Mint Museum of Craft + Design Hosts ~ Woven Worlds ~

Tuesday, 22 August 2006 13:44

Charlotte, NC - For centuries, American Indians have woven remarkable basketry suffused with their cultural heritage.  Showcasing 125 baskets, Woven Worlds: Basketry from the Clark Field Collection honors tribal groups from the United States, Canada and northern Mexico, and weaves together the interrelationship between the artists and the collector, Clark Field. This special exhibition and its companion catalogue are the culmination of four years of concentration on the Philbrook Museum of Art’s encyclopedic collection of baskets dating from the late 19^th to the mid-20^th century.  On exhibition 9 September through 31 December, 2006.

American Indian basket weavers have long transformed grasses, roots, ferns and bark into works of art unsurpassed for their aesthetic appeal. By the close of the 19^th century, museums and collectors were scrambling to acquire authentic American Indian baskets from what was thought to be a “vanishing culture.”  What began as a hobby in 1915 for Field, a Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman, turned into an obsession by the 1930s.  Field’s passion for American Indian basketry took him 125,000 miles, to approximately 142 different tribal groups, resulting in a 1,070 piece collection of American Indian baskets.  Field’s journey from Tulsa to New Mexico and California, through the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah, and north to the cold Northwest Coast and Alaska is traced in his pursuit of baskets featuring excellent craftsmanship and magnificent beauty.  Masterpieces from approximately 80 tribal groups are represented in this exhibition, including Washoe artist Louisa Keyser’s (Dat So La Lee) spectacular Degikup (1918) and an outstanding Pomo Feather Basket, as well as Apache and Pima trays.