Filatura Navajo

… Spinning, like a few other things, cannot be taught. A woman can "show" me how to do it; I must learn the coordination through practise. The perfection of the art is one which depends largerly on feeling, a niceness of balance and judgement between implement, material, and the spinner's hands. there will be difficulty… She learns through observation and experimentation… She will know… She will find also after more experience… She will be surprised… She also discovers… The learner will at first have to give her entire concentration to her task… It is not difficult to understand why spinning has become famed in song and story, why poets extol the nobilty of the spinner, why the art has even become symbolic of "goodness"… A spindle can always be carried with the little light wool necessary… the simplicity of the art, combined with the grace necesary for skill, are sufficient to account for the sentimentality arising in the soul…

Weaving a Navajo Blanket - Gladis A. Reichard - DOVER PUBBLICATIONS, INC. - New York