Harvey Leake: “A Passion for Beauty: Slim Woman and Her Navajo Blankets”

Harvey Leake is an authority on the history of his pioneering ancestors, the Wetherills of the Four Corners region. During the exhibition opening for “The People’s Tapestry: Weaving Tradition in Navajo Culture” on Thursday, June 22nd, Leake will deliver opening remarks entitled “A Passion for Beauty: Slim Woman and Her Navajo Blankets,” on his great-grandmother’s forty years living with The People.

Several members of the Wetherill family ran trading posts in the Navajo (Diné) territory in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was during the classic period of Navajo textile creativity, and a time when rare specimens of their earlier handiwork could sometimes be obtained. Harvey Leake’s great-grandmother, Louisa Wade Wetherill (known as Slim Woman to her neighbors), lived with the People for over forty years and was intensely interested in understanding and documenting their traditional ways of life. She and her husband John displayed many outstanding Navajo textiles in their museum-like house in Kayenta, Arizona. Prior to their passing in the mid-1940s, they bequeathed some of their woven treasures to their granddaughters, several of which are displayed in the new exhibit.

Louisa and John Wetherill also preserved thousands of historic photographs, taken down through the decades, which provide a visual record of their remarkable story. Mr. Leake will provide an illustrated narrative of his great-grandmother’s growing appreciation for the exceptional beauty of her friends’ creations and the significance of some of the weavings she collected.

Harvey Leake is an authority on the history of his pioneering ancestors, the Wetherills of the Four Corners region. During the exhibition opening for “The People’s Tapestry: Weaving Tradition in Navajo Culture” on Thursday, June 22nd, Leake will deliver opening remarks entitled “A Passion for Beauty: Slim Woman and Her Navajo Blankets,” on his great-grandmother’s forty years living with The People.

Several members of the Wetherill family ran trading posts in the Navajo (Diné) territory in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was during the classic period of Navajo textile creativity, and a time when rare specimens of their earlier handiwork could sometimes be obtained. Harvey Leake’s great-grandmother, Louisa Wade Wetherill (known as Slim Woman to her neighbors), lived with the People for over forty years and was intensely interested in understanding and documenting their traditional ways of life. She and her husband John displayed many outstanding Navajo textiles in their museum-like house in Kayenta, Arizona. Prior to their passing in the mid-1940s, they bequeathed some of their woven treasures to their granddaughters, several of which are displayed in the new exhibit.

Louisa and John Wetherill also preserved thousands of historic photographs, taken down through the decades, which provide a visual record of their remarkable story. Mr. Leake will provide an illustrated narrative of his great-grandmother’s growing appreciation for the exceptional beauty of her friends’ creations and the significance of some of the weavings she collected.