Passamaquoddy fancy basket placed at Denver museum

A stunning new fancy basket by Passamaquoddy basketweaver Jeremy Frey has been placed into the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum (DAM) by the Nancy Blomberg Acquisitions Fund for Native American Art. "The basket Frey completed for the Denver Art Museum is one of his largest ever created. As part of the commission, DAM's curators gave complete creative control to the artist, allowing him to pursue his creative passion. The finished basket reached beyond our highest expectations," say DAM curators Dakota Hoska, associate curator of Native Arts, and John Lukavic, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Arts.
Frey is from a long line of Native weavers. He specializes in ash fancy baskets, a traditional form of Wabanaki weaving. Over the years Frey has won prestigious awards for his basketweaving and has placed many commissioned pieces in museums around the country, but this particular basket has a special meaning, not only for its size and complexity but for what lies behind it.
"It's an interesting story," says Frey. The basket, named "Watchful Spirit," was commissioned a few years ago. The challenge given to him by the curator was to think of the commission as if the museum could only purchase one piece of his for the museum. Given that hypothetical constraint, Frey began to think about what form the basket should take. Hoska and Lukavic elaborate, "Before her death in 2018, longtime curator of Native Arts, Nancy Blomberg, requested Jeremy Frey to complete a commissioned basket for the Indigenous Arts of North America collection at the Denver Art Museum, asking for his ultimate masterpiece."
Frey wrestled with the challenge, tried out different ideas and techniques and continued to collect materials for the basket in waiting. While utilitarian baskets can be scaled up in size fairly easily, fancy baskets are a whole different story, he explains. "I did a few attempts over the years but didn't feel they were up to the challenge."
And then a pivotal moment occurred. Hoska and John Lukavic explain, "The creation of this masterpiece involved the gathering of materials and finding time for construction between all of his other weaving obligations, as Frey is one of the most sought after basketweavers in the nation. The basket was not started before Blomberg's untimely passing for these reasons, but with the support of Blomberg's husband, Art Blomberg, the commission was able to proceed." Frey felt the loss of Nancy Blomberg, too, and began to think about the basket in a new way.
The weaving of the basket, which Frey describes as huge by fancy basket standards at almost 24 inches wide and 27 inches tall, took about two years to complete and is made of black ash, sweet grass, birchbark, porcupine quills and pigment. "There are multiple thousands of pieces" involved in the making of the fine weave, Frey notes. The basket's lid has woven quill work depicting a cougar's face looking out with inscrutable eyes. Frey explains that he based the cougar on Nancy Blomberg's Colorado connection and the museum's location. The name of the basket is its story, Frey says, about how the cougars watch over the spirit of the mountains and "watch over her spirit." He adds, "It meant a lot to me when she ordered it."
Hoska and Lukavic comment about another critical aspect to Frey's basket: "Ash trees of the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, the primary materials required for such baskets, are becoming scarce due to the invasive emerald ash borer beetle. Having a woven basket from this material becomes even more important as a possible resource for future weavers who are actively planning to replant the ash tree after the invasion of the borers has run its course."
"The whole thing was an honor from start to finish," Frey says. It is a fresh and exciting experience for him to finally see the basket completed and handed over to the museum after having seen it in parts for over a year. He encourages anyone who is able to visit the Denver Art Museum to do so, but if that's not in the cards, he notes that the Portland Museum of Art in southern Maine will be holding a full retrospective of his work in the fall of 2023. It is the first solo Native show there, he adds. "I'm currently doing a lot of work for that show. I'm excited, it's huge." That includes weaving new baskets that have so far lived in his imagination. "It's an exciting time for me." For more information, visit www.jeremyfreybaskets.com.