Joyce Begay-Foss

Joyce Begay-Foss is a Diné weaver, educator, and curator. She is the director of education at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.^[1] For her weavings, she has received more than 20 awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market and Eight Northern Pueblos arts and crafts show.^[2]

Life and career

Begay-Foss was born in Shiprock, New Mexico.^[3] Her parents are Helen (née Smith) and Fred Begay, a physicist and traditional healer.^[4] She grew up both in Northern New Mexico and on a Navajo reservation in Arizona.^[3] When she was young, she and her family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.^[3]

She began weaving in her 20s, and started the company Walk In Beauty Fiber Arts in her 30s.^[3][5] She was a curator at the Poeh Museum, leaving the position in the 1990s.^[6] In 1998, she became the curator of education at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC), and in 2000, she became director of education for their newly opened Living Traditions Center.^[3] In 2008, she was selected as the Chairperson of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, which combats counterfeits and promotes economic development of Native American arts and crafts.^[7]

In 2011, after the two-year exhibit "Spider Woman’s (Na ashje’ii ‘Asdzáá) Gift: Navajo Weaving Traditions" at the MIAC, Begay-Foss was a co-writer of the book "Spider Woman’s Gift: Nineteenth Century Diné Textiles."^[8] The book discusses Diné basket and textile weavings from the 1850s to the 1890s.^[9] In 2019, Begay-Foss curated the exhibition Lifeways of the Southern Athabaskans at the MIAC, which received an Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History.^[10][11]

Begay-Foss teaches weaving to children and adults. She has won awards for her weavings at the Santa Fe Indian Market and Eight Northern Pueblos arts and crafts show.^[12]