Passamaquoddy basketmakers win top awards at national show

Two Passamaquoddy basketmakers were among the top award winners at one of the nation's most prestigious shows for Native artists, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix, Ariz., which was held earlier this month. Jeremy Frey of Indian Township won the 2015 Best of Show Award, with his ash basket titled "Loon" also winning the Best of Class award for baskets, and David Moses Bridges of Sipayik won first place in the traditional basket category for his "Etched Winterbark Basket." The fair is one of the top two shows for Native craftspeople in the U.S., drawing nearly 15,000 visitors and 645 of the country's most outstanding artists.

Ash baskets with a twist
Along with this year's award, in 2011 Frey won both Best of Show at the Santa Fe Indian Market and at the Heard fair, which was only the second time that an artist had won both shows in the same year and the first time a basket had achieved that honor at the Santa Fe market in its history.
Frey says he thinks of basketry "as a form of art that I can make a painting with." Although the ash baskets traditionally had been made for utilitarian purposes, over time a market developed for them as fine pieces of art. Frey specializes in ash fancy baskets and describes his baskets as "traditional-contemporary," based on the weaves done in the past but with new techniques, such as braiding wood into ropes. The Loon ash basket is about 18" tall, with a porcupine-quill inlay of a loon on birchbark, and took about 200 hours to complete. The loon on the top of the award-winning basket replaced a traditional pattern design. Frey also notes that in his baskets he might use spruce root or cedar bark, which were not used in the past.
"My work evolves as I weave," he says. "My goal is to recreate the basket," adding twists to the traditional basketry. "My work completely metamorphoses over time."
And while technique is very important, he notes that last year he made a very technically demanding basket that he says turned out looking "ugly." His Loon basket this year, though, is "a very clean design." He adds, "That's what people are looking for C not heavily worked pieces."
Frey harvests all of his own material locally and is concerned about the threat to the brown ash trees from the emerald ash borer. Although the invasive beetle has not yet been detected in Maine, it has been found within 35 miles of the border. "It will drastically change what I make," Frey says of the beetle's destruction of the ash trees. Noting that there is a renaissance in basket-making in every Native culture, he observes, "Now is the time to be a weaver." Of the ash baskets, he adds, "We're seeing the last of it for awhile." Frey is already considering what materials he may use in the future, saying he may try working with metals or bark or quills.
Frey learned to make ash baskets from his mother, Gal Tomah, and his family has woven baskets for generations. The Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance has cultivated the art of basket-making for many years, and Frey notes that those efforts are not only keeping the art form alive but are making it profitable. The national recognition for Wabanaki basketry is causing the prices for the baskets to increase, and Frey says it is now possible to make a living from the work. "I couldn't have done that 15 years ago."
Of the national exposure's impact on basketmakers in the northeast, Frey says, "People now recognize where you're from. It's good for everybody."

Birchbark coming back
While Jeremy Frey and other artists are gaining recognition for their ash basketry, David Moses Bridges is working hard to keep the Passamaquoddy tradition of birchbark basket-making alive. Along with his first place award this year for his Etched Winterbark Basket, in 2014 he received an honorable mention in diverse arts at the Santa Fe show for a scaled model birchbark canoe. He notes that the Santa Fe show has not had a classification for birchbark basketry. "They're really unfamiliar with birchbark work as contemporary work," he notes. "I'm doing all I can to change that."
Bridges points out that there also has been a lack of familiarity with woven baskets but that eastern artists are increasingly becoming recognized on a national level. "All across Indian country they're looking at eastern works, and I think the level of excellence of Wabanaki artists is being really recognized. We have some incredible artists here on the east coast."
Using birchbark for canoes was a common tradition among the Passamaquoddy until the turn of the 20th century, when people began using factory-made canoes. It then became an extinct art form until recently. "I'm planning to keep that tradition alive," Bridges says, noting that he has built about 25 birchbark canoes so far.
Bridges has been focusing on birchbark work for over 20 years. He learned about basket-making from his grandmother, Beatrice Soctomah, who made brown ash and sweetgrass baskets, and he had been raised by his great-grandfather, Sylvester Gabriel, who was a traditional birchbark artist and who spoke with him a great deal about birchbark. "I got the bug in my heart, and it never left." After reading The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America by Edwin Adney, Bridges went to the Boat School in Eastport, all as part of his journey to learn how to make birchbark canoes.
While the emerald ash borer threatens ash basket-making, the loss of mature forests threatens birchbark work, as the birch trees have to be over 100 years old to make canoes.
Bridges comments, "I'm really proud of my fellow artists. Not one of us could continue with our work without our elders and ancestors. They carried on the tradition up to this generation during some pretty dark times when there was not a lot of work, and I hope that we, as artists, can do the same for the next generation."

Benefits gained by entire community
Three other Wabanaki also were invited to attend the Heard show: George Neptune, Jennifer Neptune and Theresa Secord. George Neptune, a Passamaquoddy who is the educator at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, almost won first place for his traditional style sewing basket but was told by one of the judges that he was edged out by "the birchbark guy," meaning Bridges.
Neptune comments, "It's very exciting that Wabanaki artists are continuing to get this recognition, and I hope that it encourages other artists to take that step and get their artwork seen at a national venue."
He adds, "To go out west and to get that recognition and to bring the northeastern tribes onto a national level are invaluable assets to the individual artists and to the community as a whole." He explains that the recognition will cause people to want to learn more about the works of Wabanaki artists, tribal sovereignty, tribal history and tribal-state relations. "Through education, I hope we can start to right the wrongs that have been done to Wabanaki people and shed light on the cultural misunderstandings about the Native people in the northeast."