Our first stop took us to Tucson. We contacted an old friend and ORR author, James Stilley, who has a cleaning and repair business for Oriental rugs and Navajo weavings. Jim is one of the few business men we know who operates in both areas. We were interested not only in his response to our publication efforts but we asked him to guide us to dealers in Navajo weavings in the Tucson area and in Arizona in general.

Taking his advice as well as listings in local tourist brochures, we began visiting shops - or trading posts, as they're known there - that carried Navajo rugs. We quickly learned that these can be divided into two categories. The most numerous are those which carry the entire range of Indian crafts - rugs, jewelry, pottery, leather goods, paintings, and various trinkets. The goods in many of these establishments are frequently imported from Mexico and not authentically Indian. Many could be characterized as curio shops.

The shops with well selected, authentic Indian art are few and far between. In almost all cases they stock a variety of Indian crafts, not just weavings. It would seem that the demand for weavings is not strong enough for most traders to deal exclusively in rugs and blankets. In Tucson, two shops which we visited had excellent rugs and knowledgeable staff to answer questions. The Kaibab Shops have a surprisingly large inventory of rugs and Mr. Kofron, the rug authority, is a weaver himself and had a loom set up in the gallery at which he can occasionally be found demonstrating Navajo weaving practices. Tom Bahti Indian Arts was another shop of more than routine interest. Bahti's father wrote several books on Navajo crafts. Although small, the inventory is highly selected and one gets a sense here of someone who is not only a native of the region but deeply committed to these art forms.

One of our most pleasant experiences in Tucson was a visit with "Desert Dave" Young, who claims to be the oldest living, active trader in Navajo rugs. Desert Dave is 88 years old and, typical of many people in Arizona, went there because of poor health. And the move worked. He was born on Thanksgiving Day, 1900, and moved to Arizona when he was 21. He claims to be the last homesteader in Arizona and became a folkloric fixture of Tucson. His trademark is his western style hat with its Navajo horsehair headband.

Desert Dave had the largest inventory of Navajo rugs that we saw in the Tucson area, and he has only rugs. How this came to pass is a story which provides insights into the backgrounds of many people who traded with the Indians and brought their arts to the attention of the American public.

To make a living, Desert Dave started selling candy to the trading posts in Arizona. As many of them were short of cash, he was asked early on to accept goods in exchange for candy, so he took baskets in trade. Later he started peddling 7-Up to the posts as well. To get his money out of the baskets, he began making trips from Arizona as far north as Canada to sell his large inventory of baskets. Depending on size and quality, the baskets were sold to retail dealers for 10, 15 and 25 cents or $1. Prior to World War II he built the Three Flags Trading Post in Walker, California, where he "traded" in a variety of Indian goods, including rugs. He is quick to point out that the term "trader" obviously has become generalized from the specific use applied to those such as Hubbell, Moore, and Cotton, who were officially licensed by the U.S. Government in the late 19th century.

In the early 1970s, when he retired, he sold his personal collection of baskets for $22,000 so he and his wife could travel around the world and see other cultures and their ethnographic arts. Even after retirement, he could not cut his ties to the Indians and has remained involved in Navajo weaving. He buys the contemporary weavings and makes no efforts to pursue the old pieces. Although his health prohibits him from making trips to Navajo areas, he remains in touch with families he has known for years. It is interesting to hear how the modern age is shaping the movement of rugs from weaver to trader today. Desert Dave says that instead of making a 5-6 day trip to the weavers, as in the past and which would have cost $500-800, he can now talk on the phone with the weaver, have the rug shipped via UPS for $10, and decide whether he wants to buy it. Or the weaver drives down to Tucson because she has a child in college or needs to buy supplies for her own needs.

We asked Desert Dave what people today wanted in a Navajo weaving. He said most people want a floor rug or a wall hanging. Herein we saw the nub of a problem for those who deal in Navajo weaving; is it art or floor covering? What is art and what is craft? Unique among those women who are declared artists, the Navajo weaver is pinioned between the labels of craft and art. It was a topic we were to puzzle over time and again on this trip.

The Rio Grande River valley, where Albuquerque is located, and the coast of California are the two areas of the United States where Spanish culture has its deepest roots and more lasting influence. In Spanish colonial days, the valley was referred to as the Rio Abajo and the Rio Arriba. The Rio Abajo was the southern part of the river where the land is generally flat. The Rio Arriba begins just north of Albuquerque where the land starts rising in gentle hills and then into the Rocky Mountains' more challenging terrain. Santa Fe is located in the Rio Arriba.

The drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe takes about an hour and is one of the most beautiful in New Mexico. Morning and evening "suntaculars" occur whether the skies are clear or cloudy. Santa Fe is the most Spanish city in America, rivaled only by San Antonio, Texas. Its climate in our opinion is one of the most ideal anywhere on this earth. Today it is the center for Indian art and a Mecca for a broader spectrum of American art as well.

We drove up on August 17 to attend Don Bennett's antique Navajo art and craft exhibition. It is held in the Sweeney Center in the heart of Santa Fe. We missed the opening events which had occurred two days earlier and so our impression and the goods we saw may be skewed by that. We had been told by several experienced collectors that this is the major show for Navajo material. If that is indeed true, then one has to come prepared for an event with a laid-back, homey, cowboy, ranch-style presentations. This is not staged like the New York Armory Antique show or the Philadelphia Hospital Antique Show. There is no overall theme; there is no standard presentation from booth to booth; and with rare exceptions, each vendor presents a clutter of southwestern miscellany from turquoise jewelry to old cowboy boots.

As we walked around and looked at the rugs and blankets displayed in the booths, we did not see particularly outstanding or highly sought-after goods. We were told that such pieces were kept stored in shelves, shown to "serious" collectors, and were probably all sold at the special preview opening the first day. By analogy from the Oriental rug world we assume this means a limited availability of top quality goods and limited number of buyers, the latter all personally known by the dealers with those goods. The result is that a new buyer on the scene is at a disadvantage and the individual new to this market and a potential buyer is deprived of seeing quality goods.

There was an auction preview on the second floor of the exhibit hall. The quality of the merchandise presented here was at about the level we would expect in a rural Pennsylvania Dutch country auction. Not very exciting. A more exciting group of goods had been brought together by W .E. Channing and was exhibited at the Hilton Hotel a few blocks away. A beautiful catalog for the 320 lots, comparable to those printed by Christie's and Sotheby's was available. It is one of the most scholarly catalogs we have seen anywhere and included a map and bibliographical references for the description of each item.

Textiles included Peruvian; Mexican, Plains and Navajo items. The latter included lots 160-193. The stars were a woman's serape, child's blanket, and classic serape. Although actual results from the auction were not received by press time, it is our impression that is was marginally successful. However, it is interesting to reflect on its import for the American Indian auction scene.

In the past Sotheby's has dominated this field with its twice yearly sales. A recent change of personnel there has put this standing in jeopardy as witnessed by the last less-than-successful sale. Skinner and Butterfield were the also-rans in this market. Channing, who is a partner in a Santa Fe gallery and a New York cum English dealer-refugee, appears to have organized this auction to capitalize on Santa Fe's almost total dominance of the Navajo weaving market and to steal the thunder from Sotheby's.

We thought he assembled a very credible group of lots for a first effort and, quite frankly, we weresurprised at the result, which we discussed with him while there. Our ignorance of the Navajo market showed. All the star pieces were known by the dealers as being from the de Menil collection and had been shopped around the bazaar, so to speak, for months. So the dealers sat on their hands. Why help a competing dealer? Lot 182, a Navajo classic serape with what appeared as "crocked" reds, made $49,500 (est. $50,000- 70,000). The advent of the auction may have had a temporary dislocation of the particular auction market. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

The most active sale was that at the Wheelwright Museum, which is a donation fundraiser auction. Here the pieces are known not to be reserved, and it always attracts a large audience. But the goods are not of the same quality and the buyers are coming from a totally different viewpoint than those at the Channing auction. But all of the items sell and the Wheelwright is the richer for it.

The real action for quality Navajo and Southwestern textiles is at the galleries. Santa Fe is filled with them. We attended the opening of a new exhibition at Joshua Baer's gallery. If the Sweeney Center type shows do not come up to some Oriental rug standards, I can only say that rug dealers might slash their wrists to get the kind of turn-out and interest evidenced at Baer's opening. It was an overflow crowd all evening, and the quality of the exhibited goods was superb.

The next day we visited several other galleries around the Plaza and saw similarly fine pieces exhibited. One of the most active was Dewey's, which carries a range of material in what must be the largest space in the area. They carry old and new, but quality is evidenced throughout.

We were particularly impressed with the labeling on the rugs which were on display at James Reid. These were the most complete and museum-like of any that we encountered. This is the type of presentation which gallery owners of any type of textiles should strive to present because it not only educates the viewer but lends credibility to the business.

Being unable to pass up an Oriental rug shop when we see one, we stopped into Santa Fe Oriental Rugs, just off the Plaza, owned by Sharon Schenck, a long-time rug merchant in these parts. While talking with her, we looked up to see Khalil Zahiri, our old Afghan brother, walk through the door. We had not seen him for several years. It is truly a small world!

Our next stop was Phoenix, where August is not exactly the prime time for tourists. But it is a center for Southwestern arts, especially in the Scottsdale suburb and to the north at Sedona. Unfortunately, we arrived on a weekend and the most interesting gallery we were able to visit was Gallery 10, which also has an outlet in Santa Fe. An excellent exhibit of both old and new rugs was on display in a most attractively designed space. It is in this type of presentation that one becomes aware of the quality and variety of techniques which some of the Navajo weavers are achieving in their contemporary weavings. We were quite surprised at some of the double weave pieces and the mix of materials used in them.

We took a day to drive up to Sedona, which is about two hours north by car. It is nestled in a beautiful valley of variously red colored cliffs and mountains covered with pines, firs, and pinion trees. Sedona is perhaps a bit too precious for our taste and too touristy, but is should probably be included on a trip to this part of the world. The Tiaquepaque Center should not be missed as it is the ultimate model for chic shopping centers. While walking through it, we noticed Oriental Rugs of Sedona and stopped in. To our surprise, owner Lawrence Esler knew us and was an old ORR subscriber. Not being the type to trample on good energy and appreciation, we spent some pleasant time talking about the Oriental rug business in this part of the country.

Nearby is Garland's which has to have the largest inventory of Navajo rugs in the world. This is truly an experience not to be missed. Garland's building is large but does not seem so. The rugs are all arranged by types on shelves and racks from smallest to largest. If you cannot tell a Two Gray Hills from a Teec Nos Pos, you should be able to after looking at the hundreds of each type displayed here. Not only are the types there to be studied but the various qualities as well. Clearly this is the place to go for a self-taught course in contemporary Navajo rugs!

We not only spent time in galleries and at exhibitions on this trip to the Rio Arriba, we also visited several museums. These were eye-opening and richly rewarding experiences. As we visited them, it dawned on us that there is a profound difference between the Southwest museums and those of the East and of the large cities with which we are most familiar.

Large, city museums - whether in New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis or San Francisco - were founded to display painting and sculpture. The directors and curators of these museums are educated to promote that type of art; they do not seem to understand or have sympathy for objects made by people to serve the needs of what is called material culture. Those items are relegated to the museums of natural history and archaeology. Navajo and Oriental rugs are material culture. So, when art museum directors are confronted with such items, they are ill prepared to handle, conserve, or present these acquisitions.

This is not the case with the directors and curators of the museums we visited in New Mexico and Arizona. They are trained as anthropologists, sociologists, folklorists, and archaeologists - no narrowly trained 14th century Byzantine art historians here! They are not afraid of this material. The result is that one can see some of the most exciting and meaningful displays mounted by museums anywhere in the world. And the weavings are shown not only within the cultural context but as stand-alone art in their own right.

Our first exposure to this was at the Maxwell Museum at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque where the (Andrew) Nagen Collection of Serapes was still on exhibition. In Santa Fe, three museums are lined up side by side on the outskirts of town: The Museum of the American Indian, The Museum of International Folk Art, and The Wheelwright Museum. All three have relatively new facilities. We were also surprised at the use of new technology, such as videotapes to amplify visually the background and cultural context of the items displayed. Perhaps the finest facility is The Heard Museum in Phoenix. The exterior of the Heard is a fine example of Spanish colonial architecture. Inside the building, the spaces are ideal for the display of the arts and crafts of the American Indian. The collection of Navajo blankets and rugs at this museum is one which should not be missed. A similarly inspiring exhibit and collection can be seen at The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, just a few miles north of Sedona.

In the course of visiting this amalgam of museums, dealers, auctions, and exhibitions of Navajo rugs, it occurred to us that the relationships between each of these were very similar to those of the "established" art world of painting and sculpture. Dealers, auctioneers, museum curators, and traders were all self-reinforcing. If the Navajo rug enjoys a higher standard of appreciation as an art form than the Oriental rug, the answer lies in these mutually reinforcing areas of endeavor. But there is also a cultural reinforcing environment, namely that of the Southwest, in which these art forms or items of material culture are desired by the people who live there. Yes, some items are bought for utilitarian use on the floor, but others - displayed in museums and galleries - are acknowledged for their high standards of artistic expression and, whether new or old, are treated with the respect they merit.