{"id":91017,"date":"2019-12-27T01:41:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T01:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/artists-quilts-tell-the-story-of-her-ancestors\/"},"modified":"2019-12-27T01:41:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T01:41:04","slug":"artists-quilts-tell-the-story-of-her-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/artists-quilts-tell-the-story-of-her-ancestors\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist\u2019s quilts tell the story of her ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=c4d2eb35-a8f5-4c2f-9432-ca7b302ac264&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1572\" alt=\"Artist Susan Hudson\u2019s quilt, \u201cThe Beginning of the End,\u201d belongs to the Heard Museum in Phoenix.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Artist Susan Hudson\u2019s quilt, \u201cThe Beginning of the End,\u201d belongs to the Heard Museum in Phoenix.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Susan Hudson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>For Navajo\/Din\u00e9 artist Susan Hudson, the quilts she makes are a tribute to her ancestors and way to tell their stories and the history of the Navajo people.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=b89a95f7-7536-43bb-bf4b-670e6271436c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"800\" height=\"1137\" alt=\"Hudson\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Hudson<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Hudson, a member of the Kin Yaa Aanii (Towering House People), a clan of the Navajo Nation, lives on the Navajo Reservation in Sheep Springs, New Mexico, and has a studio near Ignacio. She will be featured with four other artists in the PBS show \u201cCraft In America: Quilts,\u201d which will air tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Hudson said she learned to sew from her mother who was forced to sew at an \u201cassimilation\u201d boarding school, a history Hudson knew nothing about as a child. She said growing up, sewing was a necessity for the family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we were little, we were really poor, so she started showing me how to make clothes. When we were little, we didn\u2019t know the difference between handmade and store-bought; we were just used to the handmade stuff,\u201d she said, adding that sewing was not her favorite activity. \u201cWhen I would sew, if I didn\u2019t do a stitch right \u2013 because I didn\u2019t want to sew, I wanted to go outside and play, I hated sewing, I really hated it \u2013 she would say, \u2018Do it right or they\u2019re going to be mad at you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uDfDIMUi4Fs\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Hudson said years later, when she asked her mother about her strictness at the sewing machine, her mother began to tell her about her experiences in the boarding schools, about how if she didn\u2019t do things right, she\u2019d get beaten.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo that\u2019s how I learned how to sew, and after that, I appreciated what she had taught me,\u201d Hudson said.  According to www.craftinamerica.org, in her pictorial quilts, Hudson \u201cuses a crossover style inspired by Ledger art. Recounting history through her Ledger quilts has made Hudson an activist storyteller, chronicling the hardships endured by her ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2a41ef45-efd7-4f26-b7ae-866adf7a6ad9&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" alt=\"Hudson\u2019s \u201cThe Walk of my Ancestors: Coming Home\u201d won Best of Show 2018 at the Autry Indian Market in Los Angeles.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Hudson\u2019s \u201cThe Walk of my Ancestors: Coming Home\u201d won Best of Show 2018 at the Autry Indian Market in Los Angeles.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Susan Hudson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Hudson\u2019s work is not to be taken lightly: Her quilts are in the collections of major museums, including the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of the American Indian, and she finds the fame she has achieved a little weird, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI laugh because it\u2019s kind of surreal to me. I say my ancestors \u2013 my grandmas and my mother are famous, not me \u2013 I always say that,\u201d she said. \u201cAll the credit goes to my ancestors because if they hadn\u2019t survived The Long Walk and did what they had to do to survive, I would not be here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, everything goes to them \u2013 all the praise, everything. I\u2019ve been here telling their stories because I don\u2019t want my ancestors, my grandmas and my mother\u2019s voice to be closed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And while Hudson may not have been sewing\u2019s biggest fan starting out, she said her art serves a purpose bigger than herself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s important for us to be able to tell our story because people try to tell me what they think my story is,\u201d she said. \u201cI am so proud of my ancestors that they did what they had to so I could be here. They prayed for us and I pray for my descendants \u2013 they\u2019re the ones who are going to carry on the stories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:katie@durangoherald.com\">katie@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-scoreboard\">\n<h4 class=\"scoreboard-title\">\u2018Craft in America: Quilts\u2019<\/h4>\n<p>\u201cCraft in America: Quilts\u201d will premier at 8 p.m. today (Dec. 27) on Rocky Mountain PBS.<br>\n                For more information, visit<br>\n                shorturl.at\/CHNPY<br>\n                .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>to be featured on PBS show \u2018Craft in America\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1167,28,29,337],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-exclude-homepage-video","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-television"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91017"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}