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.
Ella wove contemporary Crystal weavings, which came into existence when Don Jensen bought the post in 1946. Noting the success that Sally Lippincott had enjoyed with vegetal dye weavings at Wide Ruins, he encouraged weavers to start working in banded weavings colored with vegetal dyes.
Ella was the best in this style. Her patterns in the bands were always unique and eye-catching. She loved experimenting with different plants to obtain slightly different colors, and her weaving and spinning abilities were unmatched in the area. We were lucky enough to sell most of her weavings over the years. She also sold some to her buddy, who owned Cristof’s Navajo rugs in Santa Fe.
She was probably the sweetest person in the world and had friends all over the country. She passed away at the age of 93 back in 2020, and I wrote a long message about her on our blog site. You can access it here.
She always called me “Sonny Boy,” and when I would answer the phone, she would say, “It’s your Grandma Perry.” We had a great friendship that started in the 1970s and continued until her death, which was during COVID, and my mom, sister, and I violated all the rules to go to her funeral.
When a weaver is gone, you usually don’t get another rug of theirs to sell, but sometimes a piece comes back. That happened this winter when a collector decided to sell their collection and sent us several weavings. When I opened the box, the weaving on top barely stuck out, and I knew it was one of Ella Rose’s.
It is an exquisite weaving with a signature, unique design between the bands. There are some weavers whose work is so distinguishable that if you walk into a room and see one of their rugs on the wall or the floor, you can immediately know who wove it. That’s the way it was with Ella. How fun it was to see it again!
My father once had a weaving that he liked a lot, but he sold it, and a few years later, the man who bought it sent it back to him to sell. He sold it again and got it back again when the people moved to a different house. When he sold it again, he said, “If it comes back this time, I’m keeping it.”
About five years later, it showed up again, and he kept it!
I look at it a little differently. I get to enjoy these wonderful pieces in the gallery, and when they pass on to someone who loves them, I get to buy another one! But if this one comes back a couple of more times, I might reconsider!
It is a beautiful example of modern Crystal weaving by the best there was. I hope you like it as much as I do!
