Darby Raymond-Overstreet has two pieces showing at the Tuscon Desert Art Museum in the Art is the Seed exhibition from January 10, 2020 – May 31, 2020. Art is the Seed explores how traditional Native American crafts are the cultural “seeds” inspiring many contemporary Native American artists’ works. This exhibition features artworks by exciting contemporary female artists paired with historic and traditional crafts that have inspired their works.

For this exhibition Darby collaborated with the Museum’s Collection of Navajo rugs to create the piece titled Inherited Legacies. The original rug woven between 1925-1935 features a double diamond design. This type of design is known to represent imprisonment, referencing Hweeldi, the forced imprisonment at Fort Sumner in 1864. In working with this rug Darby is telling a story of strength and fortitude across generations. She states, “This piece addresses the darkest time and most violent attack in the memory of my people, the imprisonment at Fort Sumner, known as Hweeldi. A time of intense suffering that many did not survive, it forged a scar on the cultural identity of our people. But it also made our ancestors reach for and embrace great strength, resilience and fortitude. We are still here due to this embrace, and the strength laced within our Diné identity continues to fortify us so that we may stand in the face of modern monsters that manifest in our daily lives.”

You can see Inherited Legacies showing alongside the original Double Diamond Weaving in Art is the Seed. Also being featured is the piece titled Matriarch showing alongside a Navajo Chief’s Blanket Variant that is similar in style to the blanket that Darby referenced for the work.