Navajo Mud Toys

Mamie Deschillie (Deschellie) & Elsie Benally

ca. 1980-90’s

Large Tiger with Turquoise Eyes Mamie Deschillie

This has been acquired, thank you.

Lion with beaded forehead and Mane, Mamie Deschillie (the lion has been acquired, thank you)

Santa Riding Chicken $50. (signed MD) Mamie Deschillie

Santa Riding Cow (signed MD) Mamie Deschillie

(Santa Riding a Cow has been acquired, thank you)

Gray Panther Tiger SOLD (signed MD) Mamie Deschillie

Small Tiger (signed MD) Mamie Deschillie

This has been acquired, thank you

Elephant SOLD (signed MD) Mamie Deschillie

Cowboy on Horseback SOLD Mamie Deschillie

Zebra $50. Mamie Deschillie

Big Shabby Lion w Teeth Mamie Deschillie

(The Shabby Lion has been acquired, thank you)

Alligator SOLD Mamie Deschillie

Navajo Woman w Chicken $50. Mamie Deschillie SOLD

Navajo Folk Artist Mamie Deschillie (1920-2010) aka Deschellie

2020 is her 100th anniversary year, we celebrate her unique talent through this collection.

White Buffalo SOLD Elsie Benally

Santa Riding Alligator SOLD Elsie Benally

Donkey Pack Animal $50. Elsie Benally

Sheep, Elsie Benally (the sheep has been acquired, thank you)

Sandstone Pickup Truck w 2 Pigs $30.

(attributed to Benally's son in law Homer Warren)

Sandstone Spotted Horse (this horse has been acquired, thank you)

Cardboard & Velvet Navajo Woman Riding Horse SOLD Mamie Deschillie

Mud Toy availability is quite limited, the mud toys are quite fragile and susceptible to damage, perhaps this makes them rare and more and more difficult to come by. Mud Toys are dried in the sun, they are not fired to harden the clay, then painted with flat bright tempera paints. 

Inspiration for these artists comes from Children’s Books, Circus Animals and animals on the Navajo Reservation. Occasionally Mamie would make up a magical animal out of her imagination. Deschillie would travel 18-20 miles to her source of 'mud' in order to seek out just the right type of earth for her creations. The Navajo People are believed to have used the toys as early as 1880. Mud Toys have similar characteristics to clay animal fetish figures used by the people of nearby Pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico, often they were left at shrine sites, later to wear away in the wind and elements where they would melt back into Mother Earth.

Deschellie is also known for her Cardboard Animal Figures she called ‘Cutouts’ of the same topics as her mud toys. We have one listed here of a Navajo Woman on Horseback.

For me these figures are reminiscent of the figures of wire and found objects by Alexander Calder for his “Calder’s Circus” in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Every bit as whimsical and filled with wonder, in particular the circus animals, these are now desirable to collectors everywhere.

In 1990 I came upon the cutout cardboard figures created by Mamie Deschellie in a Trading Post shop in Aztec, NM (near Farmington), there I purchased as many cutouts as they had giving them as gifts for friends who still cherish them (as I do) to this day.

Works by both Deschellie and Benally are in the permanent collections of major American Museums.

True Folk Art is rarely signed, pressure in the market place has forced many artists to include their signature. When looking at these figures you begin to notice significant differences between the two women artists. Folk Art styles are unique to the individual artists who make them.

Both Deschellie and Benally are listed in the book “Navajo Folk Art; the People Speak”, by Chuck and Jan Rosenak.

Mud Toy Sizes range from 2.5” - 6’ in length