Ann Lane Hedlund

In Tucson during the 1950s, nearly everyone knew, or wanted to know, the southwestern artist Mac Schweitzer. Born Mary Alice Cox in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921, she grew up a tomboy who adored horses, cowboys, and art. After training at Cleveland School of Art and marrying, she adopted her maiden initials (M. A. C.) as her artistic name and settled in Tucson in 1946. With a circle of influential friends that included anthropologists, designer-craftsmen, and Native American artists, she joined Tucson's 'Early Moderns,' receiving exhibits, commissions, and awards for her artwork. When she died in 1962, Mac's artistic legacy faded from public view, but her prize-winning works attest to a thriving career. Author Ann Lane Hedlund draws from the artist's letters, photo albums, and published reviews to tell the story of Mac's creative and adventuresome life. Her watercolors, oil paintings, prints, and sculptures - a diverse body of work never before seen in public - range from naturalistic studies of Sonoran Desert animals to impressionistic landscapes to moody abstractions. A sharp observer of Indigenous life, she sketched and painted scenes of Navajo (Diné ), Hopi, O'odham, and Yaqui people and events. These unique portrayals of the Southwest illustrate for this saga of a maverick artist rediscovered.

From the mid-17th century to the present day, herding sheep, carding wool, spinning yarn, dyeing with native plants, and weaving on iconic upright looms have all been steps in the intricate process of Navajo blanket and rug making in the American Southwest. Beginning in the late 1800s, amateur and professional photographers documented the Din (Navajo) weavers and their artwork, and the images they captured tell the stories of the artists, their homes, and the materials, techniques, and designs they used. Many postcards illustrate popular interest surrounding weaving as an indigenous art form, even as economic, social, and political realities influenced the craft. These historical pictures illuminate perceived traditional weaving practices. The authors' accompanying narratives deepen the perspective and relate imagery to modern life.

Gloria F. Ross (1923-1998) described her work as the translation of paint into wool. She was deeply committed to reinventing the centuries-old art of tapestry, particularly championing the handmade in contemporary art. This remarkable book, written by textile scholar Ann Lane Hedlund, draws from rare unpublished archives to unravel the evolution of Ross’s modern tapestries and to illuminate the significance of her creative partnerships. Gloria F. Ross and Modern Tapestry features the collaborative work of 28 acclaimed modernist painters and sculptors, including Helen Frankenthaler (Ross’s sister), Kenneth Noland, and Louise Nevelson, with several dozen traditional-yet-innovative weavers in France, Scotland, and the Southwestern United States. Brief biographies of the artists, letters, notes, sketches, and photographs illustrate the practical and aesthetic challenges that occupied Gloria Ross for over three decades.Distributed for the University of Arizona Foundation