Unexpected Turns: Women Artists and the Making of American Basket Weaving Traditions

grey bowl form made of rings of looped fibers; darker grey interior and bottom; dark iron wire standing male figures around inner rim; exterior decorated with drip-shaped iron drops hooked between woven fibers

Mary Giles preferred combining the traditional basket medium of waxed linen threads with hand-hammered metal components not typically used in basketry. Close inspection of this object’s interior reveals male figures fashioned from iron wire. They are meant to evoke Puebloan ritual gatherings which took place in subterranean circular structures known as kivas. The cultures and landscapes of the American Southwest were long-term sources of inspiration to Giles.

Dark Kiva

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of pairs of human figures in red and black.

In the early 1900s, many Euro-American women traveling through the Southwest region of the United States became infatuated with miniature Native American baskets, and some became avid collectors. Native women basket makers responded to this demand by creating ever-smaller baskets, utilizing the same harvesting, processing, and coiling techniques as those for personal use. Creating tightly woven, tiny baskets in an expanding range of designs and styles for their new clientele required the same levels of expertise and knowledge—but perhaps even more dexterity and skill.

Miniature basket

Miniature olla basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of stepped rectangles in red and black. Colors are natural, red and black.

Miniature Basket

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of three pairs of dancing figures. Cover has what looks like an animal motif on it. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature olla basket; coiled. Design consists of four blue figures which resemble cactii. Colors are natural, blue, brown, and black.

In the early 1900s, many Euro-American women traveling through the Southwest region of the United States became infatuated with miniature Native American baskets, and some became avid collectors. Native women basketmakers responded to this demand by creating ever-smaller baskets, which tourists could easily carry home and display in their curiosity cabinets as emblems of their worldliness and taste. Kate Koon Bovey, of Minnesota, was one of these travelers, and in the 1940s she gave nearly a hundred tiny baskets to the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Miniature vertical-walled, deep basket; coiled. Design consists of horizontal bands broken by diagonal bands that form triangles. Colors are natural and black.

Basket

Miniature round basket; coiled. Design consists of a bands of human figures with joined hands. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature flat plaque; coiled. Design consists of a central devil's claw from which emanates a maze pattern, at the entrance of which stands a human figure. This pattern is called the House of Shuihii Ki, a legendary figure, who supposedly lives in the mountains where no one can find him. Colors are natural and black.

Ferne Jacobs was born in Chicago to Jewish parents. She references her heritage by including Hebrew letters on the cascading tabs of this work which fuses coiled basketry with woven cloth.   Jacobs was a mentor to Minnesota artist Mary Giles.

Jacobs explains her process: “When I begin a piece, I create a line by wrapping thread around a cord, with a color that has been on my mind. From then on, I live in a mystery, creating each cell (wrap) and connection of what I hope is a living form. The cells make up a body, and I have no idea about what it will become until it is finished. Even then, I don’t understand the piece, and only know what went into the making of it. It is a very intimate experience.”

Sculpture with Hebrew Letters

miniature basket, shallow and vertical-walled; finely coiled; design is a stepped, linear pattern in natural and black, which completely fills the side walls

Miniature olla basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of a double row of zig-zag stripes around the body of the basket. Cover has a swastika. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of three pairs of dancing people. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of four human figures. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature olla basket with flared rim and cover; coiled. Design consists of three horizontal bands broken by three checkered chevrons. Cover has a swastika design. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of four human figures. Cover has coyote tracks. Colors are natural and black.

miniature oval basket, shallow with flared sides; coiled; design consists of a band of animals, which seem to be dogs, around the side; colors are natural and black

small, shallow, saucer-shaped basket; finely coiled; design is a stepped, three-pointed star; the center is a black disc (devil's claw), and the points of the star are composed of alternate rows of natural and black

Miniature round basket with attached cover; coiled. Design consists of vertical stripes in natural and black.

Miniature round basket; coiled. Design consists of a band of four coyote tracks. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of a stepped radial pattern of coyote tracks and horizontal stripes. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with flared sides; coiled. Design consists of four checkered panels. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of a band of stepped horizontal stripes around the sides. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of three animal heads, probably buffalo. Colors are natural and black.

miniature basket, shallow with sloping sides; finely coiled; design consists of alternating reversed T-bars in a continuous pattern around the sides, in natural and black (possibly a variation of a squash-blossom design.)

small round plaque; finely coiled; design consists of a central pinwhell figure, with three points from which emanat meanders; these are linked with diamonds and are finished with a triangle. Colors are natural and black

Miniature round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of a simple fret around sides. Cover has red spots. Colors are natural, red and black.

Minute round basket with cover; coiled. Design consists of a band of dots. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature Round Basket

Miniature oval basket with straight sides; coiled. Design consists of a band of animals (probably dogs), around sides. Colors are natural and black.

Miniature round basket; coiled. Design consists of a stepped radial pattern in red and black. Colors are natural black and red.

small, pyramid-shaped structure with indentation near top; woven bands and round and tube-shaped beads in purples, greens and yellows overall

Instead of porcupine quills or metal elements, spherical and tubular beads cover more than half the surface area of this basket. The artist strategically exposed woven components of the basket in yellow and purple linen thread, in coordination with the beaded design. 

Elaine Small taught art privately and in a public high school. She lived in Kansas and Missouri throughout her very long life.

Volcano on Bead Mountain

diamond design; purples, pinks, blues, greens and tan ground; fringe on one end

Baskets, like cloth textiles, are woven: they are composed of multiple elements that cross and bind one another. However, baskets are fashioned primarily by hand, without the use of a loom. With its combination of reeds traditionally used in basketry and an off-loom diagonal weaving technique, this two-dimensional mat demonstrates the affinities between textile weaving and basketry. 
The Anishinaabe woman who created this bulrush mat would need to depend upon her deep understandings and relationships with the intellectual, cultural, spiritual, and physical worlds in which she and the bulrush was a part. Before making the mat, she needed to be a good relative to the bulrush, giving thanks and blessings. She needed to know the complex ecological environment that sustains bulrush, a grass that purifies the water, carefully selecting and harvesting the exact amount of reeds that would keep this environmental niche in balance. She needed to spend hours, if not days, in preparation, cleaning, dyeing, and softening the bulrush before weaving it into complex designs that would please both the bulrush and the people who encountered the mat.

bowl-like form with thick sides and lip; orange reeds woven with natural reeds and steel twisted wires; two thick twisted wires at bottom with four cable connectors

Carole Hetzel had a sustained interest in shape long before she began adding steel cable to her colorful hand-dyed baskets. But with the addition of metal her experiments in form became more daring. 

According to Hetzel, “Baskets tell a story. To appreciate a basket is like interacting with a painting, a novel, music, or any of the arts. Not only does a basket have a purpose and message, it also has a sense of history.” Hetzel lives in Florida and North Carolina.

Brendan Basket, No. 232

drum-shaped; light brown; rosy-colored fibrous handle; raised loop and braid designs

Anishinaabe artist Josie Robinson created this basket to store sewing materials. The basket is constructed from splinted ash, sweetgrass, and the inner bark of basswood woven together. Anishinaabe basketry has always been innovative, either through form and style or with material.

Sewing Basket

ring foot; outward-flaring sides of basket with flat shoulder and wide mouth; tight-fitting lid with ring beneath rim; basket and cover decorated with stepped bands of medium and dark brown on light brown ground; dark brown quail feathers around point of shoulder

This basket, made in the early 20th century by an Indigenous woman artist in California, incorporates locally harvested materials including grasses and roots, gathered through a deeply complex understanding of the local ecology. Harvesting is just the beginning of a long process of the preparation of materials that must happen before each artist can sit down to weave.

coiled basket; small foot with outward-flaring sides and wide, rather flat shoulder; short neck with wide mouth opening; red yarn fringe at point of shoulder; light brown with dark brown band of figures on shoulder and body; band of stepped diamonds on neck; repeating circular motifs above and below figures on body

An Indigenous woman artist made this basket, in early 20th century California, using locally harvested materials including grasses and roots, gathered through a deeply complex understanding of the local ecology. Harvesting is just the beginning of a long process of the preparation of materials that must happen before each artist can sit down to weave. This basket shows a range of motifs, from abstract to figural as well as added red yarn embellishment, a creative use of imported materials.

drum shaped box; birch bark base; top of cover decorated with star motif with white and light brown porcupine quills; one band around edge of cover and one band around box with repeating X-motifs

The Anishinaabe woman artist who created this intricately adorned and finely woven basket utilized locally harvested porcupine quills, birchbark, and sweetgrass. Artists often incorporated abstraction into their work, layering quills in complex patterns and forms that reveal both technical mastery and artistic ingenuity. For more than two hundred years, Anishinaabe women sold many of their birchbark containers and baskets to non-Native people to sustain their families during a time of major cultural disruption, including forced assimilation and removal onto governmental and religious controlled reservations. Quillboxes exemplify the power of Anishinaabe women to create a new and unique artform that expresses cultural and individual resiliency and creativity.

Box with star motif on cover

round drum shaped box with birch bark body; flat cover decorated with daisy-type floral motif in white and white with brown-tipped quills; body of box decorated with vertical white quills

Box with floral motif on cover

large shallow round woven circular basket; alternating woven bands of grass in light and darker shades of tan; circular pattern in center

Wide, shallow fanner baskets were used to process locally grown rice by separating the grain from the chaff. It is a basket form brought from Africa to the Carolinas, together with the knowledge of rice growing, in the 1700s. Though today they are mostly decorative, they continue to reflect human-land relationships. According to Snype: “I used a thick grass called bulrush for the main part with pine needles in the middle and three inches of sweetgrass. The binding that holds the grass together is from the South Carolina state tree, called palmetto. Bulrush is found in the swamp and we use a machete to cut it. A lot of the materials are from the coastal area, but with development it’s becoming harder and harder to find some of these grasses.”

Fanner basket

cylindrical shaped with flat bottom and top; edges trimmed in green thread; top decorated with white, green and red quills in a round symmetrical floral design

The Anishinaabe woman artist who created this intricately adorned and finely woven basket utilized locally harvested porcupine quills, birchbark, and sweetgrass. Artists often incorporated abstraction into their work, layering quills in complex patterns and forms that reveal both technical mastery and artistic ingenuity. For more than two hundred years, Anishinaabe women sold many of their birchbark containers and baskets to non-Native people to sustain their families during a time of major cultural disruption, including forced assimilation and removal onto governmental and religious controlled reservations. Quillboxes exemplify the power of Anishinaabe women to create a new and unique artform that expresses cultural and individual resiliency and creativity.

Artist Mary Giles, who gave her collection of quillwork boxes made by Anishinaabe women to Mia in 2019, was a basket maker herself. She recognized the importance of this artform and admired the meticulous craftsmanship required to create these works.  She displayed nearly a hundred quillwork and birchbark boxes in her Stillwater, MN home, collected over decades through her travels across the Upper Midwest.

Covered quillwork birchbark box

square, rather short box; cover and sides decorated with quillwork flowers in pink, yellow, white and purple with green stems and leaves; edges of cover decorated with pink and white diamonds and brown Xs

Created by Anishinaabe and Inuit fiber artists, this collection showcases the creativity and skill of Native women artists who transform indigenous materials gathered from their homelands into works of art. The technical mastery and ingenuity of these artist appears in the ability to utilize porcupine quills, birchbark, and locally-harvested plant materials to create intricately adorned and finely woven baskets. For more than two centuries, Native women created a market for birchbark containers and baskets to sustain their families during a time of major cultural shifts and external pressures.

rectangular box with cover; medium brown; white quillwork with spray of flowers on cover and individual blossom on each side of box; X motif trim

Covered quillwork box

small round box with flat top and bottom; quills overall with white fading into brown on sides; top decorated with red flower with white center and three brown leaves

small oval box; flat top and bottom; top and edges of cover decorated with starburst and X designs in white, pink and red quills

round box with flat top and bottom; top of cover decorated with eight-pointed star with floral starburst inside in white and white fading to brown quills; triangles with grids of quills around edge of top; edges of cover and box decorated with X motifs and grids in white quills; black thread

two separate parts which are to be installed with copper-colored sections facing each other; two separate forms of slightly different shapes, with exteriors covered in short grey fur-like wires, each with an indentation with copper colored wires; interior (flattest side) of each form covered with teardrop shaped metal pallets in copper and silver

“Copper Passage” is a superb example of Mary Giles’s “boulders”—a type of closed, sculptural basket for which she became known. She started making boulder sculptures in 1999 after having work done on her Stillwater, Minnesota, home, which rested on a cluster of boulders. When workers excavated the large rocks, one broke in half. Giles was captivated by the split rock, and how the color of its “skin” contrasted with its core. Through a mass of iron and copper elements one catches glimpses of the coiled basket structure that lies beneath.

Copper Passage


2020 Accession Highlight


Elizabeth Hickox is widely recognized as one of the most important indigenous basket makers of the 20th century. Her work is incredibly fine, with as many as 800 stitches per square inch. Hickox combined plant material, usually maidenhair fern, with yellow porcupine quills (dyed with lichen) to create a strong color contrast and dynamic abstract designs. The lid’s tall knob handle is one of Hickox’s hallmarks and her own invention. 


Working at the height of the "Indian basket craze" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Hickox sold her unique baskets exclusively to art dealer Grace Nicholson, who marketed them for her to collectors and museums. An artist- entrepreneur, Hickox was able to provide a steady income to travel, support her family, and live a cosmopolitan life.

round basket with stepped, geometric pattern; light yellow stepped diagonal zigzags throughout black/dark brown body; light brown rim; corresponding pattern on circular cover with knob; light brown interior with four black and yellow A-shapes around sloped center base

Elizabeth Hickox is widely recognized as being one of the most important indigenous basket makers of the 20th century. Her work is incredibly fine, with as many as  800 stitches per square inch. Hickox combined plant material, usually maidenhair fern, with yellow porcupine quills (dyed with lichen) to create a strong color contrast and dynamic abstract designs. The lid’s tall knob handle is one of Hickox’s hallmarks and her own invention. 
Working at the height of the “Indian basket craze” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Hickox sold her unique baskets exclusively to the art dealer Grace Nicholson, who marketed them for her to collectors and museums. An artist and entrepreneur, Hickox was able to provide a steady income to travel, support her family, and live a cosmopolitan life.

large, cylindrical basket made out of 16mm film in white, blue and green; plexi cylander stays on interior for support

“This basket is part of a suite of work which uses ethnographic films to explore images of Indigenous people in ways that discuss contemporary issues that affect Native cultures. The film, “At the Winter Sea Ice Camp,” was made in 1967 and pictures Netsilik Inuit people building an igloo, hunting for seals, eating traditional foods and making traditional things like their ancestors did in the past. Because it was still possible to live a traditional life in 1967 before global warming caused the sea ice to melt, it was possible to create the illusion that traditional Inuit were not endangered by the pressures to assimilate that had begun to affect Indigenous cultures long before the film was made. 

By 2018 when I made this basket, the sea ice melt that endangered the whole Artic ecosystem made even re-enacting traditional cultural practices impossibly difficult. Even the film images I was using were fragments of an Inuit world lost in history. Inspired by a weaving technique invented by Jeremy Frey, the Passamaquoddy master basket maker from Maine, I chose to use 8mm film leader to break up the 16 mm film frames and create fragments of the images which tried to document the way that industrial culture was carelessly destroying traditional cultures that sustained life by inventing things that were not in harmony with the forces that supported life on the earth. “	– Gail Tremblay

If the Ice Melts and the Grass Grows on Small Islands in the Sea, Will Images of the Inuit World Become Fragments Lost in History

25 smaller sculptures within a 5 x 5 black thread grid; smaller found-object sculptures have woven metal details

If this assemblage reminds you of tools neatly suspended on pegboard, there is good reason for it. Tracy Krumm deliberately references functional items—baskets, pouches, doilies—by creating abstract nonfunctional forms. She began “Index (Autobiography)” at age 50 with the idea of creating one sculpture—each composed of a household item acquired from relatives or friends and a crocheted element of her own making—for every two years of her life.

Index (Autobiography)

American basketry is as culturally and technically diverse as the country’s inhabitants. Baskets can be coiled, crocheted, or composed of interlaced elements that travel over and under one another, as in a woven cloth. They can be made using local grasses, copper wire, celluloid film, porcupine quills, or tubular bugle beads. They can take the form of utilitarian vessels or abstract shapes.

Across traditions, techniques, and styles, women have forged new and sometimes interconnected paths as innovators and mentors. This installation chronicles experiments in basketry—all made by American women artists from the 1800s to the present day—that explore the boundaries between utility and whimsy, weaving and sculpture. While some of the artists sought to maintain proper relationships with materials and environments, and others prioritized strengthening bonds with ancestors and communities, all balance individual artistic expression with centuries-old traditions. 

Artists include Elizabeth Hickox (Karuk), Gail Tremblay (Mi’kmaq and Onondaga), Josie Robinson (Ojibwe), Mary Giles, Elaine Small, Ferne Jacobs, Carole Hetzel, Tracy Krumm, and Henrietta Snype (Gullah Geechee).

Dark Kiva, 1994

Mary Giles

Basket

Basket

Basket

Basket

Basket

Basket

Basket

Basket

Miniature Round Basket

Miniature Basket

Miniature Round Basket

Volcano on Bead Mountain

Mat

Brendan Basket, No. 232

Carole Hetzel

Sewing Basket

Maker: Josie Robinson

Dark Kiva

Mary Giles

Basket

Basket

Box with star motif on cover

Box with floral motif on cover

Lorraine Besto and daughters

Fanner basket

Henrietta Snype

Covered quillwork birchbark box

Covered quillwork birchbark box

Covered quillwork box

Covered quillwork box

Covered quillwork box

Covered quillwork box

Emelia Trudeau

Copper Passage

Mary Giles

Basket

Elizabeth Hickox

If the Ice Melts and the Grass Grows on Small Islands in the Sea, Will Images of the Inuit World Become Fragments Lost in History

Gail Tremblay