Mae was born around 95 years ago. Even she does not know for sure how old she is because no one recorded the date when she was born.

We do know that she has been at it a long time!

Many of you saw our Facebook posts, on May 23rd, about the two large Ganado Red weavings that were created by famed weaver, Mae Jim, in the 1980’s.

We took these two amazing weavings down to Ganado High School, where one of Mae Jim's nephews was graduating, and they were used as the backdrop for the graduation exercises.

Ray Lovato is the undisputed master of traditional Santo Domingo hand rolled, natural turquoise heishi. For decades he has worked with the finest natural stones and created beautiful necklaces.

Nearly all of the current heishi makers at the Pueblo now use treated or stabilized stones. Many do wonderful work and the difficulty and cost of obtaining natural turquoise combined with the difficulty of working it, results in the use of treated stones being preferable.

On Saturday, June 18, Toh-Atin Gallery will be traveling to Utah for our Annual Silent Auction and Sale of over 150 Navajo weavings. It will be a fun and interesting day at one of the most beautiful museums in the country.

Navajo weaver and Medicine Man Anthony Tallboy came to the gallery yesterday with a beautiful Storm pattern. We had been expecting him. He called on Friday to say he would have the weaving done by Monday. After he called, I started thinking about how long I’d known Anthony.

We often get requests for bracelets that will fit large wrists and right now, we have a nice selection of good ones. Here are three Navajo style pieces that I thought you might enjoy seeing.

We recently picked up a collection of weavings from the 1980s that were done by some very talented women. Most of them had tags on them so it was easy to identify the weavers. They came from a famous Indian Trading family in Gallup (by agreement I can share that name with the purchaser of the weavings but am not allowed to put it in print).

In May of this year, a collector we have worked with for many years contacted us about a small collection of very nice Indian art that he had decided to sell. We picked the paintings up in Denver and are featuring them this Thursday night, along with a few other unique paintings we received about the same time. Most of these paintings were collected 40 years ago. They range in price from $250 to $2500.00 and include works by Pueblo Indian artists, Navajo painters and even a few Plains pieces.

One of my favorite events is when someone walks in the gallery and says something like, “Do you have any real Navajo rugs?”

Carolyn Sando, of Jemez Pueblo, has been a great friend and one of our favorite artists since she attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, over thirty years ago! It’s hard to believe we’ve known each other for that many years, but it has been a pleasure. She is one of those people whose enthusiasm and smile are contagious! In the fall of every year, she brings us a nice selection of her Nativity sets which are always a big hit.

Toh-Atin Gallery will be in Santa Fe, for Indian Market showing the largest selection of Navajo weaving in town! It’s the biggest week in American Indian art as thousands of artists, dealers, collectors, museum directors, art lovers and more than a few crazy people, descend on this Northern New Mexico town!

The Harvey family lives north of Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation Capital. I don’t know when my Dad met them, but I don’t think I remember a time when he wasn’t buying weavings from Esther Harvey, the mother and head of the family.