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Today’s Navajo Crystal rugs are artistically beautiful and technically excellent weavings utilizing banded designs and geometrics in a borderless Navajo rug. The description of a Navajo Crystal rug was derived because of the weaver’s proximity to the Crystal Trading Post in Crystal, NM North of Gallup. The early influence of trader J.B. Moore in the early 1900’s did much to save Navajo weaving from extinction. The Navajo for centuries were known for the quality of their woven blankets, but with manufactured blankets from Hudson Bay, Pendleton, and others so readily available at the time, Navajo weaving reached a devastating decline. J.B. Moore encouraged his local weavers to incorporate designs from Oriental rugs that were very popular in the Eastern U.S. and, using his famous catalogue, opened a new market for Navajo weaving. While these designs became an integral part of the weaving traditions of many areas, it is interesting that these designs did not ultimately come to be associated with Navajo Crystal rugs. Some time in the 1940’s, perhaps influenced by C.G. Newcomb, the Navajo Crystal rug began to transition into the design we know today; bands of wavy lines alternating with other coloured bands and banded geometrics in lovely muted dye colours derived from local vegetation.
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