The exhibit featuring the collection of eight historic Navajo weavings from Max and Clare Licher, has ended, however, we want to continue to share these extraordinary early twentieth century textiles with our Affeldt Mion guests, at least digitally.
Licher Collection of Historic Navajo Weavings 2 September 2023 – 31 August 2024
Max Licher moved to Sedona with his two best friends in 1982, in his mid-twenties, to build a house for his mother. He fell in love with the place, and ended up pursuing a career in architecture there for the next forty years. In that first year, he wandered into Garlands Navajo Rug shop, was befriended there by Dan Garland and Steve Mattoon, and claimed an earthy Crystal in red rock tones by Marlene Harrison on layaway.
Over the ensuing years, that first spark turned into a passion for tapestries that spoke of a sense of place and the spirits that have inhabited it for generations. In particular, pictorials from the early decades in the 1900s infrequently turned up and yet were still accessible to a budding collector. Not as perfectly woven as more contemporary pieces, and not as rarified as earlier blankets, they nevertheless possessed a mystery and a deeply human expression of life in nature, in a harsh but beautiful environment.
The work of an architect in Sedona and the greater Southwest demands an attention to pattern and texture, geology and biology, in order to make designs that resonate with the places they inhabit. Out of this grew a love for botany. With his wife Clare, Max has also worked with Arizona native plants, distilling essential oils from wildcrafted material, and documenting the botanical diversity in our region.
The woven tapestries speak to that knowledge too; the cornstalks, waterbugs, dragonflies, and feathers, from the perspective of a people whose lives were far more intimately tied to nature than ours. After all these years, they still point towards a beauty that is worth aspiring to in our contemporary creations.
Thank you Max and Clare
For sharing this extraordinary collection with us over the last year. Our guests truly loved seeing them.
Next up in the Winslow Studio Artists Gallery:
We are currently installing LIFE MASK, an exhibit exploring the many facets of artist Paul Rushcá from his calligraphy and photography, to his paintings and transformative creations made from everyday objects.
