Marilou Schultz

Marilou Schultz was born in Safford, Arizona, on November 6, 1954.{{Cite journal |date=March 22, 2003 |title=Marilou Schultz |url=http://cankuota.org/IssueHistory/Issues03/Co03222003/CO_03222003_MarilouSchultz.htm |journal=Canku Ota (Many Paths) |issue=83 |via=Canku Ota}} Her mother is the respected weaver Martha Gorman Schultz. She is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and is born to Tábą́ą́há (Water’s Edge Clan), and born for Tsi’naajinii (Black Streak Wood People Clan), and grew up in Leupp, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. At least four generations of her relatives, including her mother and great-great-grandmother, were also weavers.{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/changinghandsart0000unse |title=Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation |publisher=Merrell Publishers Limited |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-85894-186-8 |editor-last=McFadden |editor-first=David Revere |location=London |pages=20 |editor-last2=Taubman |editor-first2=Ellen Napiura}} She is the aunt of textile artist Melissa Cody.{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Patricia Leigh |date=2024-04-18 |title=A Millennial Weaver Carries a Centuries-Old Craft Forward |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/arts/design/melissa-cody-weaver-moma-ps1.html |access-date=2024-06-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} She began learning the craft at the age of seven by watching her mother, and sold her weaved rugs during her childhood and into her college years.{{Cite web |title=Marilou Schultz |url=https://art.state.gov/personnel/marilou_schultz/ |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Art in Embassies: U.S. Department of State |language=en-US}}{{Cite book |last=Schaaf |first=Gregory |url=http://archive.org/details/americanindiante0000scha |title=American Indian Textiles: 2,000 Artist Biographies, c. 1800-Present |publisher=CIAC Press |others=Internet Archive |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-9666948-4-0 |location=Santa Fe |pages=212}}

Schultz attended Arizona State University (ASU) and received a bachelor's and master's degree in education, as well as a certificate for teaching mathematics from the Native American Education Leadership Program at ASU.{{Cite journal |date=1978 |title=The Bulletin Board |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24397262 |journal=Journal of American Indian Education |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=30–32 |jstor=24397262 |issn=0021-8731}}

Schultz is a math teacher in the Mesa Public Schools, and has served as a home-school liaison and coordinator for leadership and support programs for Native American youth.{{Cite news |last=Box |first=Andrea |date=October 20, 1993 |title=Schools participate in Indian celebration |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/123172039/?match=1&terms=%22marilou%20schultz%22 |access-date=June 12, 2024 |work=Arizona Republic |pages=208}}

In the summers, she teaches weaving workshops.

Although she began weaving as a means of financial support, her love of the craft has evolved into a method of innovation and sharing her culture with others. She utilizes traditional methods learned from her mother such as plain weave, twill and double twill, and raised outline weavings, though she has also developed unique dyeing techniques with both aniline and natural dyes.{{Cite web |last=Walker |first=Mary |date=2012-03-20 |title=Back to the Heard: Spinning and Design Lessons with Martha and Marilou Schultz |url=https://weavinginbeauty.com/weavers-and-their-stories/back-to-the-heard-spinning-and-design-lessons-with-martha-and-marilou-schultz |access-date=2024-06-12 |website=Weaving in Beauty |language=en-US}} Natural dyes that she uses includes cochineal and indigo. She frequently uses wool from Churro sheep raised by her family.{{Cite news |last=Thorson |first=Alice |date=March 2, 2014 |title=Tradition Meets Modern World |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/654698914/ |access-date=June 12, 2024 |work=The Kansas City Star |pages=D6}}

In 1994, Intel commissioned Schultz to weave "Replica of a Chip," which depicted a Pentium microprocessor, a computer circuit board, and referenced the historical workforce of Navajo women assembling circuit boards at an Intel factory located on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico.{{Cite news |last=Smee |first=Sebastian |date=2024-05-03 |title=Review {{!}} Why textiles are all the rage in the art world right now |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2024/05/03/textile-art-national-gallery-metropolitan-museum/ |access-date=2024-06-12 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}{{Cite journal |last=McMaster |first=Gerald |date=October 2017 |title=Under Indigenous Eyes |journal=Art in America |volume=105 |issue=9 |pages=64–71 |via=Academic Search Complete}}

Schultz has won several awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market, including the Special Award for Excellence in Navajo Weaving in 1994, and the Challenge Award in Non-Traditional Weavings in 1997.{{Cite news |date=August 23, 1997 |title=76th Indian Market Awards Announced by Category |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/157931165/?match=1&terms=%22marilou%20schultz%22 |access-date=June 12, 2024 |work=Albuquerque Journal |pages=103}} She was also awarded a fellowship by the market's organization, SWAIA, in 1994. At the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, Schultz received the inaugural Conrad House Innovation Award from the Heard Museum Guild in 2001.{{Cite web |title=Conrad House Innovation Award |url=https://heardguild.org/conrad-house-award/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |website=heardguild.org}}

Schultz exhibited at documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany. She has also shown internationally in U.S. Embassies.

Curators Velma Kee Craig (Diné), Natalia Miles (Diné/Akimel O'otham/Apache), and Ninabah Winton (Diné) featured Schultz's work in the Heard Museum's traveling survey of contemporary Navajo weaving, Color Riot!. This exhibition began at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and traveling to venues nationwide, including the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey{{cite web |title=Color Riot! How Color Changed Navajo Textiles |url=https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/exhibition/color-riot-how-color-changed-navajo-textiles |website=Montclair Art Museum |access-date=6 July 2024 |date=2021}} and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg in Florida.

Replica of a Chip was included in a 2024 exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery of Art.{{Cite web |title=Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction |url=https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2024/woven-histories-textiles-modern-abstraction.html |access-date=2024-06-12 |publisher=National Gallery of Art}}{{cite web |first=Ken |last=Shirriff |title=The Pentium as a Navajo weaving |date=September 2024 |url=http://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-shiprock.html }}

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Category:American weavers

Category:Living people

Category:1954 births

Category:Native American educators

Category:Navajo textile artists

Category:Navajo women artists

Category:People from Graham County, Arizona

Category:People from Mesa, Arizona

Category:Arizona State University alumni