THE NAVAJO... HIS LAND

The cliche: Out of sight, out of mind can never apply to the Navajo and his land. Should he have to leave it for a day or a year the reservation will never be out of the heart and mind of the Navajo. He will always remember it and long for it, fondly and reverently knowing he will somehow, someday, return to it. The Navajo is like the land itself and once one has seen the Navajo in his land it is easy to understand why he can never be apart from it for long. Navajoland is not the serene green pastures, rolling hills kind of picturesque America. It is harsh and bare, lacking in shade and water, parched dry in summer by scorching sun and whipped mercilessly by the cold winds of winter. Navajoland will never be remembered for arboreal splendor, for rose gardens and lilacs swaying gently in a gentle breeze. The image, the texture and the pattern of the land is distinctive, unforgettable and impressive. It is a big, big land stretching miles and miles into distance and silence. In places, jagged rock spires rise from the wind-groomed sandy floor. Mesas, canyons and cliffs form the dramatic background to the hogan rising like a pimple from the face of the earth. One has to see the Navajo and his sheep in Monument Valley where the majesty of color, the bold ragged sharpness of exotic rock forms, distance and silence comprise a totality of beauty and solemnity found nowhere else on this planet.

"HAPPY FACES" pencil drawing by artist PEGGY CURTIS In a land where even the toughest weeds seem wearied of the struggle to exist, happy faces of Navajo women and children reflect the promise and fulfillment of the Navajo "walk with beauty" ways of life and growing.

96 pages 9" x 12" size 225 Color Photographs

Available at most Bookstores and Indian Arts & Crafts Centers

$7.95 Soft Cover

Introductory Hard Bound Price $12.95 ($14.95 after July 1, 1975)

Ray Manley's SOUTHWESTERN INDIAN ARTS & CRAFTS

It is gratifying to note the increasing awareness in the arts and crafts of the Native Americans. We believe that a prime factor in motivating the new interest is the number of publications and the superb quality of photographic reproductions. Pages of text, no matter how definitive and authoritative, were not enough to move the senses.

We know that the 1974 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS collector series were more than pages of superb photographs and informative text.

In the preparation and production of those special editions, we became involved with collectors, archaeologists, anthropologists, mineralogists, artists, curators, photographers, Indians, traders and we discovered that each of us absorbed, digested and passed from one to another a measure of knowledge and interest not usually attained by conventional vicarious methods of learning.

Whether it be a reconstructed pot, an ancient basket or a piece of old hand-stamped silver, the complete sensual experience of seeing, feeling and knowing surpasses lectures and reference reading.

We discovered that our professional photographers were amateur archaeologists and enthusiastic collectors; and had first-name acquaintance relationships with Indian potters, basket makers, blanket weavers, jewelsmiths and artists.

No one was more aware, interested and involved than our friend and long-time contributor Ray Manley, who began collecting Indian art, artifacts and knowledge as a boy in Arizona's Verde Valley, close to our Northern Arizona Indian lands.

The Ray Manley Studios in Tucson is a treasure of docu-mented history of modern man, his cities, his art and his artifacts recorded during the past quarter century by Ray Manley and his associates, Naurice Koonce and Mickey Prim.

This is not "just another book." Ray Manley's Southwestern Indian Arts & Crafts must stand as a significant and important source book for the scholar, collector, artist and professional interested in the arts and crafts of our native Americans.