Woshdéé! Welcome! Our family has been trading with the native people of the Four Corners area for five generations. We are noted for our encouragement of innovation and quality in Navajo textiles. Browse our gallery for the finest in rugs, Navajo and Zuni jewelry, Navajo and Apache basketry and other items. We carry a full line of yarns spun specifically for Navajo style weaving and other supplies for weaving in the Navajo way. Please consult our auction and show schedule to see when R.B. Burnham and Co. may be coming to a location near you or in a place where you would like to be. Let us show you the excitement of Native American art at the dawn of a new century.
Our first auction at the Eiteljorg Museum was a success and we’re about halfway home from Indianapolis right now. Our web master, who takes most of the pictures for the site, wasn’t with us for the auction, so if you were there and can spare a picture or two, we’d love to have them! Send them to webmaster@rbburnhamtrading.com and we’ll post as many as we can.
When we arrive back in Sanders, we only have a few days to get ready for the Smoki Museum Auction and the HGA Convergence Auction on July 24th. That’s right, two auctions, two cities, same day! Stay tuned.
We’ve sorted through the pictures that we took at the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction on May 8th, and we’ve selected 58 of them for you. We’ve put a few of them below but you can click here to see them all! You can also click on any image below to see it full size.
One of the benefits of being part of the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction is having the opportunity to see young members of the community grow up and to help provide a better future for them.
If you were at the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction last Saturday, May 8, you knew that it was successful. Wally Blanchard, the chairman of the Friends of Hubbell, sent us a note yesterday with the final results and they are impressive. There were 447 lots in the auction and 357 sold, an 80% sales rate. Total proceeds from the auction were $160,506, which includes vendor booth rentals. Payments to artists were $124,062, or 77% of total revenues.
We would like to thank all of the bidders for their support. If you missed this Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction, you have another chance to attend the late summer version later this year on September 18th. Of course we also have other auctions which benefit a variety of civic and cultural organizations in the Southwest and in Indianapolis, Indiana. Check the Auction and Show Schedule to find out where we’ll be.
Hank Blair with Spider Rock Boy Elijah Blake, age 3 months. That's mom Larissa Blake's Burntwater rug in the background.
Yesterday’s Friends of Hubbell Auction was a fabulous success with well over 70% of the items selling, many with competitive bidding increasing the return to the artists by many dollars. The competitive bidding lasted through the end of the auction, which featured 447 lots of rugs, jewelry, baskets, pottery and other art. Three month old Elijah Blake, son of Spider Rock Girl Larissa Blake was attending his first auction and definitely charmed the crowd as his mother’s beautiful Burntwater rug was sold.
Also notable in the auction was the very large handspun and handcarded rug by R.G. Sherman that is pictured below. R.G. lives in the Navajo Mountain area and also manages a large flock of sheep. Look for his sensational rug if you visit La Posada in Winslow.
R.G. Sherman's 7x10 handspun and handcarded rug comes up for auction.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all of the artists and bidders. Since this auction returns 90% of the bid price to the artist, it is a very important boost to our community. Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day!
Happy Mother's Day from weaver Dadebah Blueeyes and all of us at R.B. Burnham and Co.
Hank and Vicki Blair's granddaughter Sydney holds a fine Rose Yazzie weaving.
Prescott, AZ Our 2010 auction schedule started on March 13th with a well attended and successful auction for Prescott’s Smoki Museum. This auction features both contemporary and vintage weavings and both categories were popular with the audience. We also had several phone and absentee bidders. Notable in this auction was an extremely fine weaving by the late Anita Tsosie that is pictured below. One of Anita’s pieces won Best in Show at 2004′s Santa Fe Indian Market and we were honored to be selected by her family to help them sell one of her rugs, an intricate Red Mesa design. Our next auction will be the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction which will be held on May 8 in Ganado, AZ. We hope to see you there!
A complex Red Mesa style piece by the late Anita Tsosie.
Emily Malone puts her own slant on her Spider Rock rug with a unique center panel.
We concluded our auction schedule for the year with last weekend’s Pueblo Grande Museum auction. Larger rugs were popular with the audience with a room sized handspun and handcarded Traditional pattern by R.G. Sherman and a large 1980′s vintage Jennie Slick Wide Ruins rug going to new homes. Master weavers Emily Malone and Gilbert Begay hit a popular note with the crowd with small (about 7″x7″) bags that offer a new way to extend (not to mention flaunt) your rug collection. We expect to see more of these beautiful and functional weavings in the next year.
We’ve included pictures of a unique take on the Spider Rock rug by Emily Malone (above) and one of R.G. Sherman’s increasingly popular handcarded, handspun pound blanket weight floor rugs (below).
A handspun and handcarded rug by R.G. Sherman of Navajo Mountain.
We’re busy working on next year’s auction schedule and we’ll start posting events very soon. In the meantime, thanks to all of you who attended our auctions this year!
We'll be bringing jewelry, pottery and katsinas to the Pueblo Grande auction along with contemporary and vintage rugs.
This year’s Pueblo Grande auction event has been expanded to include Native American arts as well as contemporary and vintage rugs. The Native American arts auction will take place on Friday, November 20th, starting with a preview at 5:00 PM. The auction will begin at 7 and will last until about 9:30 PM. The rug auction portion of the event will be held on Saturday, November 21st. The preview will begin at 10:00 AM and the auction starts at noon. Rugs may also be previewed during the Friday evening auction.
We’ll be accepting consignments for the auction on November 18th, 19th and 20th at Drumbeat Indian Arts, 4143 N. 16th Street in Phoenix. Items may be consigned from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on the 18th and 19th and from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on the 20th.
Please contact us if you have questions about this or any of our auctions. We hope to see you at Pueblo Grande!
From left, Hank Blair, Al Grieve, Bruce Bunham and Bill Malone at the Traders and Their Neighbors event at the Navajo Nation Museum on October 10th.
We know we’re in a business that’s different from many, and in our line of work our competitors are some of our closest friends. That’s even more true of trader Bill Malone, who was critically ill during the summer. Bill’s now in recovery mode and back at work part time. Last weekend, Bruce attended a traders’ reunion event in Window Rock that recognized Bill with a celebration lunch and a “Welcome Back from the Brink” cake (see below).
Bill Malone celebrates his recovery with a "Welcome Back from the Brink" cake.
Personally, we can’t imagine the Native American arts market without Bill and we’re glad that we don’t have to! Keep up with the recovery Bill; we’re thrilled to see you.
A collage of pictures from the Friends of Hubbell Native Artis Auction/ Clockwise from top left, Ann Worthington, Larissa Blake, a Teec by Elouise Mae Shorty, a handspun rug by R.B. Sherman, a tufted rug by Irene Begay and a shot of Travis Terry, Hank Blair and Bruce Burnham
Bruce often mentions during an auction how much the economic infusion of the cash brought into our local economy means for the weavers and other artists who participate. We’ve just gotten a report from the Friends of Hubbell on the results of the latest Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction, held on September 19 on the grounds of the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site in Ganado, AZ and we’re happy to say that 69% of the items consigned were sold with $98,000 going to the artists. In combination with the May Friends of Hubbell auction, the total proceeds to artists for 2009 from Friends of Hubbell is $225,000.
Over the last five years, approximately 71% of items submitted have been sold at the auction, with a record 82% of items selling in May of 2006. These numbers don’t count the scholarships awarded by the Friends of Hubbell or the sales made directly by vendors at the event. This auction has not only become an important part of the business scene in our area, as you can see from the photo collage above, it’s a lot of fun.
R.B. Burnham is proud to part of the Friends of Hubbell Native American Arts Auction and we hope to see you in Ganado at their next event, May 8, 2010.
