A Blanket, Sorta.

Stick with me for a minute on this one. Textiles influence our surroundings much more than most folks realize. Picnics, bedspreads, beach towels, tablecloths, throw blankets, rugs, drapery, etc. They can come to dominate an aesthetic without even trying, or despite whatever else is going on. For instance, you could have a sleek lined modern bedroom, but if you add an Incredible Hulk bedspread,  all you have is an Incredible Hulk bedroom. See what I mean?

For Christmas I would like some blankets… but I have opinions.

I like Persian rugs just fine but would prefer to personally collect them from Persia. I have never been there. I have however been to Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and California. Not that they are similar places or produce similar products, but replace the image of an office floor draped in Persian rugs with Navajo textiles and that is what I want. Earth tones, hand made, meaningful designs in a western theme in line with my upbringing.

They may not be manufactured but crafted.

Manufacture away with some navy and white striped lightweight sheet-tablecloth-cloth-whatever. I could use large, lightweight (linen would be perfect), navy and white striped bolts of cloth. A day at the beach is great, but a day at the beach where the hodge-podge beach towels are replaced with classic nautical colors just moved up a few notches. It would work the same on summer canopies or sandy picnics. Just remember, thick, navy and white stripes.

Add to the list the basic red and white checked linen tablecloth or picnic blanket. This one is for grassy fields as opposed to sandy dunes but pretty much the same as above. Classic, clean, adds to the occasion rather than detracts.

It does in fact get cold in California. Even if it doesn’t, I do intend to go to cold places occasionally. There is no better answer to cold than the classy and historic Hudson Bay blanket. In my mind this blanket recall French fur trappers and Iroquois. Neither of those are very West Coast but I refuse to completely assimilate. I like the clean lines and simple colors.

Picture your clean line modernist bedroom with the Hulk bedspread, then replace those sheets with the Hudson Bay blanket. Ta-Da! Your modern sleekness is still there but now you have added some warmth and history, which is no simple task with modernism. Hence the power of the Hudson Bay blanket.

Pow Wow in Redlands

You don’t get events like this one back east. At least not very often.

 

We arrived at a point in the program when nothing was going on. Lunch slash break I suppose. Folks with long braids, bells on their legs, and t- shirts lounged around on lawn chairs. We wandered through booths selling beads, feathers, and kitsch.

I’m not sure if anyone at the pow wow was Navajo or not, but my little one had never experienced a Navajo taco. She has now. I’m pretty sure my middle school had no Navajos but we had Navajo tacos on the cafeteria menu at least once a week. I’m paying it forward.

I like being in a place like this. Well, maybe not a place exactly- an event. An event where the sounds and sights aren’t the same as every other day or place.

If you spend enough time going places and doing things you don’t normally go and do, then normal sort of shifts. If normality is displaced life gets interesting. I like interesting.

When the dancing started, when the grand entrance began, it was other worldly. The sounds, the movements, and the colors surrounded everything. There was a pounding constant beat driving below with a high pitched chanting up above and in the middle was colorful swirling motion.

This isn’t history but it is tradition. It was very much a now and not a then event. There is so much of native life that is dead, that is then, that it was nice to be in the middle of something that was now. It was alive. It is good to see things stay alive.