Wright's Indian Art > Paintings > Sand Paintings

Sandpaintings were, and still are, sacred images essential to a broad range of Navajo ceremonies. These rituals, called "Sings" are meant to heal. In the Navajo way, healing does not equate with a "cure", as we Anglos understand it, but with the restoration of balance and harmony within the afflicted person.

Sandpaintings may blot out the violence of warfare for a returning veteran, or cleanse someone of the dissonance of living in Anglo cities for a long time. They may be protective, procuring a blessing for a new venture or for the coming of age of a young person.

In ceremonial use, sandpaintings are created on the ground or on a blanket, then destroyed at the end of the rites. It was the intervention of Anglo anthropologists and then artists, in the 1920's and '30's that helped transform the evanescent sandpainting into a permanent art form. They, the artists, largely developed the technique of bonding the sand colors to a board. Thus, a commercial use was possible.

There was, and still is, to some extent, controversy among the Navajo about the propriety of producing commercial sandpaintings. It should be emphasized that no sandpainting created for sale is ever identical to that made for ceremonial use by a medicine man. It would bring great harm to the maker, to risk such blasphemous use of sacred power. So, if the design is close to the original, "wrong" colors or a "wrong" number of elements will be used, to distinguish from the "real" sandpainting. However, the techniques of grinding the colors and sifting the sand to create shapes remains the same for both uses.

The rocks are ground by hand to a fine powder and sifted through the fingers and creases of the hand to form even the most minute dots and feathery lines.

Nowadays, as in other media, some artists are going way beyond the traditional, into nearly abstract paintings with sand. Also new is the use of non-traditional stones such as lapis, sugilite, gold and silver dust. We are fortunate to be able to enjoy this uniquely Navajo art form in both its traditional and creative guises.