Cycle of Life by Laverne Barber features the American bison and a blessing ceremony, woven with natural-colored browns, various carded natural grays and whites, and some indigo- and cochineal-dyed wools. Laverne Barber is a Navajo Weaver from the Burnham Weaving area, south of Shiprock, NM.
She is one of seven award-winning weavers from that area. As a child, she learned to weave from her mother, famous weaver Anna Mae Barber, who passed in 2012. Anna Mae was the eldest of the highly respected Begay sisters, Marie, Sandy, Alice, and Helen. Like her aunties, Laverne raises her own sheep and uses their natural handspun wool to weave her rugs. This summer she raised 24 lambs, 12 females and 12 males. Very few weavers do that anymore, partly because it's hard work and time-consuming, but also because many families don't have herds of sheep as they once did. So, most new weavings are woven with commercial wool. That is not a bad thing, but when you find weavers who still shear, clean, card, spin, and weave with natural wool, that is really special!
Toh-Atin has been buying weavings from Laverne for almost 50 years! We were all in our twenties when she first brought a rug to our father's showroom in the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company. Laverne's weavings have always had a lot of detail, with a unique, creative combination of historic wearing blanket designs, Two Grey Hills, Yeis, and pictorials. Their weavings didn't fit into a classification other than their own. It was because of Laverne and her aunts that my father and brother recognized that weavings did not have to fit into a category, and Jackson became a supportive force in their development as weavers of their own style. When Laverne and her aunties first came to sell to us, I questioned whether it made sense to buy weavings that were so different from what everyone expected. Jackson responded, "These are the weavers of tomorrow, Antonia. They are going to keep this art form alive." He was right, of course, and today Burnham weavings are as recognized and respected as any other Navajo weaving style thanks to these marvelous weavers and my brother, Jackson Clark.
I thought I'd share a story that Jackson always got a kick out of.
When Laverne was a child, the Navajo census bureau recorded her name as Phyllis. Her mother tried to tell them that her name was Laverne (you would think that she would know, right?), but they never would listen. They would say, "No, her name is Phyllis." Laverne never liked the name Phyllis and eventually went to court to have it changed back to Laverne. They also gave her a birth certificate with the wrong birth date. She has never been able to get that corrected, so some of her records list March 31st as her birthday, while others list March 1st. Maybe the 3 on the typewriter didn't work when she was born. Who knows, but Laverne and my brother used to laugh about it. That's life on the Navajo reservation. It's just fortunate that the Navajo women all have good senses of humor and roll with the punches.
LaVerne Barber’s weavings are rich in symbolism. Every weaving she creates is about life in this world; looking with life, as it exists and was created.
I am pleased to present you with a great collection of Laverne's weavings. I marvel at the detail and diversity she creates in her work. I think you will too.
I'm also delighted to share a video of Laverne's current weaving, still on the loom, which she sent me the other day. This weaving should be available in a few weeks. If it interests you, please let us know, and we will send you photos and the price after Laverne brings it in.
I'm especially happy to have this video because I often try to explain to people how difficult it is for a weaver to match the end of her rug with the beginning of her rug because she rolls the beginning of the rug up behind the weaving and can't easily look at it as she finishes the rug. This video shows that perfectly, and of course, the larger the rug, the more difficult it is to duplicate the pattern.
I hope you enjoy this wonderful collection of Laverne Barber Begay's weavings. You can see all of Laverne's weavings in the gallery at this link.
