Folk Art Buffalo by Renowned Navajo Artist Mamie Deschille

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Mamie Deschillie (1920-2010) was one of the most widely acclaimed of contemporary Navajo folk artists. Her first artistic pieces were … Read more Mamie Deschillie (1920-2010) was one of the most widely acclaimed of contemporary Navajo folk artists. Her first artistic pieces were sun baked mud toys like those she made as a child, fashioned at the request of Farmington trader Jack Beasley. She dressed them in scraps of cloth and painted watercolor details. The toys earned her immediate notice for her innovative and imaginative creativity.

Since that beginning, her folk art has expanded to include cardboard collages, cardboard cut-out figures dressed in flea market finery, and watercolor paintings on cardboard. Her images and figures range from familiar reservation scenes to esoteric animals she has seen only in her mind’s eye or in illustrated children’s books. The child-like sense of fun evident in her work may be partly due to the time she spent volunteering to accompany Navajo children on the school buses.

Mamie was born in 1920 in the small sheep-herding community of Burnham, New Mexico. She was a very traditional Navajo lady who dresses in velvet, wears fine silver and turquoise jewelry and speaks only Navajo. She lived in the Fruitland area of the Navajo Nation.

Mamie’s pieces are prized by collectors and shops throughout the southwest and are included in museums such as the Heard and the Wheelwright. See less