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In a quiet home nestled in the hills of Alamo, 71-year-old Violet Lucero sits at a loom that’s too large for her bedroom—but she makes it fit. “If my loom is empty, it’s crying,” she said, her voice filled with warmth. A weaver, teacher, and elder in her Navajo community, Lucero’s life has been intricately woven—thread by thread—through decades of tradition, resilience, and love.
Lucero is a master of the craft, not only weaving but handling the entire process from sheep to blanket: shearing, cleaning, carding, spinning, and dyeing the wool. “One sheep can give you enough for a four-by-eight blanket,” she said. At one time she had her own flock of churro sheep, a breed long used by the Navajo people for their meat, wool, and unique way of maintaining the land.
Her weaving is traditional in practice and often in pattern, but every design comes straight from Lucero’s mind. From saddle blankets to dresses, from keychains to sash belts, each is a piece of her heart, she said. “Each line tells a story,” she said. “When I weave, it’s like praying. It calms me.”
Lucero learned to weave at eight years old, when she would return home from boarding school in the summer. Her mother, and grandmother before her, were her first teachers. “I’m glad my mom disciplined me,” Lucero said. “Now I pass it on—but I don’t push. You have to want to weave. If not, you’ll just get frustrated.”
And passing it on she has, retiring from Magdalena Schools after 37 years of teaching weaving to students. She’s also taught weaving at the Wellness Center in Alamo and said the practice incorporates math, science, social studies, art and more. “Weaving is everything,” she explains. “Art, math, history. It’s all there.”
Her children and grandchildren also weave and speak or understand the Navajo language, some more than others. On the display she uses for teaching are the words, “Sheep is Life,” a reinforcement of the place this creature plays in the cultural survival of Navajo people. For Navajo people, weaving is another extension of the sheep’s gifts and a cultural keystone that is at risk of fading away. Lucero’s grandson, Michael, began weaving at 10 and recently helped Lucero create hand woven ribbon sashes for all 26 eighth-grade graduates at his school.
“I just love weaving, and it’s always living me,” she said. “I’m glad my mom left me with that and I’m carrying it on and it’s going to my grandkids. I tell them every day it is very important to have it.”
In 1960, at age six Lucero was taken from her home and sent to attend a government-run boarding school in Magdalena. As the oldest daughter, her grandfather tried to reason with the government that she needed to stay at home to learn and preserve the Navajo way of life. Alas, she was forced to leave behind her language and traditions. “My grandpa didn’t want them to take me. He said, ‘She’s learning traditional ways. If you take her, take me too.’ But they took me anyway,” Lucero said.
She struggled with English in school but found strength in storytelling—especially when writing about her family and weaving. Today she still uses natural dyes—prickly pear, walnut, wild tea—and spins much of her wool by hand, although she will occasionally use store bought yarn. Her cedar and oak weaving tools, made by her father, hold deep sentimental value.
“I feel like if you know all those techniques, you don’t have to go to Walmart,” she said. “I didn’t have to go buy it somewhere else. I have it, and it makes me strong.”
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Though she no longer keeps sheep herself—“just one goat now,” she said—others in the community share their wool with her. Some of her woven works are for sale at local art markets or by request, but many are given away, especially for rites of passage like coming-of-age ceremonies and graduations. “It’s part of their journey. I just donate it,” she said.
As an elder, Lucero sees cultural preservation as a responsibility. “If you know these techniques, you can survive,” she said. “It’s a gift. You carry it with you.”
