National Basketry Organization, Inc. | PO Box 1524 | Gloucester, MA 01931-1524 USA | 617.863.0366
Elizabeth Whyte Schulze at National Museum of Scotland
NBO artist member Elizabeth Whyte Schulze is currently featured at the National Museum of Scotland. “I want my artwork to inspire a complex range of personal emotions for the viewer. My goal is to carry on the tradition of the basket, wrapped in a contemporary story that speaks to anyone who ventures out into the world and learns to appreciate a culture that is different from their own.” Elizabeth Whyte Schulze.
Martha Bird Exhibits
NBO member Martha Bird is exhibiting at two concurrent shows in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Listen features Bird’s new work in sculptural basketry at the Kaddatz. In these new works, she uses basket weaving techniques as a jumping off point to create sculptural objects and installations that explore themes of trauma and resilience.
The Forest Breathes at the Otter Tail County Historical Society is a retrospective of Bird’s functional baskets, created with a wide range of natural fibers and basket weaving techniques.
Both exhibitions are up through November 1, 2019.
More at Kaddatz Galleries and Otter Tail County Historical Society.
Jackie Abrams – Merit Award
NBO artist member Jackie Abrams has been presented with a Merit Award for her work, Standing Strength (shown above) at the International Fiber Arts IX exhibit held at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, California.
This prestigious 9th International Juried Fiber Art juried exhibition is held every two years and the uniqueness and outstanding quality of work attracts yearly more than 3000 visitors. The exhibition demonstrates the numerous uses of innovative and traditional fiber techniques, and a contemporary concept for the use of traditional and unusual materials. Jurors Janet De Boer, Australian and former editor of Textile Fibre Forum magazine and current editor of Fibre Forum E-bulletin, Jori Johnson, felt artist living in Japan, and Gerhardt Knodel, practicing artist and former Director of Cranbrook Academy of Arts fiber arts program have selected a magnificent collection of fiber art work for this exhibit.
More at Sebastopol Center for the Arts
A Forest of Signs: Josephine Stealey, Sun Smith-Foret, and Ann Coddington
A Forest of Signs: Josephine Stealey, Sun Smith-Foret, Ann Coddington and The Craft and Art of the Cedarhurst Basketeers are two separate, but theme-related exhibits opening soon at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts. Both exhibits emphasize the tradition and innovation of basketry in the United States. Each artist or group represents an aesthetic influenced directly or indirectly by basketry. The eight (local) Cedarhurst Basketeers celebrate tradition but expand it with new ideas.
“Audubon Cosmic Nest”, 2018, Sun Smith-Foret
NBO members Sun Smith-Foret using natural materials—branches, twine, minerals— creates objects that reimagine past archetypes that suggest the continuing influence of long-forgotten rituals; Ann Coddington starting with the body as referent presents hermetic forms knotted in traditional techniques that ultimately suggest a collective unconscious, and Josephine Stealey, inspired by traditional basketry and the vessel, moves beyond those forms using natural materials and handmade papers to create modern tabernacles, reliquaries, and books that reexamine age-old tensions while offering to ameliorate the same between nature and culture.
Josephine Stealey, Sun Smith-Foret, and Ann Coddington will all give gallery talks on opening night, Saturday, October 19, 2019, 6pm. start.
The exhibition opens on October 19 and runs through December 29, 2019. More at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts
Award Winner Cathryn Peters
NBO member Cathryn Peters, from Angora, Minnesota, was awarded 1st place in 3-D and $500 by juror Sam Baardman, a multidisciplinary artist and photographer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, for her antler basket wall sculpture shown above, “Silent Whispers from the East,” at the 27th annual juried art exhibition at the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, on August 2, 2019.
Peters was one of 28 artists work selected from 102 submissions from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota by Baardman for this
exhibition which runs through August. Cathryn’s juried art piece, “Silent Whispers from the East” is a large antler wall basket sculpture incorporating two, large, naturally shed fallow deer antlers as the focal point, with the body woven of hand-dyed and natural rattan reed, and Oriental seagrass.
Information at MacRostie Art Center
Carol Eckert at Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The work of NBO member Carol Eckert is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Each of the ten pieces currently on display is a container of some sort – drawers pull out, lids come off, vessels hold offerings. Shown above: New Fire Ceremony, 1995, Gift of Gale and Doug Anderson. The exhibit is located in the Daphne and Peter Farago Gallery.
Information and hours at Museum of Fine Arts
Photo: Courtesy of Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
NBO in Cuba!
Please Note: This may be your last chance to travel to Cuba working with our partner Peters Valley School of Craft! On June 5th, new regulations went into effect that dramatically curtail the ability for Americans to travel to Cuba. However, trips scheduled before the June 5th deadline are allowed to continue as planned, grandfathered under the previous travel rules. Registration deadline July 28, 2019.
NBO is once again partnering with Peters Valley School of Craft to offer a one-of-a-kind trip to CUBA, October 26–November 2, 2019. We invite you to join this adventure, specifically designed to allow you to experience the arts, crafts, and culture of this unique island nation at a historic time of change.
This is a seven-night tour was conceived in partnership with Cuba Educational Travel, a leading organizer of group travel to the island. Together we’ve created a special program taking us from electrifying Havana to charming and quaint Trinidad and back. Isolated from U.S. influence for 50+ years, Cuba developed its own vibrant artistic traditions, often constrained by limited access to materials yet emboldened by the innovative spirit of the Cuban people to chart their own artistic course. This will be the third time that Peters Valley will be taking a group on this fantastic journey, and the National Basketry Organization is thrilled to be able to offer our members and friends a chance to join them!
Detailed itinerary here: CUBA Itinerary – October 2019
Terms, dates, and registration information here: Registration form NBO 2019
Karyl Sisson: Fissures and Connections
NBO member and artist Karyl Sisson is being featured in a Craft in America solo exhibition. “Part scavenger, part collector, and wholly meticulous craftsperson, Sisson’s work delves deeply into the possibilities that exist within the discarded and overlooked. Over the decades, Sisson has transformed familiar objects such as vintage zippers, clothespins, tape measures, buttons, and paper straws into abstract forms, vessels, and architectural structures. This exhibition will feature early works alongside her most recent creations–a glimpse into the oeuvre of this remarkable artist.”
Shown above: Growth 2 by Karyl Sisson. Photo from Craft America.
The exhibition runs from May 11-July 6, 2019. Information at Craft in America
Pat Hickman at Buster Levi Gallery
Pat Hickman is having a solo exhibition at the Buster Levi Gallery in Cold Spring, New York. The show runs from May 3 to June 2, 2019. Opening reception on May 3, 2019 from 6 to 8:30 PM.
(Photo courtesy of Buster Levi Gallery)
Deloss Webber, Finalist for the Lowe Craft Prize
Congratulations to NBO member and basketmaker Deloss Webber, finalist for the Loewe Craft prize. Del has been creating cane work and furniture since the early 1970s. “I have a fascination with stone, which [feels] primal,” he explains to AD. Combining rattan and stone was therefore a natural choice for him. He continues, “The marriage of fibers and stone is, I think, unique. I borrow from tradition, of course.”
Read more of this interview in Architectural Digest.
Shown above: Geisha Purses by Deloss Webber. Photo by Architectural Digest.
