Selling Yarns

Australian Indigenous textiles and good business in the 21st century

 

Papers

Native Weaving: Enduring Traditions of Life and Commerce

Keynote address 9:20 - 10:20 am, Sunday, 13 August 2006

W. Richard West Jr.

Director, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute

Abstract

Full paper published on the Craft Australia Research Centre

Through objects ideas and words are given form and substance. We might know the full story of a Navajo textile or nothing but that it is Navajo. Over the course of world history and continuing today many use wool to create blankets for home use and for sale to non-Navajos. Yet within this vast array how is that we can pick out the Navajo piece? Making a piece for sale does not diminish its potentials to encode its Navajo and maker's origins; rather it increases the volume and tone by stretching the Navajo universe into the world of collectors, homes, and museums. A Navajo textile presses its identity, no matter how young or old the weaving might be, and no matter where and how it got there. Consider too, that there is something called Navajo weaving that extends far from the hands and borders of the Navajo world how is it that these women produce something that is so entirely and utterly of their world, that these visual textualities can be read by anyone?

It comes down to one word - voice. Not history, not geography, but rather the indelible transposition and use of the world that surrounds us, which we hear and experience as voice. Voice can also be understood as culture; however, unlike the shared meanings of culture, voice is about an individual's relation and understanding of that culture. This voice is what we see and experience in an object. When Native produced art work again, whether for home or for sale-- leaves the maker's hands, her/his voice goes global, the voice is a presented dialogue that continues to have currency because objects move quickly, and with more ease than mere history. Artistic production has been used since the beginning of time to signify, reify, and present identities. In particular, Navajo weavers use textiles to tell simultaneous stories about themselves, what their world looks like, and, importantly, their deep philosophical and metaphysical comprehension of their world. Weavers put this knowledge into every piece made, placing into circulation a Navajo consciousness. Social and political movement fostered changes in the textiles. The continued evolvement of Navajo weaving are today's pieces made for sale as much as the wearing blankets of the 19th century. The true and absolute meaning is established by the maker rather than time or any outsider saying it is more so or less so Navajo because of when and why it was woven.

Navajo textiles like all objects are interactive and become ours, unlike history which requires experts, books, and storytellers. We visit an Indian reservation and we learn about history, we might experience history, but we leave it there, where it belongs embedded in the landscape. Objects work in powerful ways. Perhaps subversive, perhaps not, these pieces come home with us, permeating our consciousness, reminding us of a broader, and bigger Native place.

See also: W. Richard West Jr.'s biography