Tyrrell Tapaha

Tyrrell Tapaha is a Diné textile artist who makes pictorial woven works. Tapaha is a sixth generation weaver who grew up on the Navajo Nation at Goat Springs, Arizona. In 2022 they received the Brandford/Elliott Award from the American Textile Society.

Tapaha grew up in the Carrizo Mountains of northeastern Arizona on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area where they learned traditional weaving from their family, helping to herd sheep and spin yarn.^[1][2] It was through their great-grandmother, Mary Kady Clah,^[3] that Tapaha learned the art and craft of weaving. Tapaha has stated that they use "archaic tools to make contemporary stories.^[4][5] Tapaha began weaving at the age of seven.^[6]

Tapaha's work explores "the complexity of lived experience, imagined futures and the rich history of their community."^[7] Using a vertical, traditional Navajo-type loom with a batten and weaving comb,^[3] they produce woven textiles and fiber art using hand spun vegetal matter dyed Navajo-Churro fleece, alpaca (Navajo-raised as well as New Zealand-raised), mohair, and merino wools in a style that combines contemporary with traditional imagery. Tapaha gathers desert plants from Arizona and Utah to make the dyes used in the weavings. They also use contemporary alternative fibrous materials, for example, recycled plastic yarn.^[1] Tapaha has described the work as collage-like "visual abstraction" in which woven pieces are broken apart and then rewoven "back together together in some type of amorphous figure."^[3] They have also developed, with Ira Vandever, a blended fiber from hemp combined with Churro wool, and often combines several types of fiber in a single work.^[5] In addition to the pictorial textiles he weaves, he is also a printmaker^[4] and creates felted objects that are both utilitarian and aesthetic.^[8] One of Tapaha's passions are the Diné teachings and kinship system of K'e.^[1] Tapaha has stated:

Every aspect of Diné weaving has teachings sowed from past generations that encourage learning generations to think critically about resource use, hard work, reverence, and persistence.^[8]

Tapaha's work has been exhibited at the Museum of Indian Arts + Culture in Santa Fe,^[9] the Museum of Contemporary Arts Flagstaff,^[10] among other venues. Their work has been featured in the Baltimore Sun, the Navajo Times and Hyperalleric, Native American Art Magazine among other publications.^[3][7] They are one of four Diné artists^[1] featured in the film Weaving the Future directed by Shaun Price.^[10] Nicholas Geib has made a short documentary film on Tapaha and their work.^[11]

The content of the work investigates and challenges colonialist frameworks regarding Navajo weaving, for example in the piece, Áshkii Gáamalii : The Boy Who Lives in Two Worlds, that includes the embroidered text, KKKolonization Killz, as an affront towards and resistance to the "sustained violence that the settler state has forced upon Indigenous peoples, and not just in governmental policies". The work also sheds light on the inequities of the often-idealized trading post system, where Indigenous weavers were not paid a living wage for their work.^[7]

In addition to their "from sheep-to-loom"^[7] artistic practice, Tapaha is a full-time sheep herder on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area.^[8][12] Tapaha describes this holistic approach as fueled by an interest in "the ecology, the hydrology and just the generalized land management that comes with [this] process.” They go on to state:

I think it’s powerful to know that the thing that not only sustains me financially, emotionally and spiritually is the thing that also sustains the land in the same way, it sustains the sheep in the same way, and that is really powerful.^[7]

In 2022 they received the Brandford/Elliott Award from the American Textile Society.^[4][10]

Tapaha's work is included in the Tia Collection^[13] and the collection of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.^[14]

• Eric-Paul Riege

• Biggers, Ashley M. ''Meet the Next Generation of Diné Weavers, New Mexico Magazine, July 2021