Jackson worked with Alice for over 50 years. He released this newsletter a few years ago. We’re updating it with new details so we can share it with you again.
Alice Begay was the first of the five sisters from the Burnham weaving area to take the leap from traditional patterns to create a unique style that has found acceptance by collectors, museums, and other weavers.
After boarding school, she began experimenting by combining weaving designs from other areas with pictorial elements to create one-of-a-kind pieces. The first time she sold us a weaving was in 1981.
The weaving below, made in the 1990s and consigned for sale at the gallery, is an excellent example of Alice's earlier work.
It wasn’t long before the other four sisters began to follow her lead, and then it spread to aunts and cousins, many of whom lived far from Burnham. Today, there are many imitators of their style, but the Burnham sisters are still the best! And, almost 40 years later, these pieces by the Begay family are still woven with natural, hand-spun wool.
Alice was at the top of her weaving form when a family tragedy hit her hard, and for several years she stayed away from the loom. When she came back to weaving a few years ago, it was clear that she had not lost a step. Everyone in her family, and all of us at the gallery, are delighted to have her weaving full-time again. She and her daughter, Bernal, spend their summers demonstrating Navajo weaving at the Flying W Ranch in Colorado Springs, but she is back home weaving this winter, and they just brought in this Storm Pattern/Burnham style weaving, a style that she created herself and revisits with many variations from time to time.
This Storm Pattern adaptation is our favorite Alice Begay style. It is so tightly woven and has so many amazing details! When she begins weaving, she has a good idea of what the weaving will look like, but it evolves as she goes along. This Storm Pattern adaptation tells the story of reservation life and the storms of the Chuska Mountains, which are due east of her home at Burnham.
The top of the central pattern is a traditional Storm pattern with the two blocks representing two of the Sacred Mountains of the Diné. These peaks are connected to the center of the heavens by lightning.
The bottom part of the Storm pattern transitions into a scene of the Chuska Mountains and clouds, with rain falling across the horizon. These clouds produce the rain that flows into the stream that meanders past the traditional hogan, with families, sheep, birds, and horses benefiting from it.
Below that, the central part of the weaving is finished with a Teec Nos Pos pattern, interconnected feathers on either side, and then a Navajo Ceremonial Sash.
Lest you become too mesmerized by the interior of this weaving, don't overlook the intricate and unusual border, which is amazing in its own right!
This is an example of the art of contemporary weaving, by one of the Navajo Nation’s finest weavers, at its best.
Experts always refer to the early blanket-making period of the 1800s as the “Classic Period” of Navajo weaving. That may very well be, but there are weavers today, like Alice Begay and her family, who are making pieces of art that rival any of the old blankets. Of course, the times, conditions, and materials aren't the same, but in the history of Navajo weaving, great contemporary artists aren’t second to anyone. And, unlike most Navajo weavings being created today, Alice Begay's weavings are still woven with natural, hand-spun wool.
See all Alice Begay weavings in the Gallery
