A HISTORY OF NAVAJO WEAVING

As can be imagined, one regional style will often blend with another. Also, a weaver living in one area can surely weave a rug with a design native to another area or blended with her own design. This does not affect the rugs value and the rugs regional identification remains with its style or styles, not with the home of the weaver. One of the largest and most beautiful Two Grey Hills rugs ever created was woven by a Navajo weaver living in Morenci, Arizona, over 200 miles south of the reservation.

Today, according to one reference, only about 25% of all rugs tend to be regional in identification with 40% being classified as 'General." Still this entire period can be classed as the Regional Style Rug Period because It was the regional development of pattern and color that created the collector field we know today. Also, it was the blending of these regional patterns and colors that have produced some of the extremely valuable "general" patterns that exist today. (Note: "Blending of 2 or more patterns" were considered in 'general rugs" by first three references.)

There are less weavers today, from a percentage of the populations of the Navajo, than there were 90 years ago. Tomorrow there will be less than today. The reason is, of course, economics. Although the prices of rugs have increased enormously the amount of time involved in weaving a rug still makes the art much less than cost effective. This is not true for the well known, award winning, weavers that dot the reservation. For them the art is rewarding and for those aspiring to greatness, these rewards are a very attainable goal. For this reason Navaio Weaving is not a dying art, but is becoming a very selective, highly competitive art.

This is an appropriate place to discuss the amount of time involved in making a Navajo Rug. Quoting from Gilbert S. Maxwell, Navaio Rugs, Past, Present and Future, 1963 Best West Publications, Palm Desert, CA, pg. 19-20. "A dealer friend of mine (Maxwell) once placed an expert Navajo weaver on his payroll for $1 an hour. For her, he bought handspun vegetable dye yarns. He told the woman to do two pieces of weaving: a better than average, twill weave, double saddle blanket (30 x 60 inches), and a 3 x 5 foot quality rug. The saddle blanket was completed in 140 hours and the rug in

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