Marie Sheppard

Marie Sheppard, Navajo Weaver
This outgoing and happy grandmother resides with her husband in the heart of one of the loveliest regions of the Navajo Nation. Nearby springs, rock outcroppings, and vistas into Monument Valley are where Marie she gets her inspiration for weaving in natural, vegetal tones.
Marie can weave a variety of rug styles, but is best known for her raised outline rugs in Teec and Double Diamond designs. She uses a combination of undyed, natural wool in creams and subtle grays and will often re-dye commercially dyed yard to colors of her choosing, or hand dye wool with her wide array of hand crafted vegetal dyes. Few weavers do this; her rugs therefore are very distinctive, and this explains her many awards; this lady loves to enter her rugs in competitions! 
Marie has travelled internationally to weaving expositions, given workshops and once wove a rug so huge she had to cut a hole into the ceiling of her basement weaving room. When she needed to tighten the tension on the rug she would go upstairs and reach through the hole in the floor to do so. 
Like many weavers, her rug sales have helped pay the way for her children to attend college. 
Raven Makes Gallery is glad to show a few of her rugs this far north of her lovely Canyon Country.