NM2007 - Shopping - New Mexico Weaving

The innate skills of weavers in northern New Mexico become instantly apparent, whether you're viewing or shopping for woven goods.

Produced on upright looms utilized by Pueblo and Navajo weavers, or European treadle looms brought by Spanish colonists from Mexico to New Mexico in the early 1600s, the region's textiles have long cast a spell.

The Navajo offer an explanation for the power that mysteriously emerges from the warp and weft of their cotton and wool yarns. They believe Spider Woman taught them with tools that included lightning, sunlight, white shell, and rock crystal.

Scholars suggest the Navajo learned to weave from the Pueblo people sometime around 1650. Evidence indicates that the Pueblo's ancestors were the region's first weavers about 2,000 years ago. Around 700 A.D., they began loom weaving with indigenous cotton, often using a backstrap loom, belted around the waist. Early Hopi and Pueblo weavers advanced the art and the Navajo then elevated it with the fineness of their spinning and weaving.

Weaving evolved more when Spanish settlers arrived, bringing 5,000 churro sheep whose wool was transformed on the European treadle loom into serapes, blankets, and rugs. The Rio Grande blanket is one of the most recognized textiles to emerge from this tradition. This weft-faced, striped blanket was generally woven as two panels. The weaver then sewed the panels together, creating a telltale center seam.

In numerous villages that sprang up along the Rio Grande, Hispanic weavers launched a cottage industry, which was practically wiped out after the first train rolled into New Mexico in 1880, bringing shipments of inexpensive, mill-manufactured blankets. Around the turn of last century, however, Santa Fe traders hired Hispanic weavers in the Chimayó area to create designs imitating Navajo textiles. These textiles became known as Chimayó blankets. Today, Chimayó weaving thrives in both traditional and contemporary styles.

Note: The author appreciates input she received from textile restorer Josie Caruso; Kathy Whitaker, director of the School for Advanced Research's Indian Research Arts Center; and Robin Farwell Gavin, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art curator.

Weaving Wonders

Santa Fe

Indian Arts Research Center,
at The School for Advanced Research, 660 Garcia St., has about 1,000 Native American blankets and rugs.
Reservations (required): (505) 954-7205.

Wheelwright Museum,
704 Camino Lejo, hosts two exhibits that include Native American textiles. The first, featuring 19th and early-20th century pieces (May 27-Oct. 21) and the second, focusing on modern and contemporary work (Nov. 11-April 20, 2008). The museum's Case Trading Post, a replica of a Navajo reservation trading post, sells traditional and contemporary Navajo and Pueblo weavings. (505) 982-4636.

Museum of Indian Arts and Culture,
710 Camino Lejo, showcases Native American textiles. (505) 476-1250.

Museum of International Folk Art,
706 Camino Lejo, exhibits Rio Grande blankets and Navajo textiles. (505) 476-1204.

Museum of Spanish Colonial Art,
750 Camino Lejo, exhibits examples of Rio Grande and Chimayó weavings. A show opening in October 2008 will include a comparison of Navajo weaving and Hispanic weaving styles. (505) 982-2226.

Spanish Market,
on the last full weekend in July on the Santa Fe Plaza, and Winter Spanish Market, on the first full weekend in December, feature traditional Rio Grande and Chimayó textiles.

Gallup Area

The Historic Toadlena Trading Post and Weaving Museum,
12 miles west of State Road 491 at the west end of N19 (56 miles north of Gallup), has a superb collection of traditional and contemporary Toadlena/Two Grey Hills textiles. (888) 446-1759.

Chimayó

At these galleries you can buy traditional and contemporary Rio Grande and Chimayó textiles and view weavers at work:

Centinela Traditional Arts,
1 mile east of the intersection of State Road 76 and County Road 98. (505) 351-2180.

Ortega's Weaving Shop,
corner of State Road 76 and County Road 98. (505) 351-4215.

Trujillo's Weaving Shop,
about 1/4 mile west of the intersection of State Road 76 and County Road 98. (505) 351-4457.