In the late 1950s, Jicarilla basket making underwent a major revival. Various fortuitous events fueled this increase and no one in particular can be individually credited for it. Two new traders, Barton Cox and Fred Carson, had just taken over the Apache Mercantile in Dulce and they encouraged the Jicarilla in their basketry efforts by buying baskets and entering them in the Gallup Ceremonials, where they won awards. This in turn helped to create new markets. While there were many skilled basket weavers involved in this revival, the work of Tanzanita Pesata garnered much acclaim. Tanzanita’s skills and creativity lead to a revolution in basket design during this period.

Tanzanita employed much of the traditional elements of Jicarilla baskets and continued to use the subdued colors of natural dyes from plants and minerals in her surrounding environment, but she also began experimenting with bolder styles and brighter colors from aniline dyes and even commercial fabric dyes that were being used by Navajo rug weavers.

With these new and brighter colors, Tanzanita elaborated upon the geometric images that had long been a staple of Jicarilla baskets, incorporating them into more complex patterns. She also began utilizing fairly realistic animal imagery on her pictorial baskets. In addition to the traditional flat bowls and water jugs that the Jicarilla had woven for centuries, Tanzanita made deep, flat-bottomed bowls, large hampers with lids, and in an interesting departure, fishing creels for the nascent tourism industry in northern New Mexico.

The most well-known contemporary weaver among the Jicarilla is Lydia Pesata. Born and raised at the southern end of the sprawling reservation, Lydia did not make baskets growing up. It wasn’t until she married Melbourne Pesata, a grandson of Tanzanita Pesata, that Lydia learned to make baskets by watching Tanzanita as she sat on the floor and wove. Lydia would then go off in a back room and try to replicate what she had observed and would show her finished pieces to Tanzanita, who would give her pointers. Her teaching paid off as, next to Tanzanita, Lydia Pesata is perhaps the most influential Jicarilla Apache basket weaver of modern times. She has won many awards including the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1988.

As the market for Jicarilla baskets steadily increased, tribal officials began to take notice, and in the 1960s, with financial assistance from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs job training program, the Jicarilla Apache tribe established an Arts and Crafts Program to provide work for tribal members and to prevent their traditional arts from dying out. The idea was to pay Jicarilla Apaches an hourly wage to produce traditional goods for sale to tourists and others visiting the reservation. Brenda Julian was hired as the director of the Arts and Crafts Program in 1965, and she has remained at the helm of the organization since that time.

The Arts and Crafts Museum is currently ensconced in a trailer centrally located in Dulce on U.S. Highway 64, just south of the tribal headquarters, near the local shopping center and the tribe’s casino/hotel. It is open daily Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but closes between noon and 1 p.m. for lunch. It is currently a museum in name only, as there is not enough space in their cramped quarters to house the employees, items displayed for sale and the exhibits. The large collection of Jicarilla arts and crafts, including many historic baskets, is in storage and will likely remain there until the museum can move to a larger facility.

Visitors can watch the basket weavers and bead workers plying their craft and purchase their choice of the many baskets that line the cases of the museum. The weavers are happy to discuss their work and share their Jicarilla Apache culture with those who stop in. There is great camaraderie and friendly competition among the basket weavers working there, and animated conversations peppered by laughter often greet those who wander in.

There are many Jicarilla basket weavers not affiliated with the Arts and Crafts Museum who also ply their trade in the area. Their work is mostly known by word of mouth or found at various native arts and crafts fairs, including the New Mexico Expo. Several Jicarilla basket weavers enter their baskets annually in the Native American Indian Art Museum competition at the New Mexico State Fair, and first, second and third place ribbons adorn many of the baskets on display at the museum and in the Tribal Headquarters Building.

In an official act that perhaps demonstrates tribal support and acknowledgment for the basket-making traditions they are so rightly famous for, the Jicarilla tribal government commissioned local basket weaver Miranda Notsinneh to construct three large, flat baskets: two depicting the Great Seal of the Jicarilla Apache, and one commemorating the 1987 centennial of the tribe’s acquisition of its reservation. One basket of the seal is five feet in diameter and sits behind the receptionist’s desk on the second floor of Tribal Headquarters. The other two baskets flank the Great Seal basket on each side of the desk.