Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-27
NAVAJO WEAVIN ART
GAINS IN POPULARITY
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin

WASHINGTON, June 24.-The
Navajo weavers have reached a new
height of fame. The attention OF
the fiapper has been attracted TO
their wonderful barbaric designs and
a wave of Navajo sweaters is sweep
ing the country.
FAppers are blazing forth in
sweaters in true Navajo colors,
red. green, yellow, white and
black. Typical Indian designs-dia-
monds, zigZags, even angular human
figures-march in stiff borders across
the fashionable maiden's chest.
The Navajo squaw remains obliv-
ious TO this final tribute to her art.
Stoically she continues to weave
blankets to supply the never-ending
demands of pale face collectors and
tourists.
The Navajo blanket is n of the
strangest art developments in this
country. No blanket makers ave
ever rivaled the squaws of this race
who sit in their huts and weave
mysterious stories on primitive
looms.
The weavers are almost everything
that we would not expect. We think
of the Indian arts as evolving slow
ly out of long ago centuries. Yet
scientists believe that the Navaho
learned their craft only since 1870,
and that colors were not employed
by them in blanket-making until
1900. In other words, the Navajo
squaw became a master craftsman
scarcely more than a hundred years
ago, but in a single century of de-
velopment her work has been pro-
nounced a high type of barbaric art
and eagerly sought after by umer
Gus collectors.
Another unexpected turn to Nava-
no blanket making is that among
the deliberately designed blankets
no two are alike. The squaw wants
no picture nor finished blanket to
copy. She weaves from memory
and from the life around her. Jag
ged terraces OF lines are the noun
tains. Rows of square figures are
Indian villages. Red lines are sum
beams and zigzag lines are light
ming.
Can Not Copy Their Work
Connoisseurs have shown a weaver
a particularly admired pattern and
asked for a duplicate. The Navajo
agrees wonderingly, and sits down to
WI n DGI CT ScAAN
that the white man a really want
a mechanical copy grows too impos-
sible for her TO understand, or else
she is carried away by her art. Al
any rate the reproduction is rarely
just like the original.
The work of the Navajo squaw Is
slowly, conscientiously done. She
may spend six months or more on a
blanket that appeals to her fancy
Yet-again the paradox of the Ma
vaho-the master weavers do not at
tempt to turn out perfect work. IL
may be that the race holds to the
oriental belief that only Allah can
achieve perfection. and that 1t IS mt
ting for men TO acknowledge their
human estate by deliberately falling
a little short. Whatever the theory,
the Navajo weaver, with all her skill
does not try TO make her strip or
textile perfect. She may have three
triangles in a design in one corner
and four in the other. Such a de-
feet is obviously intentional because
the weaver achieves fine patterns
and can repeat a tiny motif exactly
all around a blanket when desired
The Navahos are the only people
| who can thoroughly understand the
| symbolism of the blanket designs
| yet comparatively few of their hne
blankets are kept for home use.
A squaw the story of her
| life or some dramatic incident of tri-
bal history into a blanket and goes
out to sell it to a trader. Often h
story is never read because the Ma
vahos are far from ~loquacious in ex-
planning their symbolism to the
white man. But apparently the Ma
vaho eaver does lot expect an un-
Outstanding audience for her tale.
She satisfies some creative instinct
by producing the blanket, and then
she makes another. Her tribe
now prefers blankets from Ameri-
| can factories about the home. They
are not art work but they are lighter
in weight and cheaper.
Almost every popular kind OF craft
work can be initiated, but the Nava-
no blanket defies machinery. The
| colors are used and dropped in a
fashion that cannot be copied by
weaving machines.
limitations Easily Detected
such machine-made limitations as
are on the market rail- so far short
of the beauty of the handmade ar
uoiss that they do not achieve