Trio of Basketry Exhibits at Fowler

This fall at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles, California, three exhibitions explore various aspects of African American and African basketry arts, and their historic connections. The largest of the three exhibitions is Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art (Oct 4, 2009 – Jan 10, 2010) a major traveling exhibition organized by the Museum for African Art in New York. The second exhibition is African American Life on the Gullah/Geechee Coast: Photographs by Greg Day, 1970–1977 (Sept 20, 2009–Jan 3, 2010), which features forty black-and-white images taken in the same South Carolina region where the Grass Roots basket makers live and work. A third exhibition, Fowler in Focus: African Basketry Arts, Thinking outside the Basket (opening Sept 6, 2009), highlights ingenious and beautiful basketry forms from the Fowler’s permanent collection that were not created as containers but served other purposes in African life.

Selected Related Events:

Saturday, Oct 3, 2009 5 pm
Fowler OutSpoken Lectures: Enid Schildkrout and Dale Rosengarten: Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art
Complementary lectures by co-curators Enid Schildkrout and Dale Rosengarten trace the development of African American basketry. Fowler Museum members’ opening party follows.

Sunday, Oct 11, 2009 1–4 pm
Kids in the Courtyard: Woven Wonders
Join us for an afternoon of binding, twisting, curling, and coiling a variety of colorful materials into woven wonders of your own creation.

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009 7 pm
Fowler OutSpoken Lecture: Jessica B. Harris: Carolina’s Gold
Noted culinary historian and acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris examines the African hand in the foodways of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Harris will compare and contrast selected recipes from both sides of the Atlantic and look at the African origins of some Lowcountry culinary traditions, including holiday fare and street vending.

Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 6 pm
Exhibition Tour: African American Life on the Gullah/Geechee Coast: Photographs by Greg Day, 1970-1977
Photographer Greg Day discusses his works.

Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 7 pm
Fowler OutSpoken Lecture: Judith Carney: Black Rice: The African Antecedents of the Carolina Rice Plantation Economy
Judith Carney, UCLA professor of geography, draws attention to the agricultural and culinary history of African food crops in the Americas, examining the indigenous rice of West Africa and the role of enslaved rice farmers in establishing an African dietary preference.

Sunday, Nov 1, 2009 11 am–2:30 pm
Food Program: Sweet Tea and Sticky Rice
Explore Steeped in History: The Art of Tea and Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art with museum educator and chef Maite Gomez-Rejón. Discover the trade routes, beliefs, and stories related to tea and rice, from Asia to Africa through Europe to the United States. Then, inspired by the in-gallery conversation, cook and enjoy a meal that incorporates food from China, India, England, East Africa and the American South. $40 members; $50 non-members. Reservations required: 310/825-8655.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12 pm
Culture Fix
The Fowler’s director of education Betsy Quick highlights the distinctive basketry on view in Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art.

Sunday, December 6, 2009 1–4 pm
Kids in the Courtyard: Round-Reed Baskets
At this afternoon of basket weaving, we’ll begin with a basic basket start and then learn the process of weaving reeds over and under until your take-home baskets take shape.

Additional details

Facebook | Arrowmont Art: Scholarships are available for Fall 2009! Apply today.

Facebook | Arrowmont Art: Scholarships are available for Fall 2009! Apply today. Note that one of the classes available is a weekend workshop : October 16-18th entitled "Bamboo: Creative Options" led by Charissa Brock.

Fountainhead Summer Basket Show

The Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle, Washington presents Contemporary Baskets Summer Group Show. The exhibit features baskets by Dona Anderson, Jill Nordfors Clark, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Marilyn Moore, Polly Adams Sutton from August 6 through 30, 2009.

Bamboo Art at TAI Gallery

TAI Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico is pleased to announce the two-artist show of new artwork by Yamaguchi Ryuun and Kibe Seiho August 7 through August 15, 2009.

Driven by the fire of their creativity, both artists make artwork true to their individual visions, winning many awards in Japan and having work in many collections here in the U.S.

If you are not familiar with Japanese bamboo art, be certain to visit the TAI Gallery's presentation of Techniques of The Masters of Japanese Bamboo Basketry to learn more about this complex art form.

Visit BasketMakers.com for even more about bamboo baskets, weave patterns, growing habits of bamboo, bamboo museums, bamboo basketry techniques, basketmaking supplies with sources for a wide range of bamboo species used in basketweaving.

NBO, Portland

As Michael Davis said, "well gang, welcome to Portland". The 2009 National Basketry Organization 10th Anniversary Conference was held in Portland, Oregon. Never mind that it was in the middle of a record breaking heatwave, with temperatures near or over one hundred degrees all week. The event was simply packed with basketry. Opening night we were treated to welcoming comments by NBO President, Michael Davis and Co-founder Helene Meyer. Then, Marci McDade, editor of Fiberarts Magazine delivered a keynote address entitled "Pushing the Known" and Jo Stealey, Professor at the University of Missouri presented a slide show called "Basketry Today:Boundaries, Borders & Edges".

Thursday morning started bright and early with a seminar Oregon's Diverse Basketry Traditions by Margaret (she who must not be named*), noted ethnobotanist.

Workshops began in earnest on Wednesday as well and you could find traditional, contemporary, native and non-native basketry instructors hard at work teaching their eager students.


Student at work in Pat Courtney Gold's Wasco Indian Full turn twining workshop.


The students in Katie Anderson's Love Me, Love Me Knot workshop were knotting up a waxed linen storm and seemed to be having a great time.

Jo Stealey (right) instructs Mary Lee Fulkerson in her Books, Baskets and Shrines class.

Kelli Palmer teaches corn husk twining.

Thursday night had many of us hopping on two tour buses for a gallery tour to Butters Gallery, Bonnie Kahn's Wild West Gallery and Guardino Gallery.

Jo Stealey, Wendy Durfey at Guardino Gallery.

Michael Davis at NBO reception and Jiro Yonezawa bamboo basket exhibit at Butters Gallery

Friday night there was a great event at the Portland Art Museum. We had the chance to tour the exhibits of fabulous baskets in the collections of the Portland Art Museum. Pat Courtney Gold delivered a talk "Portland: The Ancient Homeland of the Powerful Chinook People", then Mary Schlick was assisted by Lillian Pitt in presenting her talk "Beautiful Usefullness: Native Baskets of the Columbia River Basin". The talks were a joint undertaking of the NBO, Portland Art Museum and Native American Arts Council. The samples Mary brought with her were magnificent.

Michael Davis, Helene Meyer and Marci McDade

Lillian Pitt assists Mary Dodds Schlick

There were so many seminars and other events crammed into the week it would be hard to tell you about them all. Stop by my facebook album for more pictures of the 2009 NBO Conference and the NBO Playlist on the BasketMakers YouTube Channel to see several video clips.

*Margaret prefers not to have her name or photo on the web, so I am trying to respect her wishes at the same time sharing my enthusiasm about her work and plant knowledge. She is indeed a walking encyclopedia of Northern California and Pacific Northwest plant usage in basketry.

2009 Basket Calendar ~ August

2009 Basket Calendar ~ August
Originally uploaded by BasketMakers

I have created a set of 2009 Basketry Calendar pages that are sized to print out on 8.5" x 11' paper. Here is the page for the month of August. You can view the rest of them on http://www.flickr.com/photos/basketmakers/ and see more basketry graphics on http://basketmakers.com/topics/graphics/graphicsmenu.htm