Article January 21, 2002 Issue

The environment and humanity—woven in perfect harmony

By Colleen Douglass

SHI MA SANI'S knowing hands wove the weft back and forth through the warp without a wasted motion as she fabricated a traditional Navajo pattern. Her rug would shield a woman from the bitter winter cold, be sold to a tourist for money to buy provisions, or fall into the hands of a child and grandchild as a legacy of their family heritage.

Too many to number, these rugs hint at an ancient weaving of the individual with his or her environment. The imagination is purely ours. But the tools and the materials belong to the earth. Shi ma sani's loom was created out of limbs from local trees.

Her domesticated sheep donated their winter coats to make the yarn. And the dyes were found in the plants that thrive in the red clay of the Arizona high desert.

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