Navajo Sand Paintings.

Last week my son surprised me with a gift.

A Navajo sand painting with three pieces of horsehair pottery.

Joe knows some people in Sedona who are downsizing; he offered a barter, and it was Christmas in July for me. Among the things he brought home were two signed and framed Navajo sand paintings. My son has always known of my great admiration for Native American arts; our home resembles a mini museum as my collections are displayed throughout. I joked with him once about how long it would take for him and his sister to sort through my stuff after I’m gone; he replied that he didn’t think he’d be getting rid of anything. Which tells me that he likes them, too. 

Some of the imagery in this sand painting include symbols of Earth, Sky, and Sun, and the four sacred plants- corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. This is the work of Navajo artist Glen Nez, and hangs on a wall in my room.

The most authentic Navajo sand paintings are the ones someone like me will never see, unless it’s in a photograph. Which is as it should be.

Undated photo showing the creation of a sand painting for ceremonial purposes.

The Navajo word for such creations, iikaah, translates more or less as “place of coming and going”- a portal in which gods and humans may meet. They’re created by a medicine man for use in a healing ceremony, which lasts from one to several days. A new painting is created for each day of the ceremony. There are some 600 to 1000 design elements to choose from, and the medicine man puts much thought into his selections. The painting is created using things like pollen and finely ground turquoise, charcoal, red ochre, yellow ochre, and shells.

The patient sits in the center during the chant or sing, after which the materials used to create the painting are carefully swept up, and scattered away from the place of the ceremony. These sand paintings are ritual artworks of great sacredness. They are considered living entities in their own right, are made and unmade with painstaking care and respect, and are by their nature ephemeral.

Undated photo showing the creation of a sand painting for use in a healing ceremony.

The two sand paintings now hanging on my wall are secular, created to be permanent and enjoyed by anyone. I’ve seen different stories of the history of these secular artworks; the only thing they appear to agree on is that these permanent sand paintings, or dry paintings as they’re sometimes known, date back to the late 1940s to 1950s. At the time there was controversy about making religious imagery available for purchase by outsiders. Eventually a compromise was worked out.

A modern depiction of a traditional subject, a yei or Holy Person dancer.

Where imagery of yei (Holy People) and other traditional symbols representing things of religious significance like plants, animals, water, or mountains are depicted, care is taken by the artist to avoid making them exactly like those used in religious depictions. Deliberate inaccuracies are introduced to make the sand painting useless as a ritual object, which renders it powerless, and so avoids offending the Holy People.

My other sand painting. This one includes symbols of yei, the four sacred plants, the San Francisco Peaks, and the dawn, day, sunset, and night sky. This is also the work of Glen Nez.

Other secular sand paintings might depict objects, landscapes, dancers, and more. The pigments used are like those in religious sand paintings, ground natural materials. The designs are applied to a board in glue, a little bit at a time, using a fine paintbrush. In recent years some artists have been adding acrylic to the sands they use, deepening colors to spectacular effect.

A contemporary style sand painting depicting pottery, jewelry, and a basket.

Some secular sand paintings, like mine, bear a resemblance to religious sand paintings. Others are done in a style more like traditional paintings created by artists of the Western world. 

This outstanding example is the work of Navajo artist Eugene Baatsoslanii Joe.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these as much as I have enjoyed sharing them. I may do a diary about the horsehair pottery in future.

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Thank you for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome.