Weaving history: Taos exhibit showcases the 'Timeless Beauty' of Navajo child's blanket

“The Navajo weaver often rubs a spider’s web into her hands to bless herself before beginning a weaving. A child also received the blessing of the web so that one day she may grow to be a fine weaver as well; a blanket woven by a child of Spiderwoman for a child.” — Tony Abeyta

Woven from a baseline of pain, Navajo weavers turned trauma into celebration through beautiful textiles.

Open at the Taos Art Museum’s Fechin House, “Art of Timeless Beauty, the Navajo Child’s Blanket” showcases 26 examples, following the evolution of their designs from simple bands and stripes, to more elaborate and complex patterns. The show explores their historical context as the weavers adapted through a changing world under oppressive conditions.

Navajo child’s blankets may be one of the most sought after forms of Navajo weaving, and one of the most debated. Was it made for a child? Was it simply a nice horse blanket? Was it small because the weaver had limited time and materials?

All of these things may have been true at one time or another. The use of Navajo child’s blankets was determined by the need at hand and the wealth of the owner. They were expensive, even in the 1860s.

Navajo blankets were always a secular trade item from the time the people learned to weave. It is believed the Navajo were first exposed to blanket weaving from the pueblos. Many pueblo people fled their homes, seeking refuge with the Navajo upon the Spanish reconquest of New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

The weaving of these small serapes had been going on in some capacity for decades by the time it climaxed around 1860. Early Navajo blankets, in general, were traded to the pueblos, then taken to the Taos Trade fair, and from there on to Bent’s Fort out on the Great Plains. William Bent, who owned Bent’s Fort with his Taos partners, was married to a Cheyenne woman whose father was a tribal leader.

Weaving history: Taos exhibit showcases the 'Timeless Beauty' of Navajo child's blanket

The Cheyenne owned hundreds of Navajo blankets. From period descriptions and images, they were mostly chief’s blankets. These striped manta scale blankets were especially coveted by the Cheyenne women. When the cholera pandemic of 1849 reached the plains, as many as two-thirds of the entire Cheyenne tribe died, along with tens of millions of people worldwide. This pandemic caused an immediate disruption in the Plains Indian trade in the 1850s which had flowed through the Cheyenne to the rest of the plains. Bent’s Fort was abandoned. The Plains Indian market disappeared.

This disruption demanded the Navajo focus on a different product for a different market. The Navajo child’s blanket evolved during this troubled time.

“The times they were woven in were the tumultuous time of the removal from Bosque Redondo,” said famed artist Tony Abeyta, adding, “No one has a real definite idea whether children wore these blankets. But they’re really well composed. You saw the influence of the Spanish, and the trading posts were presenting new materials.

“They were also a celebration to return back to their homelands,” he continued. “They were telling a story of change and cultural identity.

“This group is one of the most important groups of Navajo weavings assembled,” Abeyta added. “You start to see the changes in the elements. Some are very simple, calm and tranquil. Then you start seeing much more classic Navajo elements. This is expressing the pain and anguish with this need to celebrate beauty. You’re getting a lot of punch in a very small format. They don’t have the scale of a wearing blanket, but it’s all condensed.”

The weavings correlate to the history of the Navajos.

“The stories that are told are not literal,” Abeyta said. “They’re an emotional response to what is beautiful.”

Child’s blankets were both easier to finish and to transport to the trade centers of that time, compared to the much bulkier man’s serapes or chief’s blankets.

By 1860, these small, art-sized serapes came to encapsulate all the energy and dynamic patterning of the much-revered Navajo blankets of the early classic period.

Regardless of the reason of their initial popularity in the 1800s, child’s blankets continued to be popular as long as Navajo blankets were made to wear, and are still an acclaimed art form today.

“These pieces are from the classic period prior to 1875,” guest curator Robert Parsons. “It has long been debated whether they were specifically made for children or if they were small serapes,” he added.

The works average 50 by 30 inches in size.

The weavers designed them from serape motifs lifted from early Navajo blankets with geometric forms, half and one-quarter diamonds and chevrons

“Things that allow the viewer to tell positive and negative space interchangeably,” Parsons said.

“Most of the pieces are hand dyed by the Navajo or the Dine,” he continued.

Reds came from unraveled trade cloth.

That trade cloth was European or made in Eastern mills during the 1860s

“They cut it in strips and pulled it apart. They recarded the short pieces with Navajo white and made it into pink cloth. With a magnifying glass, you’ll see darker reds fibers mixed with white,” Parsons said.

Navajo mythology tells the story of Spider Woman, Na’ashjéii Asdzáá, who originally taught the Navajo to weave blankets.

“Spider Woman lived in a crevice within the towering rock formation of Canyon de Chelley (Tsegi”) in northern Arizona,” Abeyta wrote in the exhibition catalog. “It is by no coincidence that this place was once one of the main epicenters of Navajo weaving in the 19th century. Many of the finest Navajo weavings came from this region and tell a story of commerce and creativity, occupation and relocation.”