Kenneth Begay

Kenneth Begay is a Diné (Navajo) artist who has lived near the Grand Canyon on the Navajo Reservation for his entre life. Kenneth has been involved in in arts and crafts for a very long time. He has worked as a gemstone lapidary and as a silversmith making turquoise and silver jewelry. Kenneth's family is well known for their fine bead work.

As you might be able to tell from his photo Kenneth is also a Vietnam Veteran (his hat!) and what he is holding should tell you that he is a very skilled dream catcher artist. Kenneth is also a celebrated gourd dancer and he can be found at many Native American Pow Wows throughout Indian country during the year dancing.

Kenneth's dream catcher's show his attention to detail and his passion for each piece he creates. Each of his dream catchers has a very tightly strung web, many include bead work and almost all include a stone animal or object in the center of the webbing.

Kenneth tells us that he creates his dream catchers using three different web designs. Sometimes he uses just one web style and sometimes he combines the styles for a very unique and wonderful appearance. He refers to the the web patterns as, The black widow, the Brown Spider and the Garden Spider. Kenneth uses Mule Deer, White-tailed deer and Elk hide for the leather to wrap the hoops and to string the beads and feathers that dangle. The amount of time in the bead work not to mention the wrapping and webbing makes these pieces very special and one of only a few Navajo dream catchers that we carry.