Annetta Kraayeveld, President
Helena, Montana
Annetta’s home and studio are full of baskets: the collecting started when she was a child; the weaving, in 1994 when she found a book and begged a lesson. She is still obsessed with baskets and finds great satisfaction working with her hands, merging an age-old art form with the contemporary world. Creating functional art pieces is her passion. When not weaving, Annetta is teaching, which she enjoys as much as weaving. She has been teaching at basketry events and guilds across North America since 2000. Annetta has earned several awards, including Best of Nantucket and Viewer’s Choice at the 2013 AMB convention and Best of Mold Woven at the 2015 NCBA convention.
Cael Chappell, Vice President
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Cael’s basket making grows from his love of basketry. Fifteen years before weaving his first basket, he founded Baskets of Africa, a fair-trade company committed to economic empowerment for basket weavers from over 20 countries. Traveling across Africa to meet weavers, Cael discovered that basketry is as diverse as it is universal. After years of commitment to the art of basketry, he wove his first basket in 2017. Cael is inspired by global weaving traditions and draws on his depth of knowledge to create his own unique baskets. His work has been included in a number of magazines and publications, as well as gallery and museum exhibitions.
Ann B. Coddington,
Secretary
Champaign, Illinois
Ann B. Coddington is a professor at Eastern Illinois University. She learned twining from Carol Shaw Sutton in the early 90’s and has continued working in sculptural fibers for the past twenty-five plus years. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Ann’s fiber and installation work has been included in books and magazines, and she has taught twining for many workshops including Haystack, Arrowmont and Penland.
Betty Kagan, Treasurer
St. Louis, Missouri
Betty returned to St. Louis, Missouri after working in HR and Financial systems in New York and London. Her partner Marty has since introduced her to the world of craft, as he collects fiber art.
She attended the one day workshop in 2016 launching the “Rooted, Revived and Reinvented” show to learn about the history of basketry. In 2017 Betty participated in her first workshop with Lanny Bergner in Tacoma, giving her an added appreciation of the artistry and talent involved in making baskets.
She has been involved in various non-profit boards and committees dealing with culture and the arts, global education as well as advocacy for women, children and families.
Nick DeFord
Knoxville, Tennessee
Nick DeFord is an artist, educator, and arts administrator. He received his MFA in Fibers from Arizona State University. He exhibits nationally, with exhibitions at the Coastal Carolina University, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the University of Mississippi. He has had artwork or writing published in Surface Design Journal, Elephant Magazine, Hayden Ferry Review, and Willow Springs. He has also taught workshops at Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and the University of Louisville. Currently, Nick is the Program Director at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee, and works on his fiber art practice from his home studio.
Carol Eckert
Tempe, Arizona
Carol Eckert, is an internationally acclaimed artist whose interest in textiles began in childhood, when she spent time experimenting with fabric, needle and thread. Her interest in mythology began during this period as well, through books and by listening to folktales and legends from her Swedish grandmother. Carol majored in studio art in college, discovering basketry after several years of working in other media. Her fiber sculptures are included in many collections including Racine Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts (MA), Renwick Gallery (DC), de Young Museum (CA) Museum of Arts and Design (NY). Carol publishes a daily
blog which now appears as a regular feature on our website.
Pat Hickman
Haverstraw, New York
Pat Hickman is Professor Emeritus of the Art Department, University of Hawaii, where she taught for sixteen years. Her studio is now at the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center, NY and she lives nearby on the Lower Hudson River. Hickman’s work is in major collections, including the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, the Oakland Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and the Hawaii State Art Museum, among others. In Hawaii, Hickman’s commission, Nets of Makali’i–Nets of the Pleiades, stands as monumental entrance gates for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Hickman twice received NEA Individual Artist’s Grants. In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council, and she served as President of the Textile Society of America (2008-2010). Hickman curated two traveling exhibits: Innerskins/Outerskins: Gut and Fishskin (1987) and Baskets: Redefining Volume and Meaning (1993).
Leon Niehues
Huntsville, Arkansas
Leon is self-taught, making baskets, sculptural baskets, and now bentwood sculpture for 36 years. His home and studio are in Huntsville, Arkansas, which is Northwest Arkansas, the Ozarks. While using traditional materials and techniques I have added innovative ideas, methods of construction. He attributes his work’s attractiveness to the viewer because it is old and new at the same time. He harvests his materials from my 40 acre woods where he enjoys working and being part of the natural world.
Leon exhibits his work widely and has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist and the Walter Gropius Master Artist.
José Santiago Pérez
Chicago, Illinois
José is an artist and educator who weaves plastics into containers of time, portals of memory, and spaces of belonging. José is a 2022 resident fellow at the Lunder Institute of American Art and a 2019-2020 HATCH resident at Chicago Artists Coalition. José has presented craft and performance-based work in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Features and reviews have appeared in Artforum, Basketry+ Magazine, Sixty Inches from Center, Newcity Art, Art Intercepts, Other Peoples Pixels, and the Archives + Futures Podcast. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he currently teaches in the Fiber and Material Studies department.
Elizabeth Runyon
Paris, Kentucky
Elizabeth lives and creates in her native Paris, Kentucky, which she likes to point out is part of Bourbon County. Her large sculptural pieces are inspired by the rich history and stories of Kentucky and her process is based on traditional Appalachian ribbed basket techniques.
Elizabeth discovered basketry in group classes with diverse and entertaining women when she lived in southwestern Ohio. She was immediately hooked on the meditative qualities of weaving. When she retired from full time employment in 2011 she developed her artistic voice and began making large pieces with reed. She first exhibited with “Best of” juried exhibitions of the Ohio Craft Museum in Columbus. An early solo exhibit was at the Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati.
She has since had works included in many regional and national exhibits. Recently her work was included in international exhibits in China and South Korea. Elizabeth is also active in her local Hopewell Creative Arts Guild and the guild’s gallery.
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Norman Sherfield
Eureka, California
Norman creates textile sculptures using waxed linen and found objects using a basketry technique known as knotting. Two major influences running through his work are that of biological science and the automatism of surrealism. He uses found objects, both natural and man-made as the beginning point for his knotted sculptures.
Norman has been working with waxed linen and knotting since 1989. I have shown my work in Japan, France, England as well as numerous shows throughout the United States. In addition to teaching, his work has been published and widely exhibited.
Karyl Sisson
Beverly Hills, California
Karyl is a studio artist living who uses basketry and needlework techniques to create two-dimensional wall art and three-dimensional sculptural forms. Her collections of vintage sewing notions and assorted manufactured sundries are the inspiration for and often the materials of her work. Her undergraduate studies were in painting and drawing, but her interest in basketry developed years later during her graduate studies in Fiber at UCLA. There she was introduced to the teaching of Bernard Kester and the writings of Ed Rossbach. Her work is in several museums across the country, including the Museum of Art & Design (NYC), the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution (DC), the Racine Art Museum (Wisconsin) and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
Eric Stark
Portland, Maine
Eric is a teacher, architect, and maker who has served as the Program Chair for the University of Maine at Augusta’s Bachelor of Architecture degree for the past 10 years. An avid maker, it was a year-long academic sabbatical designed to explore analog and digital ways of making that ignited his love for basket weaving. As part of his investigations, he traveled to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Loch Na Fooey, Ireland, to study basket weaving with masters of the craft. Since then he has continued to explore various weaving techniques and has had his work included in a number of group and solo exhibits. More recently, Eric has combined his love of teaching, architecture, and basket weaving by offering a series of weaving workshops in Maine.
Jennifer Tang-Limon,
Agua Dulce, California
Jennifer Tang-Limon first became interested in basketry over 20 years ago during architectural studies in Virginia. Today, she remains passionate and curious about the skill, design and materials that make basketry interesting. In addition to serving as the Treasurer for NBO, she is currently the Los Angeles Basketry Guild’s Secretary and organizes their biennial retreats. She is also an active member of the Misti Washington Gourd and Basketry Guild.
Joe Van Wassenhove
Kirkland, Washington
Since an early age, Joe has been fascinated by weaving. He took his first basketry class in the mid 80’s in the Midwest which confirmed his interest but other priorities delayed continuing. In 2006 he returned to basketry, attending conventions and taking classes covering a wide range of styles, materials and techniques as well as teaching occasionally. Past secretary of the Land of Lincoln Basketweavers Association (LLBWA), Joe is now retired and living in the Seattle area. He is a current member of the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild, the Northwest Basket Weavers, Vi Phillips Basketry Guild, and the LLBWA. An avid traveler, Joe has made baskets across the US and in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Denmark.
National Basketry Organization, Inc. | PO Box 1524 | Gloucester, MA 01931-1524 USA | 617.863.0366
