- [speaking Navajo]
When I come here, I think of my grandmothers
and how long they've been weavers here.
For weavers in general and for my sister and I,
this is holy ground.
Every time we step into the canyon, we feel like
we're at home, and we feel like we're being blessed
by our grandmothers that have passed before,
and we feel like they're here as we're working.
- I feel obligated to weave.
It has been in our family for generations.
Most of my Navajo people have suffered a lot
to be able to do their art and mainly,
just to survive.
In our weaving classes, we talk about our Navajo culture,
and I think people leave with a sense of,
not just taking a weaving class, but they've taken a class
on culture and really, learning from us
that have lived here.
When all of our weft yarns are going to the left,
it's female. - Okay.
- Our weft yarns going to the right are male.
- When you're weaving someplace
where there is so much history and sacred spirit
that you can't help but incorporate that
into your threads.
When you're sitting here and you're looking
at the walls of this canyon and the, oh, the colors,
the textures, it just all goes into your piece.
- We get all kinds of weavers.
We got floor loomers, we got tapestry weavers,
they're really well-known in their field,
and they come here and they get humbled
by Navajo weaving because everything is by hand.
There's no mechanical anything involved in the weaving.
- I have such respect for Navajo weaving
and have admired it all my life
since before I knew what art was.
So to be here is like being where an art
I really appreciate was born.
- Barbara: We believe that weaving started here,
it was born here.
My grandmother used to tell stories
about Spider Woman.
Spider Woman wanted to give the Navajo women
the art of weaving, and she asked the spider
to learn how to weave, and the spider told her
that she had to go to the four sacred mountains
and picked things from the mountains
to build a loom.
When she brought it all back, the spider showed her
how to put the loom together and then learn how to weave.
I'm weaving a Two Grey Hills tapestry.
This style of weaving has been in our family
for seven generations.
And this is what my family's really well-known for.
- Lynda: In a weaver's family, everyone is involved
with weaving.
- Barbara: Two Grey Hills is a name of a place
in New Mexico,
and it's a trading post where our father was a trader
for about 35 years.
And we grew up at the store.
- Lynda: Each trading post had a non-Native,
and they're the ones who really influenced
the style of Navajo weaving.
The Chinle style,
the Burnham,
the Klagetoh,
Teec Nos Pos,
and, of course, Two Grey Hills.
Two Grey Hills evolved as being the one
that has the natural colors.
- You can tell a lot of history of the Navajo people
just by the weavings.
You can tell some of the weavings that were made
right after people came back from Bascom.
They were literally taken from this place to Fort Sumner.
And from here, all the way to close
to the Texas border, and a lot of them didn't make it.
- Lynda: Navajos, they were taken to a prison camp.
- They took the weaving with them,
because they were able to take army blankets,
unravel them, and then reweave them as weavings.
Traded for seeds, they traded for more blankets,
more rations, whatever they needed.
When they came back here, it was close to winter.
They couldn't plant, they couldn't do anything,
but because of the weaving, they were able to survive.
My grandmother always used to say,
"Keep weaving, keep weaving," as I was real small
'cause I would cry.
You know, I didn't want to be a weaver and all that,
and she would say, "Keep weaving
"because someday, you know, you will travel the world
and tell people about our work."
- The mission of Idyllwild Arts
and the culture of Idyllwild Arts
reaches across the world
to attract those who believe that they are artists.
It doesn't mean that they want to be an artist professionally.
They may, but at their core, at their heart,
they believe they're an artist.
- Barbara: I've been coming up here for 17 years.
We spend two weeks here and we have friends
that come every year.
- I love Barbara and Lynda.
When I met them, I thought,
"Wow, these are Idyllwild arts people," you know?
They're warm, they're generous, they're talented weavers.
- Barbara: I think Idyllwild is very unique
in that it really focuses on Native programs.
They understand that there's a need for that.
[man humming]
- Not so long ago, everything that I'm doing,
including speaking in the language,
I could've been thrown in jail for in Canada,
and even the art was confiscated,
was either destroyed or sold to collectors,
and so it's important to be able to show
that we're not just surviving, we're thriving.
- Heather: Native American artists that come
to teach the workshops are just the most generous,
knowledgeable people.
- So what the ancient people did was they just added.
This craft that I have, that I possess,
I believe that it's given to me to share
with many walks of life,
many people that want to know about it, learn about it.
I like to share it and hold back no trade secrets.
Everything they're learning and doing here
is really just the way I do it.
- Students that come for the Native American Arts program,
the population has changed quite a bit.
In the earlier years, it was mainly teachers
and collectors and people who were interested
in Native American cultures.
Over the years, it seems to be reaching so many more people.
We now have really mixed classes.
We have Native Americans
coming to learn Native art forms here.
- It's been a real blessing
because I know a lot of Navajo students
don't have people to teach them anymore,
and it's a real joy for me and real accomplishment
for my sister and I to teach them
so that they can carry this on.
- I am Navajo and my maternal grandmother
and my paternal grandmother both were weavers,
and they both passed away
before they were able to teach me.
None of my aunts or my uncles picked up weaving,
so I had really no one to teach me,
but I always wanted to learn.
I brought my son and he's picked it up as well.
- I was always seeing their cool designs,
and especially my mom
when she learned how to do diagonals,
I thought it looked super cool.
I just put a smiley face on it because I didn't really have,
like, much ideas, and I wanted it to be as simple as possible
for my first one.
- We break down stereotypes.
There's sort of a whole demystification process
where there's no middleman,
there's no movie, there's no book
between you and this person from another culture,
and so you learn who they really are.
[class talking]
- After I finished high school, I made an announcement
to my family that I'm going to college.
After college, I'm never gonna weave again
because weaving was too hard.
I didn't like to market.
I didn't like to sell my rugs.
It was just excruciating for me.
And it wasn't until 1996
when we lost our older sister, Roseanne.
- Barabara: Our sister was the most talented one
in the family.
She was above all of us as a weaver.
- I couldn't process the fact
that we had lost a family member,
a very important family member,
and so I went to find an old loom
that I had in my closet for many years; I took it out,
and I started using my sister's tools.
Working that whole summer is how I processed my grief.
And after that, I started thinking, you know,
she left two sons behind, and I thought
if she has grandchildren,
those grandchildren will need to learn how to weave.
Now we have her granddaughter Roxanne in our class,
and it's been really fun teaching her.
Roxanne is our grand-niece, but in Navajo,
we refer to her as our granddaughter.
- My sister and I took some spider webs
and rubbed it on her hands, because if you hope
that your granddaughter's gonna be a great weaver,
that's what you do.
And it wasn't until she was four,
we decided that she was ready to become a weaver
because she was playing with dolls, real tiny dolls,
and we could see how limber her hands were.
- Here's what it looks like.
It's two diamonds.
I'm almost done with it.
I'll probably do more Two Greys as I get older.
- I know that it's gonna get ingrained in her memory
for years to come, and to teach her children
and her grandchildren.
And I feel comfortable knowing that
that's what's going to happen
and that my sister's dream is gonna carry on.
What we do at the end of the weaving
is we send it home with our blessings.
This weaving is gonna take everybody's energy
and we're gonna cut the tassels.
The tassels is like cutting the umbilical cord of babies.
- For years, we've heard weaving's a dying art,
weaving's a dying art.
But really, it's not.
It's a living art and it's gonna continue.
There's always gonna be somebody teaching.
I'm gonna teach kids until I'm not here anymore.
[applause and cheers]