Brenda Spencer
Navajo Weaving
Brenda Spencer was born to Kiyaa'aanii (Towering House People—maternal clan) and born on Tbaah (Edge of Water
People—paternal clan) on April 14, 1962, in Gallup, New Mexico. She now lives in the Wide Ruins area, but uses a Chambers, Arizona address. Raised mostly in a Mormon foster home in Utah when her father left the family, Brenda didn't learn how to weave until she finished high school. This, however, has not slowed her skills or her growing prominence as a weaver. From 1987 to 1991, and again in 1998, Brenda participated in the "Separate Vision" project at the Museum of Northern Arizona the goals of which were to explore visually and in words the challenges facing Native Americans in the art market of the day. Working at Hubbell Trading Post, Brenda experiences first-hand the everyday struggles that face weavers in balancing their desire for recognition with the need for creativity and the desire to convey images more meaningfully than rugs of the past with only red, white, and black colors-characteristics that became typical stereotypes in Navajo weaving.
Brenda is part of the new generation of weavers who continue to elaborate on and live the message that art is first and foremost a means of expressing vital thoughts, and that Native voices should not be excluded from the public forum by comfortable expectations of past traditions. She says, "I try to do something different, something new, be more creative with my weaving now. I try to have something in mind every time I start a new rug. It's got to be different from the ones I've done before. When I get a new idea, I usually sketch it out and put it someplace and have it in mind. Then I put the loom up and sit at it, but normally, I won't get the rug done right away. It'll take me six, maybe eight, months to complete it from when the idea starts to come. It creates itself as it goes along." This is because Brenda maintains a strict standard of
technique—one that she learned from her mother, Marjorie Spencer, who is a well-known, respected weaver.
Marjorie Spencer and Brenda's three sisters, Vera Spencer, Irma Spencer Owens, and Geneva Scott Shabie, all weave in the Wide Ruins and Burntwater styles. Their unique colors, ones they have adopted during the last twenty years, come from several sources, including Burnham's Trading Post in Sanders, Arizona. They do not use the revived Germantown yarns that Burnham's is now known for, but rather prefer the chic shades of mauve, salmon, lavender, pink, light purple, and blue in developing their tapestries. For this family, the variation of colors allows for more creativity and thought. Brenda's experimentation with the Wide Ruins patterns usually is made up of straight rows of intricate elements in various color combinations. Following those canons, Brenda uses drops and reversals in the patterns within the rows. These are emphasized by color changes and contrasting outlines. Brenda has ventured from this regional patterning when she wove a Tee[s] Nos Pos style-inspired by her visit to China.
While she works at Hubbell's Trading Post, Brenda continues to rely on her weaving as a source of income to support her daughter, age sixteen, and son, Rolando who is eight years old. Her travels to Hong Kong and other places and institutions inspire her. Of her work and that of others, she says, "we should see weaving as a art form, because it is something we create from our inner soul. What we create in our rug is who we are and what we feel."
Images: (Top) Portrait by
Mark Nohl
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