Example GNDA Guest-Curated Pairing

Artist Statement

Harrison Begay’s Taking Down A Finished Rug is a painting of a Diné woman removing a completed weaving from a loom. Acting as a release or exhale, this moment is ephemeral. A weaving taken down causes a weaving to begin. A weaver will active the loom to continue the life long relationship between the loom and the body. 

dah ‘iistł’ǫ́ [loomz] is a work about the beliefs and rituals I have with the loom. Looms cradle histories.. process.. meditation.. survival.. creation. The mental and physical awareness at a loom is to exist within beauty. The loom itself acts a border between the physical and spiritual realm where weaver creates a dance between warp and weft, mind and movement. This is a sacred place for the weaving to exist. A relationship with the loom is one of mutual respect. The performance of weaving is a dance: the comb is the drum beat–the rhythm, the batten keeps movement, the shed are footsteps, the weft is the past. 

By setting up the loom in dah ‘iistł’ǫ́ [loomz] there is now a space for stories to be told. The warp invites anyone to visualize their own story and history to exist before them. For each viewer, this is now a space for only them. Like a harp waiting to be played, the strings say, “come over, feel me, play me, share with me your love and your beauty and your pain and let me cradle your story.”