D.Y. Begay

D.Y. Begay (born 1953) is a Navajo textile artist born into the Tóʼtsohnii (Big Water) Clan and born from the Táchiiʼnii (Red Streak Earth) Clan. Her mother taught her to identify plants to make dyes and to understand the dyeing process. At the age of 12, Begay sold her first rug. the C.N. Gorman Museum at the University of California, Davis; the Kennedy Museum of Art, Athens, Ohio; among others. Her artwork was included in the exhibition "Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists." In 2020, her art was exhibited in the landmark exhibition Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

A 2018 retrospective exhibition of her work entitled Tselani/Terrain: Tapestries of D.Y. Begay, was organized by the Museum of Northern Arizona. a featured exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., is on display September 20, 2024 – July 13, 2025. This exhibit is accompanied by a robust catalog that is also the first book devoted to her career and includes tapestries created between 1965 and 2022.

Awards In 2013, Begay received a Native American Art Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, she was named a Fellow by the Mellon Indigenous Arts Program, University of Virginia.

In 2026, she was named a Fellow by the American Craft Council (ACC).

Collections Begay's work is included in the collection of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.