Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SARAH NATANI'S WEAVING WORKSHOPS
weave a navajo rug with a tribal elder
NAVAJO RESERVATION, NEW MEXICO
If you're a troubled person, sit down to your weaving and your bad feeling
all goes away and the good one comes in.
—Sarah Natani, master rug weaver
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Twice a year, Sarah Natani, a Diné elder who has been passing down Navajo weaving
techniques for some 40 years, opens her hogan in Table Mesa, New Mexico, to people interes-
ted in exploring Navajo weaving. Although it's possible to catch Sarah's rug-weaving classes
in arts-and-crafts schools around the country (the internationally known weaver is a regular at
Sievers School of Fiber Arts on Washington Island, Wisconsin, for example, and has traveled
to Italy and China to give demonstrations and lead workshops), the most authentic way to learn
the sacred craft that has been passed down for centuries is to come to her weeklong workshop
at the family ranch in Table Mesa. It's near Four Corners, about 12 miles south of Shiprock on
the Navajo Reservation.
Natani learned to weave at her mother's knee when she was seven. By the time she was
nine, she had sold her first rug. She used $3 of that first $15 sale to buy a weaving comb that
she carefully branded with her initials and still has more than 50 years later. Today, one of her
four-by-five-foot rugs sells for around $6,000.
When Natani first began giving workshops to Anglos, she was criticized. “Why would
you want to teach them our ways?” many in her tribe wondered. But she knew intuitively that
by passing along what was in danger of becoming a dying art, she could not only preserve
her beloved craft, but she could share her culture with people who craved the quiet mind and
the peace that Navajo weaving instills. Now, of course, Navajo weaving is taught all over the
place, and Sarah is recognized as being the pioneer that she always has been.
MOVE OVER, RITZ DYE
