05.27.23 Mary Holiday Black

Basket Weaver
Mary Holiday Black 1932-2022

By Rebekah Powers | May 2023

Chimayo Trading has recently featured several matriarchs of the Pueblos, like Maria Martinez and Blue Corn of San Ildefonso and several other leaders in pottery and the indigenous arts who revived the historic art forms of their people.

Mary Holiday Black was a pivotal figure, a basket maker and textile weaver who played a key role in the revival of Navajo basket weaving which had become an endangered art form by 1970, after years of decline. She encouraged interest in the art of basket weaving, not so much by reviving the old ways, but by creating new ones!

Through experimentation with new techniques and designs, Mary Holiday Black created a singularly new style of Navajo baskets known as “story baskets”. She designed baskets with important themes, giving them poetic names such as “Placing the Stars” or a story about the “Changing Woman” (the Navajo female deity) inspired by Navajo oral history.

25” diameter
5” depth

In 1995, she became the first Navajo artist to win a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Originally from Halchita, Utah, Mary Holiday married Jessie Black in the 1950’s and together they had 11 children, 9 of whom learned the ancient tribal art from their mother and became respected basket weavers in the Navajo tradition.

Chimayo Trading is currently showing a large ceremonial “Eagle” basket, typical of the larger baskets that were first introduced by Mary Holiday Black, known as “the Matriarch of Navajo Basketry”. The central Eagle design is golden with a turquoise eye. An important symbol to the Navajo, the Eagle is thought to be the strongest and bravest of birds, and the most holy because it can fly into the Heavens, close to the Creator. Eagle feathers represent the 7 guiding principles as well: love, respect, courage, honesty, humility, truth and wisdom. The Eagle denotes freedom and the courage to look ahead. It is believed that having an Eagle basket in your home is a blessing.

Navajo Ceremonial Baskets or Navajo Wedding Baskets represent creation itself and serve as a map through which the Navajo chart the course of their lives. This historic basket is in perfect condition, 25” in diameter, woven from sumac, yucca, and willow and a compelling centerpiece wherever it is displayed. Baskets not only tell stories, but they carry Native American history into a new future led by the creator, weaver and matriarch, Mary Holiday Black. Our museum quality basket collection is on view every day in the expanded “basket room” at Chimayo Trading Del Norte.

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