Weaver earns ‘best of show’ for dye chart

WINDOW ROCK

Isabel Deschinny started dying yarn when she was 10 years old. Her mother, Mabel Burnside-Myers, an herbalist, sheepherder and weaver, taught all five of her children to find plants and make dyes at a young age. Last Thursday, the 75-year-old Deschinny took overall best of show at the Navajo Nation Fair fine arts competition for her framed 3-foot by 6-foot “Vegetable Dye Chart,” displayed at Gorman Hall.

“We all used to help my mom,” said Deschinny, who grew up in Pine Springs, Arizona. “She used to guide us. We were like a little factory. Each one of us would take on a particular task.” Deschinny said they all went out into the fields and picked bags full of herbs, flowers, berries, and plants and returned home to watch them boil in water, anticipating what colors would emerge. “She showed us what colors came up and we were all surprised, very surprised,” she said.

Then Deschinny started weaving at 13 when her mom told her it was time to pick her colors from the yarn bins. In Deschinny’s prize-winning work, an extra-large version of the dye charts her family has been selling for decades, 78 dried plants, herbs, berries and flowers, along with juniper ash for black and clay for white, are featured with corresponding dyed yarn and labels in neatly organized rows. At the center of the chart is a miniature weaving on a loom, evocative of a sunset scene, that reflects Deschinny’s designs and uses colors in the chart.

Deschinny says some of her favorite colors come from the prickly pear cactus, which can be different depending on the time of the year the fruit is picked. She emphasized that it’s always important to use freshly picked plants when making dyes. “The fresher the plant, the better the dye,” she said. “Especially with the flower blossoms and berries. If it’s all dried and withered, you don’t really get a dye from it.”

Deschinny believes that her unusually large chart with a wool background, that took two months to create, should maintain its integrity and last for a long time. She’s hoping perhaps it will find its way into the Navajo Nation Museum and serve as a reference for other weavers. Museum director Manuelito Wheeler, also organizer of the fine art competition, said the museum would indeed be interested in acquiring the award-winning dye chart for its collection.

“Deschinny’s monumental dye chart is a work of art that has taken over 40 years to collect all specimens for her to create this piece,” said Weaver. “It’s a beautiful, rare example of generations of Diné wisdom and knowledge. This is such a deserving piece and signifies the trend of the recognition of artists who are not mainstream.” Deschinny said her son Mark Deschinny, with whom she shared a booth at the fair’s Nizhoni Arts Market, has followed in her footsteps. “He’s a teacher now,” she said. “He does everything and makes weaving tools, but he doesn’t do weaving.”

Mark Deschinny recalls numerous times pulling over in the family car alongside the road and his mom telling the kids to go pick plants. “When you grow up with it, it’s just what you do,” said Mark Deschinny. “It was just a part of life.” “My mom would always be dyeing yarns in the house. It would stink,” he added with a chuckle. Today Mark Deschinny holds workshops and teaches in schools. He, too, can show people where to pick plants and how to dye yarns.

He especially likes teaching the youth. “They begin to understand how the older weavers of the past were able to acquire the colors to make the rug that was eventually sold,” he said. “It’s then they begin to really appreciate all of the work that goes into it.” Back in the 1950s, Isabel Deschinny said, her mom had started a recipe book for dyes with her friend Eileen Green. Burnside-Myers and Green used to love to sit and talk about plants, herbs, dyes and colors, she said.

In the book, they listed complete details on all of the plants that they knew about. “It’s also about the plants that are used for healing, for prayers,” said Deschinny. Burnside-Myers was an expert herbalist as was her grandmother, Mary Burnside, who taught her. When Deschinny’s mom passed in 1987, Green called Deschinny and asked her to finish the book. She says that request has weighed on her mind all of these years and this year she decided to do something about it.

This led to Deschinny’s retirement last spring from 28 years of teaching beginning weaving at UNM-Gallup. Deschinny said she told her boss she was retiring “to write the dye recipe book.” Needless to say, the $4,700 that Deschinny won for best of show will help her efforts to complete the book. She said she was stunned at the size of the check and was thrilled for the recognition of her life’s work that has been passed on through generations. “People are asking me how I feel,” said a cheerful Deschinny. “I say, ‘I feel great! I feel wonderful!’”