Diné weaver Martha Gorman Schultz holds up her award-winning hand-woven rug that swept the best in show award at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1990. (All photos courtesy Marilou Schultz unless otherwise noted)Award-winning Diné weaver Martha Gorman Schultz died at the age of 93 on Friday, February 21. Gorman Schultz, who was of the Tábą́ą́há (Water’s Edge clan; maternal) and born for the Todích’íí’nii (Bitter Water Clan; paternal), provided for her family through her lifelong practice of weaving on the Navajo loom and was known for her mastery and evolution of several traditional patterns.Gorman Schultz was born in 1931 in Leupp (Navajo: Tsiizizii), Arizona, and spent her childhood traversing between Leupp and Chinle (Chíńlį́) areas. She never received a formal education due to her responsibilities of looking after the family’s sheep and caring for the home as the second of five children, and she learned to weave at a young age from her mother, Jasbah (Mary) Gorman Clay.Martha Gorman Schultz (all photos courtesy Marilou Schultz unless otherwise noted)She and her siblings would shear, card, spin, and dye the wool from the family sheep, and her uncle would bring her weavings to trading posts and markets to sell for money to buy groceries, clothing, and other supplies. Gorman Schultz mastered the quintessential Diné styles early on, including Crystal, Two Grey Hills, Wide Ruins, and Storm pattern — the latter of which was her specialty.Gorman Schultz married her husband Billy Schultz, a railroad construction worker who was part of a labor union, and gave birth to her first of 13 children in 1951. As her husband would travel for weeks on end because of his job, she supported her family through weaving.“My mom was at home with us kids growing up, she always had that loom up,” her daughter Marilou Schultz, a distinguished contemporary weaver and educator, recalled to Hyperallergic in a phone call. “A lot of times she had her loom outside under the shade, and she would be out there listening to the birds and weaving alone in the early morning.”Two examples of Martha Gorman Schultz’s intricate weavings in the Two Grey Hills style, all derived from hand-spun and naturally dyed wool collected from her own Churro sheepSchultz explained that her mother sold her woven rugs and blankets at various markets throughout Arizona, including the Santa Fe Indian Market, Garland’s in Sedona, and the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Art Market in Phoenix, among others, and took on commissions as well. She won an award for the best exhibition at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1990. Gorman Schultz and her children were also invited to conduct weaving demonstrations at the Northern Arizona Museum and sold her work to the museum’s gift shop. With regards to passing the practice onto her children and grandchildren, Schultz explained that her mother didn’t sit them down for formal lessons, but naturally included them throughout the production process. “Our sheep were kept with my grandparents’ sheep, so my siblings and I would bring their wool back to our house for our mother to use, and we did a lot of the carding — which is what she had to do while growing up,” she explained, also noting that years simply observing her mother were instrumental to her learning the craft.Martha Gorman Schultz’s award-winning woven rug at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1990Gorman Schultz dyed her own wool, shorn from her flock of Churro sheep, with natural colors for the majority of her life, resulting in palettes of gray and black and varying shades of brown. When she could no longer spin her own wool and gave up her sheep, she began working with synthetically colored ply wool for her Germantown weavings, and the vibrant hues made her traditional patterns sing.The shift from sheep wool to ply yarn also references the United States government’s inhumane and deadly deportation of the Diné people from their ancestral lands to the Bosque Redondo reservation in Fort Summer, New Mexico, during the mid-1860s — better known as the “Long Walk” since they were forced to make the 400-mile journey on foot. Having lost a majority of their sheep, the Diné were supplied with synthetically dyed yarn from Germantown, Pennsylvania, for traditional weaving. Rugs and blankets from Germantown yarn were popular from 1864 through 1910, though they fell out of favor because they were generally more fragile than Navajo textiles from hand-spun yarn.“It’s like making full circles,” Schultz said of her mother’s pivot to Germantown blankets. “She went to the new material and began making the Crystal pattern again. To me it’s a celebration, even though the Diné were in captivity [at Bosque Redondo], that they never lost that weaving.”Left: Heard Museum Director David M. Roche with Marilou Schultz and Martha Gorman Schultz at the 2024 Heard Indian Fair and Market (photo courtesy David M. Roche) Right: Marilou Schultz holds up an example of her mother Martha’s vibrantly colored Germantown blankets.Schultz described her mother as exceptionally independent. Her husband (Schultz’s father) died in 1990, and Gorman Schultz managed to continue her weaving, have a driver’s license, and use her bank card without ever learning English. She greatly encouraged education to her children, saying she felt that she was deprived of the opportunity.“Martha Gorman Schultz was a gifted weaver who influenced generations of Navajo weavers, including her daughter Marilou Schultz and her granddaughter Melissa Cody, who have both credited Martha with teaching them how to weave and they are now two of the most innovative and celebrated fiber artists in the world,” Heard Museum Director David M. Roche said in an email to Hyperallergic.“Martha participated in the Heard Indian Fair and Market for decades and was a beloved figure,” Roche continued. “Her work resides in the Heard Museum Collection, as well as other important institutional and private collections. Her generosity in sharing her knowledge of weaving means that she has left something behind not just as an artist but as a human being who loved and cared and helped others.” Schultz noted that her mother kept weaving until a year before her death, and appreciated the generational evolution of Navajo weaving from a means of survival to an esteemed contemporary art form. Gorman Schultz is survived by nine of her daughters and over 35 grandchildren, and her weaving legacy lives on today through the work of Schultz, her daughter Lola Cody, and practicing contemporary artist Melissa Cody, her granddaughter.Martha Gorman Schultz conducting a weaving demonstration on her traditional Navajo loom