Indian Basketmakers of the Southwest by Larry Dalrymple

A renaissance in Native basketry has swept across much of the Southwest in the last decades of the 20th century, resulting in an explosive burst of creativity and innovation. 'Indian Basketmakers of the Southwest' documents the art and the weavers in whose hands the future of traditional basketry is held. The weavers' life stories, along with rich photographic documentation of their work, bring their special world into focus. We learn of their struggles and triumphs, and about what it means to be a weaver in the modern world. We learn that today's weavers lead lives that are as diverse as their designs. Some are young, but most are middle-aged or older. Some live in remote rural areas, others in or near towns. They share a tradition that has lately welcomed numerous male basketmakers to its ranks. We learn who their teachers were and to whom they are passing on their knowledge. Larry Dalrymples working friendships with these weavers over more than two decades developed as a result of his collecting activities begun in the late 1970s. His interest in continuity and change in basketry traditions informed a unique collection of baskets made by Yavapai, Havasupai, Hualapai, Western and Jicarilla Apache, Ute, San Juan Paiute, Navajo, O'odham, Pueblo and Hopi weavers. Anthropologist Susan Brown McGreevy is research associate at Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she curated the exhibition Deep Roots, New Growth: Contemporary Southwestern Indian Baskets.

University of New Mexico Press, 2000.
Paperback, 140 Pages.