Arizona Event: 56th Annual Navajo Festival
July 30-31, 2005 • Museum of Northern Arizona • 3101 N. Fort Valley Road, Flagstaff, AZ — Artists, musicians, dancers, and food preparers will gather at the Museum of Northern Arizona’s 56th Annual Navajo Festival of Arts and Culture on Saturday and Sunday, July 30 and 31 to share in the weekend’s grand offering of Diné traditions. The central philosophy in Diné life is hozho, meaning everything the Navajo thinks of as good-harmony, beauty, blessedness, and balance.
Basket making and rug weaving are two of the arts that define this culture. Sally Black is an award-winning basket weaver and one of the few remaining artists whose vision and fine workmanship are keeping this art form alive. Black, who learned basket making from her mother Mary Holiday Black, has been making baskets since she was eight years old. She is from Monument Valley and makes large, flat, coil baskets out of sumac fibers gathered from Utah and Colorado. She is known for her tightly woven designs and says, “The baskets I’m doing now mostly have stories-the First World, the Second World, the Third World, the beginning of life that’s all white except for one corn sticks up.”
Read the complete article by clicking on the title link above. Be sure to also visit the Museum of Northern Arizona for more information about this remarkable tribe.
