An Interwoven Inheritance

By Amy Boaz | photography by Bill Curry

The color blue is what strikes one while gazing at the wool blankets hanging around the crammed workroom in weaver Norma Medina’s trailer off the highway to Chama in Tierra Azul (“Blue Earth”), a village adjoining Medanales, New Mexico. Medina is known for the singular color of her thread—a rich cerulean New Mexico sky on a cloudless day. It is somewhere between the soft indigo in the curtains lining the trailer and the royal folds of a statue of Virgin Mary that rests on a sideboard. The blue complements the bright sapphire prize ribbon tacked onto an award-wining textile hung on the wall. Norma comes from a long line of acclaimed weavers in Abiquiu. 

Three looms command the tight space in her trailer, worked by four generations of masterly hands of the Martinez-Archuleta-Medina-Montoya clan. One of the looms belonged to the renowned weaver matriarch, Doña Agueda Martinez, the dynasty’s late great-grandmother. She won the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and was the subject of a 1977 documentary, Agueda Martinez: Our People, Our Country, among many other distinctions. Another of the looms was that of her accomplished daughter, Eppie Archuleta, whose own numerous accolades include the Colorado Governor’s Award and a 1985 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award. She dyed her own wool and helped revive her local economy through the weaving arts.

Today, the next generations manipulate these looms, including one built by Norma’s husband, Levi, for his granddaughter. Besides Norma, now the elder at age 83, in the studio is one of her daughters, Delores Medina, 58, plus Delores’s four daughters: Monica, 22; Elizabeth, 26; Mary Margaret Archuleta, 28; and Ashley Montoya, 33. Also present are Ashley’s two children, Maya, 13, a talented fine artist; and Aiden, 11, who likes to draw cartoons and is also learning to weave. 

Each woman has her own style of weaving, derived from a long tradition of Rio Grande textiles dating back to the Spanish Colonial era. Traditional patterns are distinguished by stripes, chevrons, and diamonds. Besides being known for her signature blue, Norma forged past common designs. She excels at pictorial weavings, like the uncanny head of a cougar in a wall hanging with green luminous eyes. In 1994, Norma was commissioned to weave the Stations of the Cross for St. Peter’s Church in Greeley, Colorado, a monumental effort that took three years to complete and a huge toll on her health: each scene is chillingly lifelike, the faces riveting and the flesh of Christ slashed with blood. With some trepidation Norma would show her grandmother Agueda the panels as she went along: the elder passed critique on each and urged her to keep toiling on what became a largely spiritual task. Offered an enormous sum for her work, Norma would not accept remuneration for it: “Weaving taught me to appreciate what God has created.”

Growing up in Medanales, near Abiquiu in the Chama River Valley, Norma watched how hard her mother, Eppie, worked at weaving to raise her large family. Norma was reluctant to become “addicted to it,” she says. But urged to make money for her own family, Norma finally learned to weave by sneaking into the local post office, where her aunt Cordelia, the town’s postmaster, kept a loom to ply in her downtime. Eventually, Norma’s husband, Levi, made her a loom. 

Left: The first church for this genízaro community of ranchers and farmers was built a mile and half east of Abiquiu, overlooking the Rio Chama, and named for Santa Rosa de Lima, a beloved female saint. Right: One of Norma’s award-winning wool rugs. left to right: Mary Margaret Archuleta (fifth-generation weaver), Maya Montoya (sixth-generation weaver), Ashley Montoya (fifth-generation weaver), Levi Medina (loom maker, carpenter), Norma (third-generation weaver), and Aiden Montoya (sixth-generation weaver).

Each generation of weavers has learned from her master artisan forebear: Doña Agueda died at age 102, in 2000; and her daughter Eppie Archuleta in 2014. Delores, one of Agueda’s great-granddaughters, first learned rag weaving from her grandmother Eppie, who reused material from the wide brilliant-colored skirts she wore. Delores also mastered, through generations, the art of dyeing wool naturally, using indigo, loose-leaf tea, walnut shells, cochineal, and onion skins. Cota, for example, is an abundant local wildflower that creates a particular golden brown, as well a delightful tea. Delores, who lives in Española, is now reassembling Agueda’s large loom in her own house. 

Norma and Eppie used to teach in the schools in Española and Abiquiu, keen to impart their heritage to a new generation. Doña Agueda had Navajo grandparents on both sides, and the Navajo have a long, rich tradition of weaving cotton textiles, so Agueda was informed by both Spanish and Native practices. Her grandparents were weavers and ranchers, and an elderly Navajo neighbor served as another early weaving teacher. In 1916, Agueda married Eusebio Martinez from Chimayo, who taught her, and all his daughters, to weave with woolen yarns. All the various strands of the master weavers of the Martinez, DeArguellos, Trujillos, and Ortega families are intertwined in some fashion. In 1986, the four generations (Agueda, Eppie, Norma, Delores) participated in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and the family’s weaving is on permanent display on the third floor in the Santa Fe State Capitol. 

Ashley, Delores’s eldest daughter, recalls her first memories of resting in an open box near the loom where her mother was working. “It was always a choice,” Ashley recalls, “no one forced us.” Ashley, for instance, didn’t come to the craft until she had her own girls. At some point, she realized, “I had better teach them!” Norma urged her grandchildren to learn in order to supplement their income. Great-granddaughter Mary Margaret, who learned from Eppie and would often be left in tears when the elder weaver wasn’t satisfied with her work, realized that she could sell coasters to college friends over Christmastime. All the women recall as students taking looms with them in their car trunks. “It’s a job no one can take away from you,” notes Norma. 

“But, it’s hard on your body,” explains Ashley, demonstrating the fastidious action of working the treadle and shuttle while keeping the weft and warp taut. A novice has to master the steps, according to Norma: first the slow slant; the fast slant; the bear claw; and, finally, the step terrace. Norma likes to watch Law & Order while she weaves or listen to audiobooks: “You forget about problems in life,” states Norma.

 The women of this weaving family acknowledge the cultural value of their art, but also the potential economic benefits. The revival of fine arts and crafts in the area beginning in the 1930s has boosted the appreciation and knowledge of Rio Grande textiles, along with prices for their work. Their expertly crafted rugs continue to fetch hefty prices at places and events like the Traditional Spanish Market held annually in Santa Fe, and the annual Dixon and Abiquiu studio tours. The weavers also work on commissions.

Newly graduated from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces with a degree in agriculture and animal science, Mary Margaret hopes to work into her weaving craft the raising of sheep, and even has her eye on a defunct wool factory in Capulin, Colorado, that her great-grandmother Eppie used to run. There are still sacks of wool stored there, explains Delores, and as other mills are closing, the prices rising, and the weavers literally running out of yarn, she plans to take up the chore of carding and spinning. “We’re setting up as a family,” she affirms.

Norma is pleased to see her “inheri-tance” embraced enthusiastically by the next generations. “I ask them to do what their spirit moves them to do,” she states. “I feel that weaving is the tradition and what they design and create is their identity.” Mary Margaret agrees: “I hope to keep the tradition alive,” and adds her aim to be able to produce her own yarn someday.
“It would make Grandma happy.”

Left: On the loom is a runner that a customer ordered for her table to match a vintage Mascot stove. It was inspired by a coaster that Norma Medina gave the customer 14 years before—featuring Norma’s signature blue wool. Right: The rug Norma holds is a priceless rag rug that four generations all took turns weaving for the folk festival in Washington, DC, 1986. It now belongs to great-great-granddaughter Maya. 

From the Spring 2025 issue