A Navajo weaver uses plant dyes to create subdued colors for her wool rugs.
When Navajo weaver Kally Keams sits at her loom, she never knows what her finished rug will look like.
She doesn't follow a pattern; she doesn't follow a weaving style. Instead, the designs and colors of her rugs reflect the emotions and thoughts she experiences as her fingers pulled the wool through the loom.
"I try not to hurry my rugs because it has to have a chance to be born," she said. "I mostly do variations on banded rugs, which allows me to go from one part of my life to another. It gives me flexibility and best matches my moods."
Keams, 46, Glendale, Ariz., has been weaving since she was a child growing up on a reservation in Gray Mountain, Ariz. She now conducts workshops and demonstrations throughout the United States and abroad, including presentations at Maori Weaving Symposium in Papakura, New Zealand, and the Smithsonian Institute, Custom House in New York.
"I grew up with a grandma who was a weaver, and I learned by watching her. It was the only way we got our food," she said, explaining that the rugs often were sold. "I helped my grandmother and mother until I was 13 or 14."
By that time, she had learned Western Navajo, twill weave and standard styles of weaving and how to make storm patterns and saddle blankets. She used black, white and gray wool shorn from the sheep her family raised. At times, she gave her rugs more color by using wool that had been dyed red.
Keams said there was a time in her life -- from ages 13 to 23 -- when she did little weaving. She returned to the art form after her daughter, Jennifer, was born.
"At 23, what my grandma told me was to weave what I was feeling and that weaving was a tool to use as balance in my life," she said. "At 23, I found those colors (red, black, white and gray) didn't fulfill my balance. So I used plant dyes to make colors."
Today, she utilizes yellow and red onion skins, sage brush, brigham tea, alder bark, rose hips, sumac, rock lichen, wild walnut shell and a variety of other items found in nature to make wet and dry dyes.
"I try to get different variations from one plant source," she said, adding that she often makes large batches of the dye because she seldom can recreate the exact hues.
Keams said the colors of her rugs often give them a contemporary feel. However, some of the designs on her rugs have been used by her family for years, such as the cloud pattern, which symbolizes nourishment, and the squash blossom, which signifies growth.
Keams arrived in Lawrence Sept. 6 and will serve as artist-in-residence through Saturday at the Lawrence Arts Center. By the time she leaves, she will have worked with students at Free State High School, Central Junior High School, Lawrence Arts Center Preschool and Kansas University.
She also is the curator of the Navajo weaving exhibition on display through Oct. 9 at the arts center. The exhibition includes rugs created by Keams and her family members as well as by Barbara Ornelas, D.Y. Begaye, Mary Nakai, Virginia Nakai and other notable Navajo weavers.
This isn't Keams' first time in Lawrence. She previously conducted a weaving workshop at the Museum of Anthropology and has been selected several times for the annual Lawrence Indian Arts Show.
Next on her itinerary are an art show in February in Scottsdale, Ariz.; a lecture on Navajo weaving in February in Austin, Tex.; and an art show in April in Tucson, Ariz.
-- Jan Biles' phone message number is 832-7146. Her e-mail address is jbiles@ljworld.com.
A NAVAJO TRADITION What: An exhibition of Navajo weavings by Kalley Keams and others. When: Through Oct. 9. Where: Lawence Arts Center, 200 W. Ninth. Reception: From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. |
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