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. It worked out well, as the traders exchanged the weavers for merchandise and cash, and we received weavings. The problem was that back in the 1950s, when Dad started, the traders didn’t have many people coming to their posts to buy rugs, so it wasn’t long before they had more weavings than money.
When the traders got soft drinks for the rugs, they were able to sell them and get cash for their operation. Dad was able to take the weavings to wholesale shows, and, as a family, we would travel during the summer to National Parks and tourist towns and sell rugs. It worked for everyone.
But it wasn’t long before weavers began to hear about the “Pepsi Man” and started to show up at the bottling company with their rugs. Dad had a strict rule. He never went to the reservation to try to find weavers selling to a trading post. Traders called people who did that “Hogan Hoppers.” He reasoned that these trading posts had established relationships with weavers, and it was not right for him to go onto the reservation and “steal” those weavers.
However, if a weaver came to see him, that was a different story. And, even if he didn’t buy the rug, he always gave the weaver a case of Pepsi!
One of the earliest weavers that I can remember seeing in the rug room was a wonderful woman from the Teec Nos Pos/Red Mesa area. Her name was Bessie Lee, her husband was Ray, and they developed a great friendship with Dad, often spending an hour or so visiting when she brought one of her weavings in to him. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, Dad would deliver a turkey and food basket to the weavers that he worked with, including Bessie and Ray.
I was too young to have asked the right questions, but later Dad told me that Ray was retired when they started coming to see him, and he raised some cattle and, of course, sheep. He always came with his shirt ironed and wearing a cowboy hat. Bessie was always dressed in a velvet blouse with silver and turquoise buttons and a long skirt. When she finished her weaving, it was a celebration, and they made a special day of it, shopping and eating in town. Their favorite restaurant in Durango was the Chief Diner. Some of you know that we have the sign from the old diner in our parking lot at the gallery.
Bessie was known for her Teec Nos Pos outline weavings, but unlike most weavers from the area, she used a large percentage of hand-spun wool and minimal color. A slight line of red in the outlines against a pattern of hand-spun grey, black, tan, and white yarn was her signature. Her borders, like most Teec Nos Pos/Red Mesa weavings, were black with bold patterns. She seldom repeated the same border.
She occasionally wove weavings in the more “Oriental” style like Alice Nelson and the Yabany family, but the outline was her forte. And, they were distinctive. Bessie’s rugs fall into the category that I refer to as a “gotcha” weaving. That’s when you walk into a room, see one of her pieces, and can tell immediately who wove it.
To give you an idea of how much Dad valued Bessie and her work, when my sister and I graduated from high school, we each received one of her rugs. They are among our most prized possessions. I wish she had lived to see the gallery we built. She would have liked it!
I had not seen a Bessie Lee weaving for several decades when the piece we are featuring today was given to us by a collector to sell. It is interesting how seeing a piece of art can bring back so many memories. I can remember Ray driving up in his new pickup truck, Bessie with her colorful scarf and gorgeous jewelry, the way they greeted Dad with hugs and laughter, and loading the back of the truck with cases of Pepsi!
Those were good and simple days, and this weaving, by an exceptional artist, is a beautiful example of that time.
