In 1936, Sallie Wagner Lippincott and her husband Bill moved to the Navajo Reservation as National Park Service employees at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. 

One of the first people they met was Leon Hugh (Cozy) McSparron who was the Indian Trader at the Thunderbird Ranch (which is now the Thunderbird Lodge and is owned by the Navajo Tribe) at the mouth of the Canyon.

One of the happiest people that we work with is Vercinda Begay from Two Grey Hills. She has been weaving for over 20 years but is best known for her miniature looms with all the weaving tools and yarn.

These looms are built of cedar and finished to be great display pieces in your home.

The Burnham weaving style would not have evolved without the determination of Anna Mae Barber. She is the oldest of the five sisters who created the weaving style. When their mother died, she took on the responsibility of raising the younger girls and taught them to weave. Anna Mae left a legacy of kindness and determination and love.

Navajo pictorial weaving has been around since the early 1900s. The original pieces were simple. Scenes of railroad trains were a popular early pattern in the rugs. Some weavers still create this type of pictorial.

Until 1983, we had not considered carrying work by non-Indian artists, but there was a woman in town whose work everyone in the family liked and we wanted her to be part of the gallery.

Esther Etcitty was born in 1944 in a traditional Navajo Hogan near Sanostee, New Mexico, about thirty miles southwest of Shiprock. The major trading posts for Navajo weaving in that area are Two Grey Hills and Toadlena.

Red Mesa Trading Post is located about 20 miles west of Teec Nos Pos, Arizona on US 160. Today it is primarily a gas station and convenience store, but there was a day when some very nice and unusual Navajo rugs were woven and sold through this post.

I don’t know if you have ever had something that just won’t leave your thoughts, but for me this week it has been all about Storm Patterns.

We have been privileged to know and work with Ella for over 50 years. She was a dear friend and an artist whose work inspired many. Her quick smile and wonderful laugh immediately brought sunshine to wherever she was.

“It’s the process of creating that is most important.”  This was an idea that I learned from Dr. Ann Hedlund, one of the most recognized experts on Navajo weaving.

If you have followed our newsletters for very long, you have read my belief that I never saw a Navajo rug I didn’t like.  Well, it really is true.

One of the most popular regional styles of Navajo weaving has always been the Yei and Yeibichai. These weavings emerged from the Shiprock, New Mexico area after the turn of the 1900s when weavers began putting the figures of Deities from the traditional sand painting ceremonies in their rugs.