Indigenous Artist DY Begay Conjures the Magic of Nature With Her Tapestries

Experience the artist’s stunning work in the first book dedicated to her career

Weaver DY Begay’s tapestry art can be said to explore three core themes: the importance of family, the love of her homeland of Tsélání in the Navajo Nation, and a passion for experimentation. More than anywhere else, Begay’s love for experimentation manifests itself in her passion for hand-dyeing her wool with a breathtaking range of natural pigments. Begay is a master dyer as well as a master colorist. Committed to exploring the expressive power of color, Begay is always in search of hues to add to her palette, with the aim of creating ever-new color combinations or optical effects as in Confluence of Lavender. It is in her handling of color that Begay’s love for experimentation and aesthetic sensibilities marry.

This seamless marriage—based on a wealth of intimate knowledge about her medium reaching back to all that she learned from her own family—has allowed Begay to develop her unique visual language and give vibrancy and life to her distinctive tapestries. And perhaps most impressively, her virtuosic ability to weave fluid luminous displays of color allows her to capture the atmospheric play of light, including the sublime light of Tsélání’s high-desert sunrises and sunsets.

Tselani is a symphony of subdued beiges, taupes, and cool slate grays, with vibrant sienna and umber confined to its top and bottom borders. This bracketing gives the tapestry definition and enhances its otherwise understated presence. The work approaches total abstraction; just possibly, three rows of mesas can be perceived. Sitting outside her hogan early one morning, Begay heard sheep bleating in the distance. Her mind drifted to the inevitable dust raised by her great-great-great-grandmother’s enormous flock of sheep. “I can hear my neighbors calling to the sheep,” she wrote in her journal, “and I can see heaps of dust as the sheep race to the corral for their breakfast. These moments remind me of my great-great-great grandmother, Asdzą́ą́ Tótsohnii who owned over one hundred head of sheep. I sit here visualizing the dust her sheep must have kicked up!” Begay’s love for Tsélání, its sights and sounds, and for her great-greatgreat-grandmother, are embedded in this dusty-desert-inspired opus.
 

Begay’s Intended Vermillion represents the formations and colorations of Vermilion Cliffs, the awe-inspiring rock formations in Coconino County, Arizona. The tapestry focuses on the way these spectacular mesas, buttes, and cliffs are conceived by the Diné in their language. Tsé łichíí’ dah nidaa’eeł, Begay says, is the term used to describe “the reddish rocks floating on the surface.” Tsé łichíí’ daniteel describes the long horizontal line of the reddish cliffs. Intended Vermillion speaks to how she and her fellow Diné share ways of observing and thinking about their surrounding world.

Enjoy more in Sublime Light, which is available from Smithsonian Books. Visit Smithsonian Books’ website to learn more about its publications and a full list of titles. 

Excerpt from Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay Copyright © 2024 Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian