I have to admit that I never gave much thought to what an Alpaca was, and I certainly never expected that there would be an entire magazine devoted to the creatures. So, I was taken a bit off guard when I was contacted by the editors of Alpacas Magazine with a request to use a couple of my photographs for a feature article.
The six-page article in the Winter 2010 edition of the magazine features Navajo textiles expert and collector Steve Getzwiller, with whom I had worked a couple of years earlier while documenting some of his finer weavings. Turns out that those blankets I photographed were woven with alpaca fiber and – as the article puts it – are the result of the Navajo weavers “using an untraditional fiber in their very traditional process” to create surprisingly beautiful “wearable art”. Navajo rug-weaving with alpaca – who’da thunk it?
Special thanks to Steve and Gail Getzwiller and to Alanna Aug, who appears on the cover of the magazine as well as in one of the photos used in the article.
