Rosie Ann Taylor

As an artist, Rosie Ann Taylor has been part of the Heard Museum family since 1990, first as an assistant librarian while at Arizona State University and later as a weaving and jewelry artist in the Heard Museum Market, and a weaving demonstrator for the museum. She has participated in juried art exhibitions with SWAIA and Gallup Ceremonial, receiving first-place awards in both weaving and jewelry. Rosie makes traditional and contemporary Navajo rugs and rug dresses, sews regalia using a variety of materials, and creates both traditional and contemporary silversmith designs from sheet metal to final production.

Rosie is also influential in her Native community as an educator, agriculture and land use advocate, active chapter member, and ceremony contributor. She practices dry farming and irrigated farming on her land, harvesting and processing food in September. In particular, she prepares corn for a variety of uses, which includes drying and steaming and/or grinding corn, keeping the husk, and collecting corn pollen.

“Ceremony is very sacred to me, I rarely share information outside my clan and community. I learned from my father Carl Taylor, who was a well-known medicine man and my mother Lillie Taylor. I now pass these teachings and ceremonies to my children when they participate in these traditional ways.”

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