DC | In Conversation: DY Begay with Fiber Artists Velma Kee Craig and Helena Hernmarck

Name: DC | In Conversation: DY Begay with Fiber Artists Velma Kee Craig and Helena Hernmarck
Start: 2024-09-21T13:00:00-04:00
Location: Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

Schedule

Sat Sep 21 2024 at 01:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian | Washington, DC

DY Begay (Diné [Navajo], b. 1953) creates unique artworks that bridge her traditional Diné upbringing and experimental fiber art practice. Through her embrace of color, passion for design, and innovative handling of fiber, Begay creates art that expresses a non-Western way of being to a contemporary audience. "Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay" is the first retrospective of Begay’s career, showcasing 48 of her most remarkable tapestries.
Fellow fiber artists Velma Kee Craig (Diné) and Helena Hernmarck join Begay to discuss Indigenous weaving traditions and the diversity of textile arts. The conversation will be moderated by museum curator Cécile R. Ganteaume.
Velma Kee Craig (Diné) is Assistant Curator at the Heard Museum and a textile artist who teaches Diné weaving workshops across Phoenix. She has co-curated multiple Heard Museum exhibitions, including Substance of Stars, Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles and Toward the Morning Sun: Navajo Pictorial Textiles from the Jean-Paul and Rebecca Valette Collection.
Helena Hernmarck was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1941. Her mentors were three Swedish pioneers of the modern movement in textiles: Alice Lund, Edna Martin, and Astrid Sampe. After graduating from art school in Stockholm in 1963, she moved her studio to Canada and later to England before settling in the United States in the mid-1970s. Hernmarck now maintains an active studio in Connecticut, USA. She has supported Swedish textile arts throughout her career, collaborating with Swedish spinners, dyers, and weavers on each major commission. Her closest collaborators have been Wålstedts Textilverkstad, a spinning and dying mill in Dala-Floda, Sweden, and Alice Lund Textilier, a weaving atelier in Borlänge, Sweden.
"Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay" will be on view at our Washington, DC museum from Sept. 20, 2024-July 13, 2025. The exhibition’s companion book will be available for purchase in the Roanoke Museum Store located on Level 2.
Location: Level 1, Rasmuson Theater
Cost: FREE
Image: DY Begay in her studio. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo by Peter Ellzey, 2022.
Major support provided by Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support provided by Ameriprise Financial. Additional support provided by The Coby Foundation, Ltd. and Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. Federal support provided by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.

Where is it happening?

Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, National Msm of the American Indian, Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC 20024, United States,Washington D.C.

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

$Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of the American Indian$