American basket makers use grasses, wood, vines and bark.

  
   
 
 

These are some of America's basket makers who use grasses, wood, vines and bark that they gather by hand. Many say that gathering and preparing the materials, as well as the weaving, are all steps that connect their finished baskets to the environment that provided the natural materials they are made from.

In the video (right) you will be introduced to six of the USA's basket makers.  

 
   
 
           

Work from each of the six basket makers in the film above is shown here. Click numbers 1-6 to see each of the baskets. The makers are:

  1. Stephen Zeh of Maine a basket maker of 35 years who generally uses split brown ash wood but the basket pictured here is made from black ash.

  2. Lynette Youson of South Carolina who makes her baskets with sweetgrass. Her basket plate here is made from sweetgrass, bulrush, pine needles, and palmetto fronds.

  3. Anne McCauley of Virginia who uses honeysuckle vine.

  4. Jo Campbell-Amsler of Iowa who makes her baskets from willow she cultivates herself.

  5. Jennifer Heller Zurick a willow bark weaver from Kentucky. Here basket here is made from black willow bark.

  6. Cynthia Taylor from West Virginia who makes her baskets from white oak.

The materials, techniques and work of each of these basket makers is written about in the book (right) 'A Measure of the Earth'. It gives a window into America's traditional basketry revival of the past fifty years giving details of the longstanding use of traditional fibres.

  
 
   

The American Basket Makers