Rug c. 20th century

This Navajo Rug was woven with wool, and is currently held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The palette is tight, the colours are soft, suggesting the natural dyes that were available to the Diné weaver. Look closely, and you’ll notice that the piece is made up of vertical stripes of jagged shapes. These shapes were not painted onto the rug but intricately woven, strand by strand. Imagine the time and effort that went into this piece, the maker working patiently to build up these shapes from the ground up. The white of the wool is creamy, slightly dirty with age. The red is uneven, the different strands have taken the dye differently. It’s easy to imagine the weaver sorting through the wool, choosing each strand with care, to achieve the colour variations they desired. This piece reminds me of the work of Anni Albers, who like the Diné weavers, understood artmaking as a process of building up shapes and patterns through repetition and careful attention to detail. The ambiguity of the pattern invites us to see the world differently.