As a young boy I was interested in the Native American people, their arts and crafts, and remember a motoring trip with my parents across the Navajo Nation which included Monument Valley. I was so impressed with their culture and sacred homeland.

In the early 1980’s I discovered traditional Navajo weaving from Working With The Wool by Noël Bennett and Tiana Bighorse. This first rug making experience was sobering since it was evident that weaving even a small Navajo rug was a very lengthy process calling for a great deal of skill, time, and perseverance. In the early 1990’s, working with many teachers in my profession, I discovered Caroline Spurgeon, an Anglo weaver. She agreed to expand my previous learning and take on a novice weaver friend as well, Marilyn Greaves. We both greatly enjoyed the time spent with Caroline who gave of her knowledge so that two weavers could grow in their skill weaving the Navajo Way. From that experience I have worked with Sarah Natani at her home in Shiprock, NM. I also had the extreme pleasure of spending three summers in Carbondale, Colorado, working with Angie Maloney, master weaver from Tuba City, AZ, and her sister Mae Peshlakai, weaver of Navajo textiles and silversmith. Through Angie’s efforts I was immersed in weaving in the authentic Navajo way, and became one of her honorary clan, Ta’neeszahnii, the Tangle People. Subsequently, along with my co-teacher Marilyn Greaves, have taught traditional Navajo weaving in classes during the 1990’s to the present day in the Sacramento and Central Sierra foothill areas. Classes are offered at the Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. We are listed as an indigenous weaving instruction source on Mary Walker’s Weaving in Beauty web site, www.weavinginbeauty.com offering classes in the Sacramento area of CA.

In addition, I weave many traditional rug styles, twills, tufted, pictorial, including an authentic Navajo horse cinch. I have been making Navajo vertical style looms, full size and mini. I also have fashioned weaving tools, forks, battens, etc. from exotic and traditional woods since the early1980s. I am a member of the Ashtl’o Weaving Guild, the Sacramento Spinners and Weavers Guild, The Hangtown Fiber Guild, and the Great Basin Basket Makers Guild, located in Reno, NV.