Pacific Northwest ~ Deadline Extended

The deadline for submissions to the exhibit "Basketry of the Pacific Northwest" has been extended. Submissions are now due 5 pm on Monday, July 6th, 2009.

The Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon seeks basketry submissions under 24 x 24 x 24 inches which have inspirational ties to a coveted object or image. This small juried show is open to Northwest basket makers, contemporary and traditional, for its Community Showcase, on view Tuesday, July 28 through Saturday, August 29, 2009 in the Lab at the Museum.

The show will be juried by Charissa Brock. The exhibit is scheduled to coincide with the National Basketry Organization, Inc.’s 2009 Convention, “Traditions & Innovations V,” July 28 - August 2, 2009 at Portland State University. Please see www.nationalbasketry.org for more information on the convention.

Download the Call to entry here.

Basketry Slide Show

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Get your own

I am going to take a stab at embedding a slide show into a post. If it doesn't work, we'll know it soon.

Okay, so now I know that it does work, but it cycles through all of my public albums not just the one I intended. Ah, so many new web tech toys.

Woven Works by Northwest Masters

The East Oregonian Gallery at the Pendleton Center for the Arts, plays host to an exhibit, Woven Works by Northwest Masters ongoing until July 10, 2009.

The exhibit features five Northwest artists who have made significant contributions to basket weaving and basket-inspired works in other media. Mary Schlick, Pat Courtney Gold, Joe Fedderson, Joey Lavadour, and Patrice Walters share woven works, photographs and prints. Pendleton Art Center is located at 214 N. Main, Pendleton, Oregon. For more information call 541-278-9201 or e-mail pca@uci.net.

Beyond the Basket

What do Sandy Heslop, Steven Hooper, Joanne Clarke, John Mack, Victoria Mitchell, Joshua A. Bell, Helen Anderson, Joanne Clarke and Aristoteles Barcelos Neto all have in common? They are researchers bringing the fields of Archaeology, Art and Natural History together to examine the origin and impact of basketry on humanity.

Beyond the Basket: Construction, Order and Understanding is a two-and-a-half year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK as part of its Beyond Text programme. The research will explore the role of basketry in human culture and focus on various parts of the world, both in the past and present, from Europe to Amazonia, central Africa and Papua New Guinea.

The aim is to identify the mechanical traditions of making and the ways in which basketry is implicated in wider patterns of understanding, for example the order of society or the design of the universe. It will also show the impact of woven forms on other media, such as pottery, painting, and stone sculpture and architecture, and look at the future of basketry and the solutions it could offer to current issues, whether technical or social.

The first conference, Beyond the Basket: Construction, Order and Understanding, looked at various themes including: design and production, environmental issues, commercial and historical perspectives, weaving in architecture, and the mathematics of basketry, as well as more anthropological and archaeological topics. Among the speakers were experts from North and South America, as well as the UK. Just two of the themes that were explored at this conference on basketry at the University of East Anglia asked the questions, Did animals teach us one of the oldest forms of human technology? Did this technology contribute to our ability to count?

Basketry has been practised for millennia and ranges from mats for sitting on, containers and traps for hunting, to fencing and barriers for animals or land, partitions and walls - all of which have been central to culture.

Project leader Sandy Heslop, of the School of World Art and Museology at UEA, said: “Basketry is a worldwide technology and is the interaction between human ingenuity and the environment. It tends to make use of, and therefore has to be adapted to, local conditions in terms of resources and environment."

“Without basketry there would be no civilisations. You can’t bring thousands of people together unless you can supply them, you can’t bring in supplies to feed populations without containers. In the early days of civilisations these containers were basketry."

“We may think of baskets as humble, but other people and cultures don’t. They have been used for storage, for important religious and ceremonial processes, even for bodies in the form of coffins.”

It is about 10,000 years ago that evidence for basketry starts to appear in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Today its uses and influences are still seen, from the bamboo scaffolding often used in Asia, to contemporary architecture, for example the ‘Boiler Suit’ - the name given to the ‘woven’ steel tiles encasing the boiler room at Guy’s Hospital in London.

Mr Heslop said: “Beyond its practical uses, basketry has arguably been even more influential on our lives, since it relies on the relationship of number, pattern and structure. It therefore provides a model for disciplines such as mathematics and engineering and for the organisation of social and political life."

“Given the range of uses of basketry the associations of the technology are very varied. Some are aggressive, others protective, some help create social hierarchies others are recreational.”

Beyond the Basket will culminate in an exhibition and accompanying book in 2011. The exhibition will include ancient material recovered by excavation as well as more recent examples of basketry from around the world and will enable people to experience basketry directly. As I have always felt strongly about the impact basketweaving has had on the human condition I will monitor the progress of this project and report on it here.

Cut the Edge, Weave the Line Textile Arts 2009

You will recognize many basketmakers among the list of contributing artists in the Cut the Edge, Weave the Line exhibit at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, MA.
Contributing Artists:

Renie Breskin Adams, Mitsuko Akutsu, Kate Anderson, Linda Behar, Lanny Bergner, Mary Bero, Marian Bijlenga, Jerry Bleem, Dorothy Caldwell, Jane Chavez, Marcia Docter, Carol Eckert, Jennifer Falck Linssen, John Garrett, Katherine Glover, Jan Hopkins, Mary Josephson, Kay Kahn, Jennifer Maestre, Donna Rhae Marder, John McQueen, Rebecca Medel, Mary Merkel-Hess, Ellen Moon, Merrill Morrison, Judy Mulford, Kyoko Okubo, Tomie Nagano, Marilyn Pappas, Ann Coddington Rast, Michael Rohde, Lois Russell, Elizabeth Whyte Schulze, Carol Stein, Andrea Uravitch

I did some looking around and came up with references to the show by the artists' themselves or sites that tell more about their work.

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Thank you for stopping by!

Elizabeth Whyte Schulze - MA Craft Fellow

Breaking news......
Elizabeth Whyte Schluze wrote me to say...

Thank you for all the work that you put into the basket makers site, it is such an excellent source of information. I am forwarding this announcement of an important upcoming show at Mobilia Gallery that includes many basket makers. I also have great news. I have been awarded one of the Massachusetts Cultural council Fellowships in Crafts for 2009! It comes with a very generous award. I am thrilled and honored to be chosen. I hope that it will inform more people about basketry and the importance of our craft. www.massculturalcouncil.org
Best,
Elizabeth

MCC artist grants announced
The Massachusetts Cultural Council has named the winners of its 2009 artists fellowships. Fellows each receive $10,000. Finalists get $1,000 each.

Crafts fellows:
Janet Echelman
Christopher S. Gustin
Robbie Heidinger
Tricia Lachowiec Harding
Elizabeth Whyte Schulze
Crafts finalists:
Michael Banner and Maureen Banner
Andela Cunningham
Heather White van Stolk
Joe Wood

Previous winner of a Massachusetts Cultural council passing it on: apprenticeships fellowship was Karol Lindquist.

It is wonderful to hear that another basketmaker has received recognition and financial support for their basket art. You can learn more about funding programs with an appeal to basket artists by visiting BasketMakers.com.

You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her personal website.

Now, I will go find out more about the Mobilia show
Cut the Edge, Weave the Line
Textile Arts 2009
June 16 - July 31, 2009
Artist Reception and Private View: Thursday, June 18th, 2009
RSVP 617-876-2109

Introduction to Twined Basketry Class

Last weekend I taught a group of eager students the basics of plain twined baskets at the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock, PA. Each student used base spokes of red cedar and weavers of willow skin to create their finished piece.


Each student had the opportunity to select from a range of accent materials. They chose from dyed cedar, beargrass, elm bark, sweetgrass to make their basket unique.


We had a ball and everyone seemed delighted with their creation.

Basketmaker in the Classroom

I did a presentation in my grandson's first grade class today about my basketmaking. I get a kick out of the kid's reactions to the fact you can make a basket out of a tree or "stuff" you grow in your own garden. It was Tyler's chance to be STAR of the WEEK. He had his mom and dad come in to tell about their musical instruments this morning. [They are both music teachers] This afternoon Grandpa David got to talk about the fishing the two of them do together and Gramma Susi shared her interest in basketmaking.

The students in the class were very interested in how to process splint from a tree. They asked lots of questions about fishing and basketry. Who knows if an interest will be sparked in the creative life of one of those little people.

I think we can all look back and relate times growing up when our parents, grandparents, teachers, camp counselors or scout leaders showed or taught us something that would later lead down a creative path in life.

What was your first introduction to basket making or other crafts?