Grace Henderson Nez

Grace Henderson Nez was born on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. She was a weaver for most of her life — a life spent living in a hogan at the base of Ganado Mesa. “I started working with weaving as a young girl,” she told an interviewer in 2005. “And as a young girl, I did not do the warping myself. My mother and my grandmother did the warping for me, and they were the ones that taught me how to weave.”

By the time Nez was 8 years old, her mother and maternal grandmother had died, and her paternal grandparents took over raising her. Her paternal grandmother was also a good weaver and continued the girl’s education in the art.

Nez’s people raised sheep for food and wool. They sheared the sheep and carded and spun the wool. Dyes were made from natural materials such as plants, clay and ash. Wool was washed with yucca roots.

Grace Nez developed into a master weaver, creating rugs and blankets with complex, balanced designs, always featuring the correct wool quality, yarn weight and weaving texture. She liked to use designs from nineteenth-century chiefs' wearing blankets. They sold well and provided a connection to her people. Nez continued to use a heavy wooden loom her late husband made. She passed her skills along to her daughter, Mary Henderson Begay, and granddaughter, Gloria Jean Begay. Nez also learned to weave Hopi wedding baskets from her elder sister, who married into a Hopi family.

“Yes, I like weaving,” Nez told the interviewer. “That’s what gave me life.... It provided food for me and even the sheep’s wool, you know, we sell the wool, and that provides a living for us.

“How can we keep our weaving traditions going?” she said. “Just keep weaving. You have to be enthused about your weaving.”