Profile

Navajo / USA

Barbara Teller Ornelas

Barbara Teller Ornelas is best known for her Navajo tapestry weavings and is a Master Navajo weaver, (120 – 126 weft threads per inch). She has set several records with her weavings: she has won Best of Show at the Santa Fe Indian Market twice; she set a new record in 1987 by selling a weaving for $60,000 that she and her sister Rosann Lee made; and she wove the largest tapestry-style Navajo weaving on record. Barbara is a fifth-generation weaver who was raised near Two Grey Hills on the Navajo Reservation, where her father was a trader. She has been featured in National Geographic, Business Week, Americana and Native Peoples magazines, as well as many books. She has won dozens of awards, and has demonstrated and lectured at many museums and institutions around the world. She recently participated in a cultural exchange with Peruvian weavers at themrequest of the US State Department and has traveled to Uzbekistan and Krynkistan as a Navajo cultural ambassador.