2024 Dreamstarter Creative: Paulette Scott

My eldest daughter enjoys teaching and sharing our culture with other LGBTQ+ Diné Relatives, which as had a significant impact. Some of them come and visit us on the Navajo Nation and they are the sweetest and most brilliant individuals I have met and I would like to create some rugs for them while being able to teach them the process in and inclusive and affirming environment.

Paulette Scott

Paulette Scott

Paulette Scott (Navajo Nation), 48, first had the opportunity to learn traditional weaving at Diné College, and later perfected her skill with the mentorship of her Children’s Great-Grandmother. For the past 25 years, she has greatly enjoyed weaving as a means of self-expression, relaxation, and community connection. She has given each of her rugs away as gifts to honor and celebrate others. She is looking forward to teaching her kids to weave this summer before returning to teach her 3rd Grade class in the fall.

Scott’s dream is to create an inclusive and affirming environment for LGBTQ+ Relatives and pass down traditional knowledge and cultural practices to younger generations. This grant will allow her to purchase everything she needs to create rungs in the traditional way; sheep to spin her own wool, grinding stones and plants to create natural dyes, and weaving tools. She will teach small in person groups as she records her process to be shared later. She hopes to create these pieces in celebration of her eldest daughter and her friends and offer them an affirming and accepting story.

“Art has always been important to me because it has always been a cultural healing form of self-expression for me. When I weave, I feel a sense of myself whole and the stress of the day leaving my body.”

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