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.

We are deeply saddened to share that Jackson passed away yesterday after suffering a stroke on Tuesday.

Jackson loved this business—especially the artists he worked with and the clients who appreciated their work. He often said he couldn’t imagine retiring, because this life was such a part of who he was. A gifted storyteller, Jackson frequently shared glimpses of his own life and experiences with you through this newsletter. His humility, warmth, and approachable nature endeared him to so many over the years.

Back in the 1960s, before we opened our first gallery, my Dad, Jackson Sr., had his office and Navajo rug showroom in front of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Durango. When he started buying and selling weavings, most of the weavings he had were obtained from trading posts where he traded soft drinks for rugs.

Without question, Bernyce Largo is one of the nicest people anyone could ever know. She is quiet and soft-spoken with a warm smile. She lives in Crownpoint, NM, and works with the school district there.

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing until just a few years ago, we had the pleasure of working with a group of sisters from Fort Defiance. Until the 1980s, they spent their summers in the Lukachuki Mountains near Narbona Pass (Crystal, NM) with their sheep.

Pictorial weaving has always been a favorite style of weaving in our family. Our father had a great collection; he and Mark Winter included several pictorials when compiling the Durango Collection, which is now housed at the Center for Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was not unusual for Navajo people to be referred to by descriptive names, primarily because English-speaking newcomers to the reservation had not yet mastered the pronunciation of the complex Diné language.

On December 6, 2004, Navajo pictorial weaver Isabel John and her husband Frank were driving from their home at Many Farms, Arizona, to Farmington, New Mexico, to deliver some paperwork for a new truck they had purchased the day before.

Many of our regular readers will remember Mae Morgan. She is a remarkable woman from near Crown Point on the Navajo Reservation. She began weaving at the age of eight and learned from watching her mother.

If you haven’t been to Garland’s Navajo Rugs in Sedona, it is something to put on your list. At Toh-Atin, we specialize in quality Navajo weaving, as does Dan. Dan’s father, Bill, and my father shared a love for the art form of weaving and the culture of the Native people of the Southwest, and they passed that love down to us.

In the late 1960s, my father purchased American Flag weavings from Bertha Harvey. She would come to the old Pepsi Cola Bottling Plant, where the Toh-Atin Gallery began, and her daughter, Bertha, was usually her driver.

One of our favorite weavers over the years was Ella Rose Perry from St. Michael’s, Arizona. She only lived there part of the time. She was a teaching assistant at the Crystal Boarding School up on Narbona Pass near the old J.B. Moore Crystal Trading Post. In the summer, she often lived with her sheep in a summer hogan in the Lukachukai mountains.