Video Transcript
A Loom with a View: Modern Navajo Weaving

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2004 - Produced by Sierra Ornelas and Justin Thomas

Background chatter: What time is it? Ya I d’no.
Barbara Ornelas: It’s weavin’ time.

TITLE CARD: A Loom with a View: Modern Navajo Weavers

Voice Over: When the Navajos’ ancestors migrated from their northern Athapaskan homelands into the American Southwest, sometime during the mid-fourteenth century, they probably did not bring the art of loom weaving with them. However, while the earliest known Navajo weaving closely resembles the textiles made by their neighbors, the Pueblo Indians, historical Navajo weavers were quick to explore and expand beyond the repertoire of indigenous Pueblo designs. By the mid-seventeenth century, Navajo weavers were creating decorative blankets that clothed their families, provided bedding, and served other useful purposes. As colonization and industry entered the American Southwest, the Navajo adapted to a changing market. Weavers created striking works of art, while serving new and demanding buyers.

Navajo weavers create inspiring works of art that serve as a record of the culture itself. Each rug embodies not only the trials and celebrations of the Navajo people but a moment in that weaver’s life. As weaving is passed down through generations each weaver is linked by their ability to maintain tradition while adapting to changing times.

TITLE CARD: Margaret Yazzie

Voice Over: Margaret Yazzie is a fourth generation Navajo weaver. At 76, she has lived in the Two Grey Hills area of the Navajo Nation for her entire life. She is a master of the Two Grey Hills style, which features natural sheep’s wool and colors and geometric patterns. She spends much of her time with her sister and next-door neighbor, Ruth Teller. Margaret learned to weave at the age of seven without any formal training.

Margaret Yazzie translation by Barbara Ornelas: “It’s the same way then as it is now. A weaver works at home in front of her children. She asks them to help with her weaving. They help and they watch and that’s how they learn. As a child all I did was herd sheep. I followed them all the time and from there I learned how to shear the sheep and then I learned how to butcher them.

Voice Over: Margaret excelled at both loom weaving and wool preparation. Due to her extemporary technique and style she quickly became respected within the weaving community.

Barbara Ornelas: My Aunt Margaret was - is an amazing weaver. She, she’s one of those people who other weavers go to when they have problems with their work. You know, like say I’m working on a piece and something happens to it and I don’t know how to fix it. That’s when Aunt Margaret comes in.

Voice Over: Like many weavers Margaret’s rugs provided the main source of income for her family enabling her to raise seven children.

Margaret Yazzie translated by Barbara Ornelas: Because of my weaving my children and my grandchildren look at me with admiration and reassurance. It feels so good to share with them but I know that I have to save some of my money and I have to conserve because I know I have to set up another rug and that my next sale is a long ways away, this is just how I am.

Voice Over: Margaret’s success as a weaver provides her the opportunity to be entirely independent both professionally and personally.

Margaret Yazzie translated by Barbara Ornelas: I don’t know how many years I have been driving. My husband, Wilson was working on the railroad, and he brought a car back. Someone had to drive it back for him because he didn’t know how to drive. It was an automatic. He tried really hard to learn but he never got the hang of it so I learned how to drive on that car.

Voice Over: As weavers began to excel in this cultural art the parallels between historic and contemporary weaving presents a dynamic relationship between the past and the present. In this rapidly changing world many weavers look to the work of their ancestors as a means of achieving balance in their work.

TITLE CARD: Barbara Teller Ornelas

Voice Over: Barbara Teller Ornelas is a fifth generation Navajo weaver. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband and two college-age children. Barbara’s diligent passion for weaving has earned her numerous awards and recognition. She is an important spokesperson for weaving today.

Barbara Ornelas: I believe that my rugs have all kinds of different kinds of personality. I think that my Two Grey’s have a lot of spunk, a lot of spirit where as the Burntwaters are real soft, real subtle, real quiet. But with these old pieces they just have another kind of spirit altogether. They tend to tell you about the struggles that they came from. They tend to tell you who the weavers were who first created these pieces. Of all my work that I have done I think doing the old style has… it’s like it has a lot more power. I mean I sit here at nighttime while I’m working and I think about the struggle that these women went through to create these beautiful patterns. And you know they used basically used whatever they found for materials for their warp. They they they they found tree limbs and they built looms and they found blankets that they unraveled to get colors from and they found bugs and plants to make different colors for their weavings. And it’s just incredible what they came up with. What a beautiful legacy they left behind. What a beautiful gift they gave us. You know it’s just …you just wish you knew who they were and what their names were and what part of the reservation they lived in. Um it’s crazy.

This is my calling. I put all my hopes and dreams into my work. I put my heart and soul into my work. I look at one of the pieces I have done a long time ago and I know exactly what was happening in my life because the rug will tell me what was happing to me at that point. Um, you can just see the whole history of my life in my work. When you see my weaving you see me. And when you see me you see my weaving. We are one and the same.

TITLE CARD: Michael Teller Ornelas

Voice over: Michael Teller Ornelas is Barbara’s youngest child, a sixth generation Navajo weaver. At nineteen, Michael is just beginning to make a name for himself in the southwestern art world through museum awards, exhibits, and special commissions.

Michael Ornelas: Before I started weaving I saw my mom’s rugs as just something every mother did. It was just like a fact of life. She wove in her room, I played with my toys. I didn’t think much more than that. After I started weaving I could come to realize I could come to understand how hard it is to weave.

Barbara Ornelas: When I was a kid my mother would teach was teaching me weaving and it was like piano lessons and it was really hard on me but when I was teaching my son we made it more into a game that if he would reach a certain point he would win a prize. If he did a certain pattern he would win a prize, and he really took to weaving that way and it was much more fun for him.

Voice Over: For this younger generation of weavers the techniques behind this indigenous art remain the same but are preformed among computers, televisions, stereos and other modern conventions.

Michael Ornelas: Technology works both ways really because one way it allows us to have metal needles, better combs, um, sandpaper so we can file the stuff down, but it also makes is so that there is a lot more distractions.

Voice over: As we continue in a world so reliant upon technology, weavers utilize the innovation and are therefore able to maintain tradition.

Michael Ornelas: Weavings and video games each generate their own kinds of stress. Yet somehow able to play them and do them so that they cancel each other out. To me weaving represents a balance in life. Everything you have to do with weaving deals with balance in life. You can’t use enough string, you can’t use too much string, or else you are going to break strings. The weaving, if it’s too tight, it will go in like and hourglass. If it’s too loose it just won’t look right. So you have to find a third option, you have to find the way, you have to find a certain degree of strength and balance between everything. And your rug will be complete. I’m still trying to figure out a way to balance modern life and tradition.

Voice Over: Margaret, Barbara, and Michael are Modern Navajo Weavers their rugs are a reflection of the contemporary landscape in which they are made. At the same time weaving binds them to their cultural history allowing them to make innovative contributions to this living native art.

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