Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Hopi adobe home with a weaver's loom.
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Visual Materials
A collection of photographs and postcards focusing on Navajo and Hopi Indians and various Indian schools and schoolchildren throughout Arizona, mostly in ca. 1927. There are views of Peach Springs Trading Post, the Cameron Suspension Bridge trading post, missions at Chinle and Lukachukai (Arizona), Navajo family groups, Navajo schools at Tuba City and Oraibi (Arizona), and Navajo school crafts fairs and exhibits. Acoma, Apache, Tohono O'Odham (Papago), and Hualapai Indians are also represented. The photographs were taken from 1890 to 1927, but the bulk of the collection was created during the 1920s. Includes some photographs by George Wharton James, E.E. Hall, and Burton Frasher (Frasher Fotos). These images of Indians were taken as both posed and candid field photographs, in particular of young Navajo schoolchildren during class time and outside of school. Other subjects pictured are L.H. McSparron, owner of Thunderbird Ranch and acting custodian of Canyon de Chelly; Father Leopold Ostermann, the founder of the mission at Chinle; possibly John Lorenzo Hubbell Jr., of the Hubbell trading family; an Indian all-boys track-and-field team at an unidentified school; Indian schoolchildren; and nature views throughout Arizona. The photographs have been arranged by Indian tribe, starting with the tribe with the most photographs and/or postcards. Navajo Indians appear first in the arrangement, followed by Hopi, Apache, and other Southwestern tribes with fewer photographs. Within each tribe, photographs and postcards have been further organized by individual tribe members, activities, crafts, associated communities, and schools. Images of Caucasian people involved in Indian trade, trading posts, and unidentified Indian schools and students are placed at the end of this collection. Russell also collected postcards with images of Southwest Indians, with some cards having correspondence from Russell, addressed to Beatrice Madelleine, Mrs. George R. Simmons, and Madeleine Touchaux (Russell's wife), describing how travel conditions were as well as opinions on the Indians that were encountered.
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Visual Materials
Blanket on loom can be seen inside hogan.
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Rare Books
Looms provide the blank canvases for weaving stories, a basic structure of utility and grace that connects the threads of our inner world with those of the natural world in countless and ever enduring forms. This project began when the California printmaker and book artist Richard Wagener asked simple question - how many threads does it take to make a weaving? From this journey (undertaken over several months on the surface of endgrain wood blocks, with a wood engraver's burin as walking stick) have come sixteen extraordinary engravings, artwork which evokes the mystery and beauty of connection and disconnection, while honoring the elegant simplicity and frailty of the loom and all it represents. New Zealand-born, Australian-resident poet Alan Loney, long-time weaver of words, was asked to respond to this series of engravings, and produced a poem, asking deep questions of connection and exploring "the thread of life itself."--Adapted from the prospectus.
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