Mamie Deschillie, a member of the Navajo Nation whose folk art was internationally known, died on Friday. She was 90.

Deschillie was born in New Mexico in 1920. She entered the art scene late in life -- in the 1980s -- and became famous for her Navajo mud toys, cutouts and collages.

"She was just a pretty phenomenal individual in terms of Navajo folk art," Robb Lucas, the manager of the manager of Case Trading Post at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, told The Farmington Daily Times. "She developed all kinds of new forms with her mud toys and her cutouts and her paintings. It was really true folk art. The art she created came from the heart, the world around her and her imagination."

Deschillie is being buried today in Farmington, New Mexico.

Get the Story:
Folk art superstar' Mamie Deschillie died Friday (The Farmington Daily Times 11/30)