Barbara Teller Ornelas (born November 26, 1954) is an American weaver and citizen of the

Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation (), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in ...

. She also is an instructor and author about this art. She has served overseas as a cultural ambassador for the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

. A fifth-generation

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

weaver, she exhibits her fine art textiles and educates about Navajo culture at home and abroad.

Background

Ornelas is Tabaaha clan (Edgewater) and born for To-heedliinii clan (Two Water Flows Together). She grew up near Two Grey Hills Trading Post in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, before later moving to

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. Learning from her mother, grandmothers, and older sister, she is a fifth-generation Navajo weaver.

Art process

She weaves

tapestries Tapestry is a form of textile art which was traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Normally it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and difficult to make, so most historical pieces are intended to han ...

with sheep wool from local flocks raised by Navajo families. She weaves textiles with high weft-counts, including some that are from 102 to 140

weft In the manufacture of cloth, warp and weft are the two basic components in weaving to transform thread (yarn), thread and yarn into textile fabrics. The vertical ''warp'' yarns are held stationary in tension on a loom (frame) while the horizo ...

Art exhibitions

Her work has been featured at the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

Arizona State Museum The Arizona State Museum (ASM), founded in 1893, was originally a repository for the collection and protection of archaeological resources. Today, however, ASM stores artifacts, exhibits them and provides education and research opportunities. I ...

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

, the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

, and the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

of Mankind in London, among other museums.

Documentary

Her daughter

Sierra Teller Ornelas Sierra Nizhoni Teller Ornelas (Navajo, born March 3, 1981)@sierraornelas (March 3, 2024). https://twitter.com/sierraornelas/status/1764361410283254156/photo/1 Retrieved 21 April 2024. is a Native American showrunner, screenwriter, filmmaker and si ...

was commissioned by the

to make a documentary film, ''A Loom with a View: Modern Navajo Weavers'', which explores the weaving of her family members, including Barbara herself, Barbara's son Michael Teller Ornelas, and Sierra's great aunt Margaret Yazzie.

Awards

* The

Conrad House Conrad Glenn House (November 1956 – January 2001), was a multimedia artist of Navajo () and Oneida ancestry. House's work was significant in redefining Indian art, utilizing many art mediums to preserve symbols and images of his culture and worl ...

Award, Heard Museum Guild Fair and Market * Best of Show (2 times) at the

Santa Fe Indian Market The Santa Fe Indian Market is an annual art market held in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the weekend following the third Thursday in August. The event draws an estimated 150,000 people to the city from around the world. The Southwestern Association for ...

Cultural ambassador

Ornelas has traveled extensively as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department. She has been a part of cultural programs in

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...

, and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Books

She co-authored the following books with her sister Lynda Teller Pete: * ''Spider Woman's Children: Navajo Weavers Today'' (2018) Thrums Books * ''How To Weave a Navajo Rug and Other Lessons from Spider Woman'' (2020), Thrums Books

Personal life

Her adult children

and Michael Teller Ornelas are sixth-generation Navajo weavers.

References

External links

Navajo Rug Weavers website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ornelas, Barbara Teller 1954 births 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century Native American artists 21st-century Native American artists 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women 20th-century Native American writers 21st-century Native American writers Living people Navajo women writers Navajo textile artists Textile artists from New Mexico Textile artists from Arizona University of Arizona alumni Navajo women artists 20th-century American textile artists 21st-century American textile artists 21st-century American women textile artists Writers from New Mexico Writers from Arizona Native American people from New Mexico Native American people from Arizona