Description:
A handcrafted southwest style basket is a trademark of wonderful craftsmen and a salute to the art of basket weaving. The basket weaving art form is one of the oldest known crafts – dating back 9,000 years.
Basket making is also the most basic of all crafts in its methods and materials. It is a local art, based on materials found in an area and dyes from plants found in an area.
With so many types of plant materials used, so many environments affecting what grew where and how baskets were used, it’s no wonder that there are a lot of differences when looking at the weaving techniques, shapes and patterns.
Woven from a variety of plant materials by three basic techniques - plaiting, twining, and coiling - baskets had many uses .Baskets are perhaps one of the greatest visual expressions of American Indian culture. As native people were displaced from their traditional lands and lifestyles, their traditional tribal basketweaving styles started to change somewhat as they adapted to new materials and absorbed the customs of new neighbors, and in places like Oklahoma where many tribes were interred together, fusion styles of basketweaving arose. However, unlike some traditional native crafts, the original diversity of Native American basket styles is still very much evident today.
Southwest basket makers were masters of coiling techniques, the dominant southwestern type as long ago as 2000 B.C. And, 4,000 years later, the flat circular plaques and trays, shallow ceremonial bowls, and bulging urn-shaped storage jars remain closely identified as Southwest Baskets.
