Mark Winter had a dream about assembling a fine collection of Navajo weaving. From that dream the Durango Collection came to be. Winter also had a plan. He wanted to build a first-class collection of Navajo weaving, starting from scratch. The year was 1978. He wanted to demonstrate that it was possible to build a modest collection when it was generally accepted most of the "good" material had been found and purchiased by others.

Mark and his family had recently moved from California to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, to trade in early Navajo textiles. With the financial backing of Jackson Clark, Sr. of Durango, Colorado, Winter began buying and selling older Navajo rugs. A partnership was formed, trust developed, and the partnership thrived. Clark and his family owned the Toh- Atin/Jackson David Trading Co. in Durango, Colorado, a respected contemporary Indian art gallery.

The collection began with an idea that a small representative group of historic weaving be assembled into a collection to be exhibited at shows and sales Mark held around the country. Winter's motivation was that numerous superior examples of weaving were in fine museums located in major cities, but the public, especially in the more remote areas of the Southwest, never had the chance to view and understand the significance of the culture. Clark and Winter agreed the collection would be displayed for the enjoyment of all.

Winter stated, "I think we should get about six to 10 pieces - a nice chief blanket, a Navajo serape, a manta, a few Germantowns, and maybe a few more - so that we can use them in our lectures." Clark agreed. A few weeks later, right on cue, a third-phase Navajo chief blanket came up for sale in Pennsylvania. Mark flew to Pittsburgh and negotiated for its purchase.

The blanket belonged to a dealer who had bought it from a flea market devotee for $15. Mark paid $1,500 for it. Albert Ouzunian, Persian Rug Cleaning Co. of Los Angeles, performed expert restoration on the piece, but by then the total cost of the restored blanket approached $5,000. Clark was horrified but nevertheless was convinced of the value. The Durango Collection was off and running. "One blanket, one blanket at a time. Keep the cost down. Trade, upgrade, just buy the best," the two partners told themselves.

Winter continued to search and buy, and the collection grew. The two partners quickly outran their finances but not their enthusiasm. Many times, when Winter was traveling for the business, he would call late at night and say that he had found the exact piece to "fill a gap" in the collection. Soon there were other pieces to fill other gaps. Every time a gap was filled, it seemed to point out that additional material was needed for the collection to fulfill its purpose.

Clark recalls being called by R. W. Turner, Jr., president of the Bank of Durango, who wanted to know, "How in hell is that Winter going to cover these overdrafts?" Clark told Turner that they were putting together a small collection of weaving and, if he would finance it for them, they would name the collection after the bank. Turner responded, "The Bank of Durango Collection - it has a nice sound. I think you should just call it the Durango Collection - and I want a complete inventory and personal guarantees on the loan" O.K., Clark and Turner had grown up together and were close friends. Winter at that time was an unknown to Turner, but in time the two developed a close business relationship.

Winter continued to buy for the collection as well as buy and sell for the business. The ultimate goal of having a complete collection was not in sight when, during the summer of 1979, the initial showing was held in the spacious lobby of the Bank of Durango, It was an outstanding success. Tourists visited the bank, customers and officers of other banks came to see it; it became a prime tourist attraction. Navajo weavers who had traveled from distant points on the Navajo Reservation were taken to view the coilection. For many of the weavers this was the first time they had ever seen the weaving of their ancestors. To them a chief blanket was just a rug that could be folded in a manner to show the diamonds forming a pattern. They really didn't know that many of the serapes were actually worn by Navajo men and women. What was a manta anyway? "I never seen nothing like that before," one weaver told Clark. How do you explain to a contemporary weaver that her people, the Dine' or Navajo, were weaving fine textiles before anyone thought of Navajo rugs? How do you explain the impact of the Saltillo blankets their ancestors must have admired on the Spanish caballeros two centuries ago? The early regional pattern rugs completely mystified the weavers. ("That's no Crystal rug. Crystal rugs have stripes. That's something else.") But they would come to study, to look, and, yes, horror of horrors, to touch. "Please touch!"

Turner encouraged Clark and Winter to expand the collection. He supported the idea with a further pledge of funding and by purchasing a large quantity of fine rugs and blankets to decorate the old brick walls of the handsome bank building. "We have had too many people coming in here to see the show to just take it down and say it is gone. So now we really will have a 'Bank of Durango Collection'."

Winter felt strongly that the influence of the Mexican Saltillo and Rio Grande blankets on the Navajo should be detailed and included. It seemed reasonable to believe that the Navajo learned weaving from the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest. A Zuni serape was added, two or three Saltillos purchased, a Hopi kilt, and a complete Kachina dance costume was assembled. An Acoma Pueblo shawl was added later.

Clark became nervous about the amount of money being invested but was always reassured by Winter, "If we continue to build this collection far beyond the original goal of a dozen pieces, it will have a lasting impact and prove a good investment." Agreed. "One thing, Mark," Clark admonished, "Let's get the finest we can. If we are going to do it, let's do it with quality and not just quantity. If we are going to be in hock, let's be in hock in grand style." That was easy to do. Turner is an accommodating banker.

A Sotheby's auction gave Winter the opportunity to buy a group of extremely important transitional textiles from the Chee Dodge family. Dodge, a widely respected man, was the first real leader of the Navajo Nation.

As time passed, items were bought for the collection and sold or traded. Always the goal was to have the most representative collection of not just Navajo weaving but of all the cultures in the Southwest.

Winter studied and became an authority on fibre, dyes, and techmques. It seemed at times that a magnetic field had grown around him as fine blankets and unusual items gravitated to him. He seemed to be blessed by a special instinct to fulfill his vision of a fine collection. There were many times when personal goals and personal considerations had to be put aside "because we need that money for an auction coming up."

Winter knew that to gain credibility the Durango Collection would have to be exhibited at a fine museum. Clark arranged with his friend, Donald Hague, National History Museum director at Utah University in Salt Lake City, to sponsor an exhibit in October, 1980. For the first time, beyond the confines of small Colorado mountain towns, it was shown to the public. The response was overwhelming. Good things came from the Utah show. In the following months the collection added some fine Germantown rugs, several early Navajo Classic serapes, and perhaps the most important piece in the collection, a two-piece Navajo dress fragment dating from the mid-1700s. This rare item was in the hands of a respected trader who had purchased it from a long- time owner. Winter examined the piece on the way to a show in California. He called Clark four times from pay phones in various towns along the way - once at 3:00 a.m. - pleading with his partner to go to the trading post and "make a deal for it. It is IMPORTANT." After that call, Clark was convinced that it was important. Early the following morning he approached the trader to ask about borrowing it for evaluation. Clark then flew it to Boulder, Colorado, to ask Dr. Joe Ben Wheat for his opinion. Wheat had on many occasions given advice, encouragement, and shared his knowledge with Clark and Winter as the collection expanded. Wheat confirmed what Mark suspected, "This is an example of the earliest Navajo weaving." Winter knew it, Clark believed it, and a deal was made to buy it. The two partners speculated how many times in the past a really significant piece of weaving had been discarded or destroyed simply because no one believed it might have value. When that happens a link is broken with the past. In the case of this fragment, the filial link was not broken and thousands of people have seen it on exhibit.

Clark and Winter savored the examination of each new acquisition. There was a feeling that they were doing something worthwhile, that it had great meaning, and that it was important to them and the people who would see it. Always there was speculation on who had woven these pieces from a bygone age. Who was the weaver? Where did she live? What was her life like? What would she think now if she knew her weaving was considered a work of art? Clark had always felt that the weavers were never given enough recognition for their work. He determined to change that by including the weavers' names on the rug price tags used in the gallery, together with the weavers' photos for purchasers of contemporary rugs. This, to him, is far more important than the suspicion that a buyer would go to the Navajoland and search out the weaver personally.

Frequently, the two men would talk about a recent acquisition; they could almost feel the spirit of the weaver sharing the harmony of her life with them. Clark says, "It seems that from the time we first started what was to be a modest collection, we had a guidance to meet our goals. If the spirit of Spider Woman truly exists, and if long dead grandmothers of Navajo weavers give inspiration, perhaps some of that rubbed off on us." After the successful Utah Museum exhibit, Winter arranged to have several major items from the collection exhibited at the Wheelright Museum in Santa Fe. This was in conjunction with Noel Bennett's "Shared Horizon" Navajo textile seminar in 1980. Later that year he had a small show at the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis and the prestigious Mongerson Gallery in Chicago. During the next several years the collection was featured at various galleries and shows in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. Finally, the big break came, and in June of 1985 the collection opened at the Denver Museum of Natural History.

The Denver exhibit was the largest and most influential in the collection's history. Scholars from many major U.S. and foreign museums came to view it in its entirety. Prior to the opening of the exhibit, a video tape had been produced by the museum's video department under the direction of David Baysinger and Elizabeth Gilmore and museum curators Joyce Herrold and Barbara Stone. A style show was assembled and produced in Durango where various items worn by professional models demonstrated to enthusiastic audiences that Navajo weaving was something more than grandma's old Navajo rug. It was shown to be what it is, a true Native American folkart.

After Denver the collection was featured at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and the Sierra Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada. Individual pieces have been displayed at the Denver Art Museum and Angel Mounds State Monument, Evansville, Indiana.

The Durango Collection, in the words of Mark Winter, "has become something much more significant than either Jackson Clark or I ever envisioned. It is a growing collection, always being expanded and changed, never static and never complete. When it passes from our hands to another owner, we want to be able to say that this is the best."

In talking to the two owners and their families, who have played such an important part in the building of the collection, the thought strikes the listener that this all must have been a very enjoyable experience. It has been more than just building a collection; it has been the preservation of a portion of many cultures. Even today, the collection is not static; it is growing, changing, and evolving. New items are being added. "There is always room for one more," Mark Winter states.

When a group of contemporary weaving was incorporated into the collection in 1985, it seemed to give even more meaning to the entire effort. In one place, at one time, it is possible to see the entire spectrum of Navajo weaving. The early Navajo dress fragment is sometimes on display only a few feet from a contemporary Teec Nos Pos rug or Navajo pictorial. Mrs. Chee Dodge's 1880 weaving may be positioned next to a Classic Navajo serape. It is thought- provoking when one views the collection as a whole and takes the time to think of the centuries and cultures that are spanned.

In viewing the entire collection securely stored in a bank vault in Colorado, one is impressed by the care and concern given each piece. Mark Winter has said, "If a piece doesn't feel good, if it has bad vibes to it, or the spirits are not right, we get rid of it." From the oldest piece, the Navajo dress fragment dating from the 1700s, to the newest contemporary weaving by a pictorial weaver, there is a feeling of peace and harmony. The Navajo say they walk in beauty. They truly believe that they walk in beauty. As one views the weavings from other cultures, it is obvious that they all walk in beauty, tranquility, and harmony. The Durango Collection evokes these same feelings in the visitor.