Interwoven: Contemporary Basketry

September 22 – December 19, 2021

This exhibition brings together the artwork of several regional basketry artists who interweave the art form with stories from their personal history, their life practices, their beliefs, or direct messages about the world today. While honoring basket weaving traditions, these artists push the medium’s boundaries in unconventional ways through innovative techniques and materials. Their masterful sculptural forms and vessels are stylistically wide-ranging, and the exhibition offers an exploration of how the integration of contemporary art and craft offers unlimited opportunities for personal expression. Exhibiting artists include Pamela Becker, Jeanne Flanagan, Lissa Hunter, Jeannet Leendertse, Kari Lonning, Lynne Francis-Lunn, Arlene McGonagle, Nathalie Miebach, Sui Park, Lois Russell, and Elizabeth Whyte Schulze.

Banner: Lynne Francis-Lunn, Life is Complicated (detail)
Pamela Becker, Days End

Cahoon Contemporaries proudly supported by:
Bilezikian Family Foundation

Welcome to the Interwoven: Contemporary Basketry show. These regional artists are among the most accomplished basket makers in the country, and their award-winning artwork is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Peabody Essex Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, the White House Collection of American Craft, and many more. While honoring basket weaving traditions, these artists utilize basketry processes and concepts in dynamic and imaginative ways, challenging the common view of basketry as a utilitarian folk craft.

Basket makers convey meaning through their selection of materials, the techniques they use, and the colors, designs, patterns, and textures they employ. Note how Pamela Becker captures an entire day, from sunrise to sunset within the patterning and shape of just two baskets; how Nathalie Miebach records the weather through her woven wall work, and Lynne Francis-Lunn communicates the challenges of modern life. Arlene McGonagle interweaves personal messages with those of renowned poets and folds them into her sculptural baskets, while Jeanne Flanagan conceals keys in the mysterious Chatelaine.

Elizabeth Wythe Schulze shrouds her baskets with the images of women inspired by her trips to Morocco and Lois Russell entwines our collected human experience in a beautiful new basket, Social Distancing.

Material is the essence of the art for Jeannet Leendertse, who gathers seaweed along the New England shore and transforms the live material into otherworldly vessels, and for Sui Park, who works magic with monofilament and industrial cable ties. Kari Lonning first tripped over the invasive akebia vines she discovered on the forest floor that she now gathers and weaves into exquisite vessels.

Lissa Hunter uses materials as a “partner in the process” to generate new ideas. The plants in Joe Pye and Autumn Fern, emerge out of their painted pedestals, evolve into the woven basket, and then move out onto the wall.

As can be seen in additional artworks that are on view in the exhibition, many of the basket makers are versatile in wide ranging media including ceramics, painting, printmaking, drawing, painting, collage, and various fiber arts. They are masterful at interweaving their artistic vision with their personal history, their life practices, their beliefs, and direct messages about the world today to create extraordinary art with limitless creative expressiveness.