Mary Henderson Begay is a Navajo (Diné) weaver lives traditionally on the Navajo reservation in Ganado, Arizona. Her artistic talents have provided her family income from handmade weavings.
She learned her skills from her mother, Master Artist Grace Henderson Nez, born in 1913, a woman who worked relentlessly for hours and years developing and perfecting her weaving craft. It is no wonder that Grace is the recipient of the 2005 National Endowment of the Arts Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Heard Museum.
Like her mother, Mary’s rugs have been made on vertical looms using the same methods Southwest weavers have used for the past three hundred years. In 1976 to honor the United States on its 200th Arizona’s Indian heritage, the Arizona Highways magazine, initiated with the Navajo Tribal Council, to have a flag-rug woven in precognition of the American Bicentennial. Mary Henderson Begay was chosen to weave the Arizona State Flag. The project appeared on CBS in the “On the Road to ‘76” segment of the CBS Evening News The 4 ft X 6 ft American flag-rug was raised over our nation’s Capital and over the Arizona Capitol. The American flag-rug is currently housed at the Heard Museum in Phoenix.
