Mary Holiday Black

Following the long-term decline of Navajo basket-weaving in the 1960’s, Mary Holiday Black revived and revolutionized the traditional craft. She began expanding the traditional basket size, allowing for greater space to introduce motifs and stories into the design of the baskets. Her imagery pulls from Navajo traditional crafts, alluding to mythological moments, spiritual figures and legends, as well as geometric images with religious significance. While the traditional baskets were used in ceremony, her work became an art, decorative in nature instead of used in ceremony. Black’s baskets were features in the first major museum exhibition on Navajo basket weaving and have been displayed in numerous others since then.

"Home of the Butterflies"

The brilliant colors that stray from the traditional white, red, and black colors of Navajo baskets are a signature of Black’s work. “Home of the Butterflies” weaves the ancient Navajo legend of a man who transformed into a butterfly, abstractly capturing the flutter of wings and preserving the Navajo legends within the woven willow.

"Eagle"

Black honors traditional Navajo mythology throughout her words, weaving a geometric eagle into the face of the flat basket to the right. In Navajo mythology, the eagle is believed to carry messages between the world of the Navajo people to the world of the supernatural.

"Fire Dance"

This final basket depicts the traditional Navajo fire dancing through brilliant colors woven into the white background of the basket, once again distinguishing Black’s weaving from the traditional ceremonial baskets. This is not her only basket bearing this title, with another two sharing similar titles but distinct designs.