 61st
Annual Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture
Member Preview
August 6, 2010
Public Festival August 7–8,
2010
Information from the 2009 festival is presented here to provide a
glimpse into the kind of programming you may expect for 2010.
Today's Expressions
of Navajo Traditions
In Navajoland, inspiration
for the fine arts comes from the wide expanses of earth and sky that
are sacred to the Diné people. This year’s 60th Annual Navajo Festival
of Arts and Culture at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, on
Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2, will focus on the collectible
coiled Navajo pottery and the intricate rug weaving for which this
culture is known.
Seventy-five Navajo artists will
travel to the festival from all corners of the Navajo Nation, as they
have done for the past six decades, continuing the tradition of
bringing their artwork to market and sharing what makes their artwork
distinctive. Two days of cultural immersion with prominent musical
performers, a traditional dance troupe, and Heritage Insights talks
give an inside look into the largest Indian tribe in the Southwest.
Hear the Navajo language, see pots of
clay being formed, watch weavers create detailed designs on
traditional looms, meet silversmiths, folk carvers, and painters.
Enjoy the pageantry of Navajo social dances and delight in
centuries-old musical traditions. And sample traditional foods—red and
green chili stew, roasted sweet corn, and the ever-favorite Navajo
tacos with frybread.
The Focus of This
Year’s Festival
Museum Director Robert Breunig said,
“This year’s Navajo Festival will honor the life and career of William
T. Beaver (1925–2009) who was particularly important in bringing
Navajo pottery into the mainstream, as it was nearly obsolete by the
1940s. At his Sacred Mountain Trading Post on the way to the Navajo
Reservation, Beaver encouraged many Navajo potters to try new forms to
attract the attention of buyers. MNA is creating a new Navajo pottery
installation in the Museum’s Babbitt Gallery to highlight Bill
Beaver’s important role in this art form.”
Award-winning potters Alice Cling and
Sarah Natani will be showing visitors how they work the traditional
local clay to form pots. Navajo pottery is produced entirely by hand
via a simple coiling technique. Coils are stacked until a desired
height is achieved, then pinched and smoothed into final form. The
surface is scraped and may be burnished with a smooth stone when it is
partially dry. Raised decorations are sometimes applied. And when the
pot has thoroughly dried, it is fired and when still hot, glazed with
pinyon pine pitch that darkens the surface and leaves a soft gloss.
This rich brown color and subtle sheen have become identifying
characteristics of contemporary Navajo pottery.
Heritage Program Coordinator Anne
Doyle continues, “This year’s festival will also showcase Navajo
weavers, whose art form has come to serve as a central source of
cultural identity and creative expression. Remarkable weavers like D.Y.
Begay, Morris Muskett, Melissa and Lola Cody, and the Ramah Weavers
will be at the festival. TahNibaa Naat’aanii and her mother Sarah will
be demonstrating on on ankle weaving, the table loom, and the
traditional upright Navajo loom. TahNibaa Naat’aanii will also be
giving a presentation on the importance of the shoulder blanket in
Native cultures. There will also be ethnobotany walks, beading
demonstrations, and Diné-inspired take-home craft making for kids.”
The Navajo Creation Story tells us
that Spider Woman and Spider Man (two of the Holy People who walked
the earth at the dawn of humankind) introduced weaving to the Navajo.
Spider Man constructed the first loom of sunshine, lightning, and
rain. Spider Woman taught the Navajo to weave.
Non-Navajo scholars offer a different
story of the origins of Navajo weaving. They tell us that upon the
Navajo arrival in the Southwest, sometime between AD 1000 to 1525, the
Navajo learned to weave from their Pueblo neighbors, most likely from
the Zuni or Jemez people. Originally weaving in the Southwest was done
with farmed cotton, but the Spanish introduced sheep to the area in
1698 and wool became the mainstay among weavers. Since the 1600s,
Navajo weaving has been dominant in the Southwest, continuing to
flourish and adapt over centuries with new patterns and motifs,
materials, dyes, and techniques.
The Museum has installed a new
weaving exhibit that will be changed throughout the year with examples
of fine weaving from MNA’s Navajo Textiles Collection. Titled
Knowing No Boundaries: Adaptation and Imagination in Navajo Weaving,
the emphasis in this gallery will be on the highly individualized
expressions of this art form, allowing visitors to share in the
weaver’s view of the world.
Under the Big Tent
Radmilla Cody will serve as emcee under
the Heritage Insights tent. Cody is a former Miss Navajo Nation
1997/1998 and winner of the Best Female Artist at the 2002 Native
American Music Awards. Cody will showcase songs from her CD, Spirit
of a Woman, using her stunning and emotionally-charged voice to
sing Navajo songs and lyrics.
Canyon Records recording artists
Burning Sky with Flagstaff’s Aaron White, a Native American Music
Award winner in 2004 for Group of the Year and a Grammy-nominated
artist in 2003 for Best Native American Album, will perform their
powerful original songs with acoustic guitar and Native flute. White’s
fingerpicking style and passion for songwriting has been building
followers for 10 recordings and nearly 20 years.
The Pollen Trail Dancers will present
storytelling dances meant to be performed in the warm season. Emcee
Brent Chase accompanies the dance troupe with his humor and Navajo
flute playing. The Sash Belt or Weaving Dance tells the story of
Spider Woman’s influence in weaving, the Basket Dance depicts the
important role of baskets in Navajo life, and the Bow and Arrow Dance
honors the warriors of old who have protected the Diné way of life.
Clarence Clearwater is a
singer/songwriter who returned to the Navajo Reservation more than 27
years ago to learn to speak Navajo and to gain a better understanding
of his people and their traditions. Today, his deep voice and stirring
guitar can be heard on the Grand Canyon Railway as he entertains
passengers. He sings traditional songs in Navajo and contemporary
songs in English about his spirituality and the oppression of Native
people.
Heritage Insights
Presentations
Poet, painter, and consultant on Indian
education and art, Gloria J. Emerson was educated in Navajo traditions
and at Harvard University, and was a former artist-in-residence at the
School of American Research and a former New Mexico State Arts
Commissioner. She will talk about how landscape translates into art
among Native people, share her personal reflections, and read from her
book At the Hems of the Lowest Clouds: Meditations on Navajo
Landscapes (2003).
Dr. Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, a
professor of Navajo language at Northern Arizona University, will sign
and read from each of her books. Winner of several book awards,
Dzáni Yázhi Naazbaa’: Little Woman Warrior Who Came Home is about
a time of trial, for Dzánibaa’ and the Navajo people, that gives her a
profound sense of herself. Diné Bizaad Bináhoo’aah: Rediscovering
the Navajo Language is a textbook to develop communicative
competence.
Linguist Larry King will give a basic
introduction of the Navajo language. His humorous reflections of the
Diné culture in Navajo and English take his audience along a path of
history and legend, and illustrate how Navajos use humor to cope with
hardship in their lives.
One of today’s most important
painters, Shonto Begay is a visual storyteller whose creativity brings
forth paintings of wonder, sadness, and truth about being Navajo and
living on the reservation. Begay uses his art to reclaim his identity
and will talk about the influence of water on Navajo culture and art.
Premiere weaver Morris Muskett is
traditionally-inspired and self-taught. One of a few males who weave
in the Navajo tradition, he is best known for his exquisite sash belts
and small rugs with color and design innovations. Muskett will talk
about woven art—both soft and hard—and share the techniques he uses to
work in wool, cotton, cashmere, and silver wire.
Upcoming Festivals
The 60th Annual Navajo Festival of Art and Culture is part of MNA's
Heritage Program. Make
plans now to attend this upcoming festival!
6th Annual Celebraciónes de la Gente, October 23-25, 2009
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