KEEPING THE PROMISE MASTER DINÉ WEAVER ROY KADY & HIS APPRENTICE PROGRAM

BY CATHY SHORT (CITIZEN POTAWATOMI)

OY KADY is internationally recognized as a Diné master weaver, fiber artist, cultural leader, and mentor. Spend even a little time talking to Kady, and you quickly come to realize how much his apprentice program means to him and how much pride he takes in the young Navajo fiber artists he works with. The cornerstone of his program, which mentors up to six apprentices at a time, is the intergenerational sharing of culture through stories and songs, involvement in the shepherd’s way of life, and learning old and new fiber techniques. There is no time constraint for the apprentices in the program; it is only important that their individual goals are met.

When you turn off US 160 in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona, to visit Kady where he lives on the eastern slope of the Chuska Mountains, you pass the remains of a stone structure that was his childhood home. He plans to rebuild the old homestead into a learning center where weaving and other Diné life way skills can be taught to a new generation. Gentle and soft-spoken, Kady mixes thoughtfulness with a positive sense of humor that keeps his listener captivated in conversation. Kady is tied to his cultural lifestyle on the reservation, but he can also amaze with his travel experiences to South America, Italy, and other countries where he acts as a cultural ambassador by sharing his knowledge of sheep and weaving. Traces of what he learns during his travels show up in his work. Every one of Kady’s weavings contains a story significant to his life.

His mother, Mary K. Clah, raised the family as a single parent. Kady and his sisters grew up learning how to do every kind of chore to help out, both inside and outside the house. By the age of nine, Kady wove items that could be used at home or sold to help out with family finances. He watched his grandfather weave horse tack and his grandmother weave utilitarian bags and rag rugs from scraps of old, discarded Pendleton blankets. The memory of those rag rugs, sold to tourists at Mesa Verde, later became an inspiration to Kady to go beyond the familiar, trading post-influenced, regional designs and develop his own unique weaving style. He also finds inspiration in his surrounding landscape and the stories and experiences he remembers from his childhood.

Almost 30 years ago, Kady returned home to Teec Nos Pos to help his aging mother with her herd of Navajo-Churro sheep. These sheep came to have a deep meaning for Kady, who knew that the breed formed the basis of the Diné’s pastoral lifestyle and weaving for hundreds of years. The breed serves as an important connection to culture through weaving, songs, prayers, and ceremonies. The Navajo-Churro sheep have always been valued in part because of the many natural variations in the color of their wool—black, grey, brown, white, and even apricot—used in weaving designs. Two separate efforts by the federal government nearly wiped them out, first during the Long Walk in the 1860s and again in the 1930s during a livestock reduction program. Only about 430 NavajoChurro sheep survived on the Navajo reservation by the 1970s.

Commercial yarns and wool from other breeds of sheep used in their absence proved less suited to methods of hand processing and weaving, and the close connection with the sheep lifeway was mostly lost. In 1977, Dr. Lyle McNeal of Utah State University and his wife, Nancy, founded the Navajo Sheep Project to bring back the nearly extinct breed. Since then, Navajo-Churro sheep have been successfully reintroduced into Navajo communities.

Mastering An Art Form

WITH HIS MOTHER’S HELP, Kady learned to raise Navajo-Churro sheep and hand-process their wool into the yarn he came to prize for his own weaving and felting. This experience made him realize he could support himself as a fiber artist. Kady first taught himself each of the regional designs from pictures in a book. These weavings were gifted to his kinfolk and friends. Kady then combined the different regional styles in a single sampler, his first titled weaving—with an important difference. One of the birds has flown from the Tree of Life in the weaving, and is perched on a Two Grey Hills terrace. To Kady’s surprise, The Bird That Got Away won a second place ribbon at a competitive show. That was when Kady began to see his loom as a canvas and started a career based on weaving in his own creative way. Today, Kady is one of many Diné weavers who push the limits, using old and time-consuming techniques such as hand-processing their wool to create weavings in new styles. He considers this move as a natural part of the ongoing evolution of Diné weaving.

Other types of fibers, including alpaca, llama, silk, cotton, hemp, and metallic, have joined NavajoChurro wool in Kady’s weavings as accents that add texture. Most of his weavings are now custom orders and museum exhibition pieces, although occasionally he has a finished weaving not spoken for at an Indian market. A recent weaving incorporates different species of hummingbirds that Kady encountered during his travels in South America. A customer in Germany consigned the artwork so she could always see the exotic birds on her wall.

Kady explains that both Diné men and women have historically been weavers, even though popular perception is that women primarily weave. The Diné creation story tells that Spider Man set up the first loom, taught Spider Woman how to weave, and instructed her to teach the community how to weave. The lyrics of some weaving songs explain how to differentiate blanket designs between men and women weavers, with female rain and more subtle designs woven by women and bolder designs, such as lightning and thunder, incorporated by male weavers, according to Kady. Elders often talk about how their husbands, uncles, and brothers were all weavers and how weaving has been a communal responsibility.

Weaving is not the only important aspect of Kady’s life. He has been president of the Teec Nos Pos Chapter, taught Diné cultural classes at local schools, worked with at-risk youth, and taught weaving classes at various colleges and universities. Kady continues to work with tribal elders to learn and share oral history and songs. He is also a member of the Táá Dibéi, the Navajo-Churro Heritage Lamb Presidium. The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity helped form the presidium in 2006 to promote the market for Navajo-Churro lamb. In all he does, Kady emphasizes self-sufficiency and care of the environment.

Keeping His Promise

KADY IS PASSIONATE ABOUT WEAVING. He believes that passing on his gift of knowledge is important in keeping weaving alive and carrying it forward into the life of the next generation of young Navajos. It also keeps faith with the promise he made his mother before she died to pass on the Diné lifeways she and his other relatives and community members had taught him.

Kady’s goal for his first group of apprentices was to help them understand that weaving is still alive and relevant to their lives. It quickly became clear that the apprentices would not only learn from Kady and from each other but would also share new knowledge with Kady. One of his key goals for the program was recently realized when some of his apprentices decided to weave a blanket using older customary techniques and elements to represent and safeguard a fellow apprentice who was having a ceremony performed for him. Weaving for a particular individual and occasion represents an important Diné practice distinct from weavings made for sale at art markets.

Kady’s apprentices are a common sight at events on and off the reservation. Their energy and hard work help highlight the longstanding cultural connection between the Diné people and the Navajo-Churro sheep. At the annual Sheep is Life Celebration on the Diné College campus in Tsaile, Arizona, apprentices participate in workshops and demonstrations on wool carding, spinning, dyeing, weaving, and felting. Kady is a former director of Diné be ´iiná, Inc. (DBI), a major sponsor of the celebration and force in the reestablishment of the Navajo-Churro breed. Throughout the Navajo Nation, apprentices participate in wool-processing workshops and in spin-off events, informal meetings for community members to share their knowledge. Kady has taken his apprentices to visit museum collections in Arizona and New Mexico, where they study work by earlier Diné weavers. Apprentices also help Kady herd his sheep 22 miles up a mountainside to their summer pasture and back.

Proving the success of Kady’s program, his first apprentices are now accomplished artists themselves. As established weavers, they have a duty to share their knowledge and inspiration with others, as well as consult with Kady. These talented young men are now working with their families and communities to identify projects they can help with and individuals they can teach. Three members of his first group of apprentices, Eliseo Curley, Kevin Aspaas, and Zephren Anderson, assisted Kady with the Heard Museum Prepare for the Fair series leading up to the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, where they demonstrated their weaving skills.

Spend some time visiting with Kady and these apprentices while you are at the fair and you will see firsthand that weaving is not a lost art. Weaving continues to be passed down from one generation to the next through efforts like Kady’s apprentice program.

Apprentices No More

ELISEO CURLEY first learned to weave when he was just five or six years old. For much of his childhood, he stayed with his grandmother in Red Valley, Arizona, and helped tend her herd of goats. He assisted with shearing, carding, and spinning their wool. When his mother took a weaving class at Diné College, Curley tagged along and watched the action. He soon wove his first piece in a striped pattern. Curley stopped weaving when he attended middle and high school, but after graduation he picked it up again. Starting

PROVING THE SUCCESS OF KADY’S PROGRAM, HIS FIRST APPRENTICES ARE NOW ACCOMPLISHED ARTISTS THEMSELVES.

with sash belts, Curley soon moved on to weaving horse cinches, felting, dyeing, and creating other fiber arts. He is especially interested in re-envisioning Diné attire. A Diné warrior’s hat is typically made from animal hides stitched together, but Curley constructed one from felted wool. His goal is to build on the past while creating the next wave of fiber art.

Kevin Aspaas learned to weave sash belts from his mother. When he was very young, she wove them to supplement the family’s income. Aspaas remembers his mother warping her loom, taking the children to school, spending her day weaving, picking the children back up, making their dinner, and putting them to bed, only to return to her loom to weave long into the night. On weekends, the family traveled around to sell the sash belts his mother wove during the week. All the weavers Aspaas knew as a youth were women, so he was shy about letting the rest of his family know he wove, until later his uncle informed him that men in his family also wove. At age 10, Aspaas put weaving aside for school and sports, and did not pick it up again until he was a freshman in college, when he took his looms back out and worked from memory. After meeting Kady, Aspaas became serious about weaving and is especially interested in historical clothing of the Diné.

Aspaas is now passing his knowledge on to his six-year-old nephew, who has already learned how to warp his own loom. The idea of being a mentor to his nephew has special meaning for Aspaas; he likes the idea of having more men weaving in his family since his sisters are not interested in learning the art. Weaving has inspired Aspaas to become more deeply involved in Navajo culture and ceremonies. He has learned the weaving songs and how to determine which stories and designs are appropriate to incorporate into his weavings.

Zephren Anderson researches and recreates Diné weaving techniques and styles that predate the Long Walk. An expert tailor as well as weaver, Anderson constructs older styles of Navajo clothing by weaving his own fabrics and is often seen wearing his creations. The apprentice program helps him to reconnect to his historical roots through the language, history, food and land that is contained in Indigenous traditional knowledge These experiences have filled in blanks in stories Anderson heard from his grandparents. The apprentices’ knowledge demonstrates the true diversity of Diné culture. Anderson’s involvement in Kady’s apprentice program taught him much more than he could ever learn from books. He hopes other young Diné will take advantage of Kady’s program.

Sharing The Story

KADY ENCOURAGES ART FAIR VISITORS to ask the weavers they meet about their work rather than just try to categorize weavings into established, regional styles. Kady believes it is important that viewers recognize the stories embedded in his weavings. As Diné textile arts continue to evolve, more weavers like Kady are emphasizing their own creativity and developing more experimental designs.

Exhibiting in art markets provides emerging artists opportunities to learn and teach others. While they may seem young, these weavers have much to share. Intergenerational exchanges of ideas and techniques are how Diné weaving evolved, in part, and how Kady sees it continuing and growing in the future.

You can follow the journey of Roy Kady’s apprentices on their Facebook page, Diné Master Youth Fiber Artists Mentors, @dineyouthfiber. Zephren Anderson’s re-creation of old styles of Navajo clothing can be seen in his Digital Divide Outfitters album on his Facebook page, @zefrenm. ?