gallery Featured in Floor Coverings Today, May 2018

Nizhoni Ranch offers handmade woven rugs

Monday, May 07, 2018
By Caroline Alkire

This Ganado-Klagetoh weaving was created by Navajo Master Weaver Rita Clah.

[Sonita, Ariz.] Woven rugs are wonderfully unique, and while they are (of course) great for spring and summer décor, these rugs are more than just a floor covering — they're art. 

No one understands this concept better than Steve and Gail Getzwiller, who, drawn to the beauty and complexity of woven rug design, began meeting with Native American weavers in the 1970's. Steve listened to their stories and soon started collecting Navajo rugs.

In the months following Steve was able to create a business out of his passion, and Gail started a website to grow it. In 2000, the Getzwillers opened up Nizhoni Ranch Gallery in southern Arizona. The ranch now sells handmade Navajo rugs.

"First and foremost, the differences between a rug made on a machine and one woven by hand cannot be overstated. Classic or contemporary, Navajo weavings will last through many years of use, as opposed to a machine-made rug," explained Steve. 

"Navajo Rugs are handmade with the spirit of the Mother Earth and the Navajo People,” explained Gail. “Navajo Rugs bring a peaceful spirit into your home."

Below, FCW has outlined a few of the rugs Nizhoni Ranch carries.

The Churro 1518, woven in the fashion of an Old Style Crystal, was created by Navajo Master Weaver Elsie Bia and is the second place 2017 Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial award winner.



"The Moki Blanket offers a unique narrow striped styling that generally alternates between dark blue and black or brown rhythmic banding," explained Gale. "One of the most historic Navajo weavings, they’ve been in use since the early 1700's."



Nizhoni Ranch Gallery, located in Sonoita, Ariz., features rugs, weavings and pottery handcrafted by Navajo Master Weavers.


See more Navajo style woven rugs on Instagram:

Steve's Navajo JB Moore Weaving of the Week May 7, 2018

JB Moore Crystal Design : Helen Kaye: Churro # 526 

Weaver of the Month - Kathy Marianito - May 2018

Time flies!  It's been 20 years now that Kathy has been weaving for Steve and Gail.  Today she is much more than an incredible weaver,  she is family.  Susan Sorg's article really tells it best!

KATHY MARIANITO IS AN ARTIST OF STRONG FIBER

BY SUSAN SORG

Western Art Collector August 2011

 Navajo weavers share this trait: creating beautiful things with their hands.  You can marvel at complexities of design or richness of color, but it’s not until you learn that life beyond the loom that you truly appreciate the work behind the work.

Such is the case with master weaver Kathy Marianito.  In 2010 she picked up more awards at the Gallup Inter-Tribal All Indian Ceremonial, including a First Place and Best of Category.  At the Indian Market, her work will be sought-after by collectors preferring “wearable art”, as she is the only Navajo weaver using silk and alpaca besides traditional Churro yarn.

This bubbly, creative, and caring woman who is 70-something years young is sometimes as complicated as some of her weavings.. or as innovative, strong, and yet as simple, because all those adjectives apply.  For the Navajos weaving is an inherited occupation.  Traditionally little girls learn it from their grandmothers, or in Kathy’s case, from her own mother, who learned it from generations before.  Kathy Marianito is a true descendant of master weavers.

Steve Getzwiller, considered one of the premier experts and dealers of Navajo weavings, knows very well of Kathy’s heritage. “Certainly her lineage doesn’t come any better, because her great-great-grandmother Juanita was considered one of the finest blanket weavers in the 1870s and 1880s.  Juanita’s husband, Manuelito, was one of the most prominent leaders of the Navajo people.”  It was Manuelito, Kathy’s great-great-grandfather, who was instrumental in negotiating the Navajos release from Fort Sumner and Bosque Redondo in 1868, returning to their homeland, the only displaced tribe allowed back on their true native soil.

Kathy grew up hearing about her famous ancestor, as well as tales of “The Long Walk,” The excruciating walk to exile, and then their triumphant return.  Growing up on the reservation in New Mexico, she also watched her mother weave.  “When I was really young, maybe 8 or 9, I stole her yarn.  I would put it on the fence and would ‘weave’ it there, until my grandfather found out and told my mother.”

Her mother finally taught Kathy how to set up a real loom and weave…lessons which at first did not come easy to the rather headstrong little girl.  “When I really started, it was difficult.  She told me to put it up on my own, and that was rough, but she just kept telling me to do this and that, and fix this and that… ‘You have to learn it, so you know next time to do it better.’”

She apparently listened well, because her weavings started to come quickly.

“I used to make six of them in the summertime, and I used to take them to the trading post and buy my shoes, my clothes, that I needed to take back to school.  When I go to boarding school, we don’t come home for two year!”

Kathy never forgot her mother’s words about how these lessons on the loom would stay with her, so she would always have her own income.  “I never forgot how to weave or to do things my own! My very own hands, my designs… that’s how I got started.”

There were other lessons too, such as how to wash the sheep's wool, and then dry and card it, spinning and dying it different colors using plants such as sage for green, sunflowers for yellow or green tumbleweeds for black wool.  “We tried everything,” she says with a laugh.

When she was 15, however, lessons such as these came to an abrupt end.  That’s when she was told she was about to be married to a man she didn’t really know.  “That was tradition,” she says.  “But I don’t want to get married at 15 years old.. got a lot of dreams and all that.. didn’t have time to hand around and be a wife.  So.. I took off.

The teenager rode her horse to the trading post, taking with her some clothes and what money she had, and boarded a bus for Salt Lake City.  And so her new life began, learning firsthand about the world outside the reservation, educating herself and becoming a seamstress.  She moved to California and had her own apartment, with only occasional visits home. “I’d come back to the reservation, but it was lonely because I was a city girl now!”

Years later, during one of those visits, her mother told her she missed her and asked her to stay.  Kathy did, but returned to the reservation with purpose.  “I got a job as a health representative.  I used to visit homes and take care of people in the community, working with the doctors, the policemen, the lawyers, and I’d talk to the people.  I’d almost lost my language, but that’s how it started.  Then I went back to weaving, to help my mother and to finish her weavings.”

Part of her job was working with alcoholics going through detox and she discovered helping people learn different crafts also helped them learn different habits.  “I taught grandmothers, young girls… I’d teach them to sew, quilt, how to design them, even how to make tools for weaving.”

Along the way Kathy met Lorenzo Marianito, a Navajo medicine man who also came from a family of weavers.  This time she did not run away, and their marriage has remained strong, like her weavings.  Her eyes still sparkle when she looks at them, and there’s a definite twinkle when she watches her grandson Sean, who often is by her side as she weaves.

Steve Getzwiller came into her life in 1998, after hearing about Kathy’s weaving skills.  That’s when she was making rugs.  Not anymore.  Since then the two have continued to raise Navajo weaving to the next level, being the first to use silk as a fiber in traditional designs, and the only ones incorporating alpaca into “wearable art.”

There are very few weavers who understand how to weave a blanket and not a rug.” Says Getzwiller.  “A rug would not be comfortable when worn, while a blanket will drape and fit your form.  It has to do with how she warps her loom and how she packs it, and that sort of thing,” he explains.

Getzwiller calls their work together true collaboration.  “How it really works,” he said with a laugh,
“is I tell her what I want, and then she does what she wants!”

He’s the first to tell you, though, that the results are timeless.  “Her work is a major departure from contemporary Navajo weaving.  I hate to use the term ‘revival’ but it’s about bringing some of the best things that came before back to the forefront.”

As Kathy excels in new forms of her art, the traditions grow stronger.  She recalls when she was little, listening wide-eyed to elderly women relatives, the nieces of Manuelito.  “Their stories about ‘The long Walk” …they never forgot the walk,” she says.  “And I used to think, “What a wonderful way to be so strong, to walk that far and come back.”

It’s not just the mechanics, but the passion from within which truly sets an artist apart.  Such is the way with Kathy Marianito, who is strong enough to walk so far and still come back to her roots.    

Check out all of Kathy's work!  

Robin's Pick of the Week

TWO GREY HILLS NAVAJO RUG : ELSIE BIA : CHURRO 1563 

Hot off the loom and beautiful!!!

This is a very special weaving for us.  In March 2018 at the Nizhoni Ranch Gallery opening of the Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hills Exhibit,  Master weaver Elsie Bia was here demonstrating her skills while weaving this Two Grey Hills.  She was so gracious to allow us to watch her weave.  It was such a rare opportunity!

Elsie told us the border gave her the fits, and ever the perfectionist she took it out several times before she was pleased!  Take a close look at the border design and you will understand.

This weaving is a tribute piece to Ellen Begay who was from the Three Turkey Ruin area.  Elsie's version has vegetal dyed indigo blue highlights.  It is 3' x 5'.

Give me a call so we can talk more about this fantastic weaving!

Robin
520-455-5020

Navajo Sandpaintings - Navajo Religious World

The Navajo Sandpainting Weaving is ranked among the Navajo's best known and best loved art forms. The original Navajo dry painting is traditionally performed for religious or medicinal purposes and is an integral part of the Yei Be Chei Ceremonies, which can last up to 9 days. The sand paintings and ceremonies are designed to summon supernatural forces... they represent the Navajo's religious world and are customarily part of ceremonies to heal and restore a patient that is out of balance.

The Navajo Sandpainting Textile is an art form that owes its existence to Weaver, Artist and Medicine Man Hasteen Klah (1867 - 1937).

Until the 1930's the idea of a Navajo putting a sand painting in a rug was thought to bring them bad luck. However, Mary Wheelwright supported and encouraged Hosteen Klah to weave a sand painting design into a blanket to have a permanent documentation for future Navajo weavers and medicine people. Hasteen Klah went on to produce many blankets, drawings and paintings of various ceremonial designs. After awhile, other weavers, seeing that nothing bad happened to Klah, also started to weave the Sandpainting designs.

Mary Cabot Wheelwright who founded the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in 1937, was permitted to record many of Klah's songs and directed the museum to preserve his medicine knowledge and his sacred objects.

Hasteen Klah knew 5 Chant Ways (ceremonies and their sandpaintings) and 3 of them died with him. A man sensitive to time and tradition did what he could in his lifetime to preserve them.

To view our Sandpainting collection please click here

Beth's Navajo Weaving of the Week April 23 2018

3RD PHASE NAVAJO CHIEF BLANKET : KATHY MARIANITO : CHURRO 1506

I love Chief blankets.  The colors, the dimensions and the linear designs.  You can wear them,  throw them on a bed,  over the back of a couch,  hang on a wall , well... you get the idea.

This piece is woven with beautiful browns, indigo, cochineal red, and white. It measures 4'7" x 5'7".  Circa 2015.  

This was woven by Kathy Marianito.  The Marianito Family (Kathy, Jamie, Lucie, Jalucie, Laverta, Julia Upshaw and more) have been weaving for Steve since the late 1990's.  When you see one of our Churro Chief Blankets, I can pretty much guarantee it is woven by a member of the Marianito Family. 

Master Weaver Kathy Marianito

Chief Manuelito, who was a prominent Navajo leader before, during and after Bosque Redondo is Kathy's Great Great Grandfather.  Kathy's design inspiration for this weaving came from a blanket she remembers her Great Great Grandmother wove for Manuelito. 

Watch this video of Kathy explaining the design and the significance of the stars in this weaving.

Have a great week!

Beth
520-455-5020

Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hill Exhibit Special Reception

In March 2018 we held a special reception for our Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hills exhibit at the Nizhoni Ranch Gallery in Sonoita Arizona.

We were so fortunate to have Master Weaver Elsie Begay and her grand children Natalie and Dylan join us for this special occasion.  Elsie and her grand children were kind enough to bring their looms and allowed us to watch them weave.  

The Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hills exhibit highlights differing phases of influence on the Navajo weaver, in the Two Grey Hills area. Showcasing historic textiles we have collected over the years, as well as those commissioned from weavers we have worked with over the last 45 years.

This exhibit has been extremely successful and nearing a sell out. We are offering a 20% discount to those who call and reference this blog 520-455-5020. To view the Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hill catalog along with our entire collection, please visit our website, www.NavajoRug.Com.


A capacity crowd at the Nizhoni Ranch Gallery as Steve Getzwiller takes the crowd through a personal tour of the Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hills Exhibit.

Master Weaver Elsie Bia with her two grandchildren, Dylan and Natalie all demonstrating their weaving skills. Dylan and Natalie are both weaving their first rugs.

Below is a little more information about the exhibit:

Historically traders encouraged unique signature designs for Navajo rugs in their particular area, in this case Toadlena and Two Grey Hills, to enhance marketability and cultivate regional styles. Sheep and their wool were vital to the livelihood of the Navajo. Using this natural resource of the sheep's wool to make rugs, weavers created a viable economic collaboration with post traders. The traders helped the Navajo by marketing the rugs they made beyond the borders of the reservation to the rest of the country. This brought "beeso" or money to their artisan economy by turning the sheep's wool into decorative and functional goods.

Design innovation and progression by osmosis...J.B. Moore, the resident trader at Crystal (1896-1911), influenced the early Two Grey Hill rug design. The weavers from the Two Grey Hill area had summer camps for grazing their sheep in the Chuska Mountains.

J.B. Moore generally offered to pay a very fair price to these weavers depicting the designs presented in his mail order catalogs. The catalog designs along with the Two Grey Hill area weaver's preference to use the natural wool colors of their sheep, brought the design style of J.B. Moore to the Toadlena and Two Grey Hill areas, located on the east side of the Chuska Mountains.

The J.B. Moore designs, such as the storm pattern, influenced the Ganado and western reservation area weavers and contributed to the evolution of other regional styles such as Teec Nos Pos and Bistie. The Two Grey Hills regional style became more clearly defined by the 1920's, evidenced by the progression of the styles presented in this exhibit.

Historically Master Weavers from the Two Grey Hills area have been some of the most talented of the Navajo Nation. The elegant simplicity of the color palette, intricate geometric design, and expert carding and spinning made their textiles some of the best and finest examples of Navajo rugs and tapestries to emerge from the Navajo Nation.

Steve's Two Grey Hills Navajo Weaving of the Week April 16, 2018

TWO GREY HILLS - SANOSTEE NAVAJO WEAVING : HISTORIC : PC 135

Kids of the Loom

In 2013 Master Weaver Elsie Bia, along with her children and young grandchildren, visited the Nizhoni Ranch Gallery.  She came to bring Steve her latest weaving.

Over the years we have watched the grandchildren grow.  Each time Steve sees the grandkids he makes a point of asking when will they start to weave.  Turns out March 2018 was the time.  During the opening of our current show - Timeless Treasures of Two Grey Hills Natalie and Dylan brought their very own handmade looms and started their very first weaving!

No matter the age, all weavers are to make their own looms.  Look closely and you will see Dylan's ingenuity and imagination. 

With the influence of their Grandmother, we have no doubt they too will become Master Weavers in their own right!

 
Elsie Bia with her grand son Dylan and grand daughter Natalie March 2018 at Nizhoni Ranch Gallery

Natalie weaving her first rug March 2018

Dylan weaving his first rug March 2018

Robin's Navajo Chief Blanket Weaving of the Week April 9, 2018

3rd Phase Navajo Chief Blanket: Historic : PC 280

This is such a cool blanket.  I love the subtle colors in this weaving and the history is gripping.  Most likely woven at Bosque Redondo.  Under the horrific conditions and experience of Bosque Redondo, it amazes me this weaver could create such a magnificent chief blanket.  

This was woven between 1860 and 1870, which makes this 3rd phase extremely rare.  Steve says this could be one of the very first 3rd phase blankets woven.  

4'8" x 6'1" 

Call or email, I'd love to talk more about this blanket!

Robin
520-455-5020