Diné (Navajo) Wool Pictorial Rug of Circus Scene [R]

Florence Riggs is a weaver of the most complicated and unique Navajo pictorial rugs of the day.  She gets her ideas from her imagination and from magazines such as Southwest Art and New Mexico or others.  “After I get an idea,” she explains, “I ask my brother to draw it out for me in outline.”  He sketches a cartoon-like drawing of the original idea on used corrugated cardboard with a magic marker.  Riggs then transfers the drawing and enlarges it, filling in details from her memory as she goes along.  She draws freehand with black magic marker directly on the warp of the loom.

Riggs keeps a cardboard box filled with skeins of brightly colored wool at the ready near her loom.  She buys the wool at the Navajo cooperative in Tuba City and at various trading posts.  “The colors,” she says, “come to me as I go along.  I use colors that seem right."

This rug of hers features a circus ring master basking in the beam of a yellow spotlight.  “I’ve never seen a circus,” Riggs said, “but I’d sure like to if one comes to Farmington or Tuba City.”  For someone who’s never seen a circus, she did an outstanding job of picturing one in this rug.

This rug is published on page 143 in the book The People Speak: Navajo Folk Art by Chuck and Jan Rosenak.  It was completed in 1992.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from the personal collection of Chuck and Jan Rosenak, collectors and authors of Navajo folk art.

Recommended Reading:  The People Speak: Navajo Folk Art by Chuck and Jan Rosenak