Synthesizing Technology and Tradition

Marilou Schultz is a fourth-generation Navajo weaver and mathematics teacher whose work bridges centuries‑old weaving traditions with cutting‑edge technology. Growing up in a family of weavers, Schultz was steeped in the techniques, motifs, and philosophy of Navajo weaving. She sees weaving not only as craft, but as a medium for visualizing patterns, symmetry, and geometry, concepts which align closely with her work as a math teacher.

A pivotal moment in Schultz’s artistic career came in 1993 with a commission from Intel. As part of their “Weaving and Technology” conference, she was asked to weave a design based on a Pentium microchip to be presented as a gift to the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. The resulting piece, Replica of a Chip (1994), required her to grapple with complex challenges, including translating the abstract circuitry and fine detail of a microchip into woven form using natural dyes, shade gradations, and novel weaving techniques. Reflecting on the task, she recalled thinking, “What did I agree to? This is impossible!” To approach the complexity, she divided the reference image into a grid using her mathematics background, breaking it down proportionally into 64ths. Employing a raised‑outline method and alternating between two colors, she adapted her mother’s diagonal designs into vertical ones, demonstrating both technical ingenuity and artistic courage.

From that initial project, Schultz embarked on a decades‑long exploration of new technologies through weaving. Her body of work includes pieces based on digital graphs, QR codes, and other microchip designs, all rendered in Navajo weaving styles and rooted in the multifaceted concept of Hózhó, a Navajo principle that can be roughly translated as “beauty, balance, harmony, and order.” Schultz employs the traditional mechanics of weaving, including using an upright vertical loom, warp threads, batten tools, and a weaving comb, while exploring new designs, novel materials, and different visual effects. In synthesizing technology and tradition, Schultz asks broader questions about identity, labor, representation, and what it means for Native art to evolve.

The history she draws on is rich: The Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation plant, which opened on Navajo land in the 1960s, employed many Navajo women in chip manufacturing. This period was marked by racialized assumptions (for example, that “nimble fingers” made Navajo women especially suited for chip assembly), as well as labor exploitation and environmental injustice. Schultz’s work in part reckons with that history, reframing microchips—once symbols of extraction, wage labor, and industrial imbalance—as objects of beauty, creativity, and ancestral continuity. Schultz’s art thus becomes a space where technology, culture, and memory intersect; where forms once imposed or undervalued are reclaimed, reinterpreted, and transformed into works that speak to both past and future.