Dakota Mace at a microphone
Artist Dakota Mace will lead a workshop in Indigenous weaking traditions at AL + L.
Dakota Mace describes herself as an interdisciplinary artist, but it’s clear weaving holds a special place for her. On Nov. 12 she will be conducting a workshop at the Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison to teach several types of traditional weaving techniques.
“We originally structured the workshop for Indigenous families, but it opened up to pretty much everyone,” says Mace. In addition to demonstrating basic techniques, Mace will focus on how weaving relates to Indigenous communities — “how deeply it is ingrained in our culture and our identity,” she says.
Mace is Diné (Navajo), a tradition well known for its weaving, but she says many Indigenous communities also have their own important weaving traditions.
Mace, who has master’s degrees in photography and textile design from UW-Madison and a bachelor’s degree in photography from the Institute of American Indian Arts, will be teaching workshop participants some theory and some practice. Students will learn the basics of how to set up a loom and “build a weaving,” says Mace. They will take away a weaving in progress with the skills to keep it going, either at home or through a return visit to AL+L. “Continuing it can be a long process,” Mace says.
Mace will also introduce different types of looms — “frame loom, backstrap loom, finger weaving, all very important practices you can take with you, travel with.”
In addition to setting up the warp (the lengthwise threads) for a weaving, the class will introduce styles of weaving: basic (right angles, like tic-tac-toe) and twill (diagonal) techniques.
The class is part of AL+L’s Indigenous Arts program. Recently musician Joe Rainey gave a workshop on contemporary Pow Wow. The program was initially proposed and co-designed by the artists of the area’s giige collective, writes AL+L co-director Jolynne Roorda in an email. It began “in 2019, to address a gap they identified in urban teaching and learning opportunities for Native artists and their families.”
Roorda notes the program “deepen[s] the cultural knowledge of Native youth and families as well as non-Native youth and families, while investing in Native teachings and leadership.”
“My perspective, culture, is Diné,” Mace says. Traditional Diné weaving structures and imagery reflect “our understanding of our relationship to the land.” They also bring up the importance of kinship, as they are passed from one generation to the next. Mace will be introducing students to what techniques mean, how they are connected to different Indigenous communities and how weaving reaches “a lot of different communities throughout the world,” with different types of patterns translated in various ways.
The style of weavings even within one tradition, such as Diné, are not static. Mace says the style of chief blankets, for instance, from color palette to materials used, changed from one generation to the next, in three or four phases, over 200 to 400 years.
“Our goal is to get people inspired about the medium,” says Mace.
