Rebecca Mezoff Blog — Rebecca Mezoff

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A textile trip to a beautiful city

A textile trip to a beautiful city

I had the good fortune to be able to go to the Textile Society of America conference last week in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. the theme of this conference was The Social Fabric: Deep Local to Pan Global.

What a beautiful city Vancouver is. I hadn’t been there before and I enjoyed everything from good food to public transportation to some amazing public parks and beaches.

I signed up for the conference because I felt a need to expand my awareness of the fiber world. The conference is largely academic, but I like that kind of thing. It gave me a chance to hear what people are researching in the world of fiber and to find some wonderful inspiration in papers, keynotes, exhibitions, and talking to other attendees.

Untangled

Untangled

It is ready!

My first book is out in the world. Untangled: A Crafty Sheep’s Guide to Tapestry Weaving has been several years in the making. The idea came from a student in a workshop I taught at the Michigan League of Handweavers Conference probably in 2015. Marge heard me describing yet another little trick I like to use when weaving tapestry and she said I should write a book about those tips. So I did.

Growing up on the edge of the Navajo Reservation

Growing up on the edge of the Navajo Reservation

In my last post I reviewed Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today, a new book by Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas. As part of that post I found myself writing what follows but then felt my own experience was out of place when discussing that beautiful publication. So what follows is some thoughts about my own relationship to Navajo weaving today. You can read the blog post about the book HERE.

I grew up in Gallup, NM. That town on I-40 is perched on the edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation just south of where Lynda and Barbara grew up. Slowly, I came to know a little about Navajo weaving. My parents took us to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site whenever we had out-of-town guests they wanted to show around. Inevitably that was followed by a trip to Canyon de Chelly. I understood nothing of tribal/US politics as a child. Nor did I understand much about poverty or the roots of the struggles the Navajo people have experienced at the hands of the federal government.

Spider Woman's Children

Spider Woman's Children

When Lynda Teller Pete told me she and her sister Barbara Teller Ornelas were writing a book about today’s Navajo weavers, I knew I needed to get a copy. Lynda an articulate speaker and a spokeswoman for traditional Navajo weaving. I had the opportunity to look at some of the Navajo Textile Crane Collection at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with herself and DY Begay several months ago and her knowledge of this art form is informed by her personal knowledge as a weaver, her experience as a Navajo tribal member, and her study of Navajo textiles at the museum level. I knew the book, Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today, was going to be excellent. Plus it was published by Thrums Books and everything Linda Ligon touches in this business is magic. Photography done by the magnificent Joe Coca was icing on the cake.

If I had to say what this book is about in one world, I would have to say family. It tells a story of family, both the larger family of the Navajo Nation and the particular family of Lynda and Barbara.

Inhale

Inhale

A vacation.

It does not seem like taking some time off should be difficult. Humans need rest.

But I do find it difficult to absent myself completely from my business. It turns out in two weeks there were no monumental tapestry emergencies, my website went back up, and I enjoyed watching my brain relax its anxious grip on whatever it perceives as reality in that moment.

I picked up Krista Suh's book, DIY Rules for a WTF World in a yarn shop recently and it seemed like great deck reading. Right at the beginning of the book. . . .