Ganado Red

by Star Liana York

Medium: Bronze

Photo Credit: Wendy McEahern

Out in the land of little rain,
Of canyon-rift and cactus-plain,
An Indian woman, short and swart,
This blanket wove with patient art;
And day to day, through all a year
before her loom, by pattern queer
She stolidly a story told-
A Legend of her people old.
The title "Ganado Red" is taken from the style of rug design developed by weavers from the Navajo Reservation area of Ganado. Around the turn of the century, Lorenzo Hubbell of the legendary Hubbell Trading Post, encouraged and influenced designs done by the Navajo Weavers, and styles such as Ganado Red were born.
This sculpture depicts a Navajo woman who is shaking out a just completed weaving, presenting her work of art, her labor of love, proudly. It was inspired by a Navajo weaver from Monument Valley who spoke no English or Spanish, but whose exuberant expression upon displaying her newly finished work spoke volumes about the satisfaction she gets from her proficiency at the loom.