New for 2024

Pendleton is proud to unveil three new blankets for the American Indian College Fund this year. The designs were chosen from many beautiful entries submitted by College Fund Scholars. Sales of this blanket help support the College Fund in its mission to invest in Native students and tribal college education to transform lives and communities. This saddle blanket, Directions Home, was designed for the College Fund by Troy Tso.

Directions Home

The plight of homeless veterans inspired Troy Tso (Diné), a fine arts and graphic design graduate of Diné College, to consider the meaning of home. His design’s center is a Hogan, a traditional Diné structure of wood and earth. The roof’s construction—shown from the inside looking up—is surrounded by the four mountains that bound the Navajo Nation: Dibé Ntsaa (Hesperus Peak), Sisnaajini (Blanca Peak), Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor), and Dook’o’oosliid (the San Francisco Peaks).

Troy Tso is a Diné (Navajo) artist raised in the community of Burntcorn Valley, Arizona. He believes that “Art has the responsibility to heal and inspire." His clans are Coyote Pass-Jemez (Mą’íídeeshgíízhíníí), Red Running into Water people (Táchii’nii), Tangle (Ta’neeszahni), and Mexican (Naakai dine’é). Tso is inspired by family and influenced by Diné culture. He began drawing at a young age, and has progressed from sketching to graphic art and design with ideas that come from living each day as Diné. His blanket story and process are below.

Troy’s Story and Process

My name is Troy Tso and I am a student at Diné College earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. I was inspired while thinking about our homeless veterans and elders that don’t have homes to go to, so they end up at the homeless shelter. These type of tragic events happen on the Navajo Nation. I wanted a design that would reflect my Navajo culture, and that brought to mind a Hogan; a traditional structure built from logs and mud. It has an eight -sided shape like a octagon.

I finished this design in a graphics program, but my process began with a sketchbook drawing of a Hogan. In the middle of the artwork I drew a representation of the inside of a Hogan, looking up at the roof. I drew the inside of the structure, and came up with my own ways of expressing of how the overall design is put together.

On the sides of the blanket, I used the four sacred mountains that are part of our culture and tradition. The colors of the mountains give directions; black would represent the North, white is East, blue is South and Yellow would be West. The color black symbolizes Dibé Ntsaa (Hesperus Peak), in what is now southwestern Colorado. White is Sisnaajini (Blanca Peak) that in the south-central Colorado. The Blue is connected with south and Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor), it is northeast of Grants, New Mexico. Yellow is associated with the west and Dook’o’oosliid (the San Francisco Peaks) and is located near Flagstaff, Arizona.

These four sacred mountains surround the Navajo Nation that it is always home to me and to the Navajo people. These mountains give me guidance on the path of life. The other colors use to create the design were inspired by the traditional colors from the Navajo Nation landscapes and from the Hogan. I want this blanket to give comfort and hope as we overcome challenges in life.

For more information: Directions Home

Tribal College Blanket Design Contest and The College Fund

Directions Home is a winner of the Tribal College Blanket Design contest, which seeks to elevate the voices, work, and representation of tribal college and university (TCU) students while providing TCU students with additional scholarship opportunities. Pendleton has been supporting the work of the College Fund through the sale of special blankets since 1995, and has provided over $2.6 million in scholarship support for American Indian and Alaska Native students attending Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). Over the years, blankets have been designed by various designers and guest artists, including Larry Ahvakana, Preston Singletary, Mary Beth Jiron, Tracie Jackson, and many more.

The American Indian College Fund has been the nation’s largest nonprofit supporting Native higher education for 33 years. The College Fund believes “Education is the answer". Since its founding in 1989 the College Fund has provided more than $345 million in scholarships, program, community, and tribal college support. The College Fund also supports a variety of academic and support programs at the nation’s 35 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org.

Pendleton’s Philanthropic Partners

We work with: 

• The American Indian College Fund: Supporting education
• Northwest Native American Center of Excellence (NNACOE): at Oregon Health & Science University
• Center of Southwest Studies: Preserving Native American arts and funding Native American art education
• Native American Rehabilitation Association (NARA): Culturally informed Health care for Native women
• DigDeep: Supporting the Navajo Water Project
• National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC): Dedicated to restoring sovereignty and safeguarding Native women and children
• Missing and Murdered Dine Relatives (MMDR): Protecting generations and raising awareness