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Show t -A -S .I - """. 8- ' ' ! " til Ii""' yMnvj yL. mmJ i Rugs improve her life sleeps' NaVa' 'S bett6r '10W'" S3id TeSSie Skeet' "there are more Ppole and less Sitting on the floor of the Union, Mrs. Skeet told-through an interpreter-about her life Friday reSerVat'n and the ru she was weaving. She is demonstrating each day until She learned the art of Navajo rug weaving by watching her mother and grandmother, vvnen sne was 10 she took a small rug for a pattern and started on her own. She's been weaving rugs for 53 years. She talks with her turquoise laden hands, waving them over the loom and the unfinished rug, explaining her art. "I get started selling the rugs when a tourists came to he reservation looking at lugs He ook one of mine back to Boston with him and his friends liked it so much they asked me to weave rugs for them." Mrs. Skeet does all of her own preparation for the rugs. She shears the sheep, cards, spins and dyes the wool. Her son made her loom, but she carved all of her wooden tools. After the initial preparation, the actual weaving takes about a month. She sells the rugs starting at $125 for a small one. And the money has helped to improve her life. "I live in a pretty good house," she said. She lives in Vanderwagon, N. Mex., just off the Navajo reservation. "When I was a little girl, we all lived in hogans and there was never enough of anything to go around." Mrs. Skeet's life is her weaving, it is her livelihood and a part of her cultural heritage. Of her seven daughters only two learned weaving from her, but she doesn't think the art will die, because it is an art. "And besides," she said, smiling, her gold teeth shining, "I get to travel a lot, demonstrating demon-strating my weaving." |
