If you have heard one of my lectures, I talk about how people walk into the gallery and ask, "Do you have any real Navajo rugs?"

A little over thirty years ago, I got a call from Betty Pennington, who had worked as our manager at the gallery before moving to Phoenix to take a job at the Heard Museum.

She said, “Jackson, you need to come down to Phoenix and meet Byron Hunter, the manager at the Heard Museum Shop. I’m sure he would want to buy some things from you, but I think you guys would really hit it off.”

Back at the turn of the 1900s, Navajo weavers were moving away from making the wearing blankets known throughout the Southwest. The Navajo had worn these blankets for over 100 years and traded them to other Native tribes.

The Navajo people wove wearing blankets for around 200 years. They have woven floor rugs for more than 100 years. Many of these pieces are currently displayed on walls as works of art, but the original intent was for them to be used on the floor.

Last year we had the opportunity to accept a group of Navajo weavings from a family in Oregon. They had been passed down from a grandfather who had driven a truck in the 1920s on the Navajo Reservation delivering goods to trading posts. The design on one of the pieces was particularly interesting.