Annual Maine Indian Basket Makers Sale and Demonstration Dec. 9
Contact: Gretchen Faulkner, 581-1904; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — The Hudson Museum’s Twelfth Annual Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance basket sale and crafts fair Dec. 9 offers the public an opportunity to see and learn about Maine Indian artforms, listen to traditional music and sample Maine Indian foods.
The event, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., features more than 30 Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot artists from Maine, who come to the Orono campus each year to sell their hand-made, one of a kind, ash splint and sweet grass basketry. Work baskets include creels, pack and potato baskets and fancy baskets range from strawberry- and blueberry-shaped baskets to curly bowls. Authentic porcupine quill jewelry, wood carvings and birch bark work also will be available at the sale.
Traditional foods served up by the Penobscot Nation Boys and Girls Club (hull corn soup, fry bread, blueberry desserts), music, demonstrations of brown ash pounding and basket making, in addition to traditional drumming and dancing also will be featured throughout the day.
Though the sale and crafts show is free from 10 a.m. on, early bird shopping is available for a $10 fee. The annual event typically draws hundreds of shoppers, basket collectors and others from throughout New England and beyond, as it is one of the few public opportunities to find such a large gathering of Maine tribal craftspeople and basketmakers in one place.
The Hudson Museum Friends will raffle off a brown ash and cedar bark basket, hand-made by renowned basketmaker Theresa Secord of the Penobscot Nation, according to Gretchen Faulkner, museum director. Raffle tickets are $5 each and are available at the Hudson Museum Shop and at the event.
Secord is the great-granddaughter of acclaimed Penobscot basketmaker Philomene Saulis Nelson. She carries on family basketmaking traditions using the same blocks and gauges that her great-grandmother used to create acorn and barrel baskets, as well as innovating new forms, such as corn baskets.
Secord also is known for her advocacy of Maine Indian sweet grass and brown ash basketmaking, and she serves as executive director of the Old Town-based Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, an organization of more than 200 members. She has received awards for her basketry from the Etiljorg Museum and the Heard Museum. In 2003, she became the first U.S. citizen to receive the Prize for Creativity in Rural Life from the Women’s World Summit Foundation at the United Nations in Geneva Switzerland.
The event schedule follows:
9-10 a.m., early bird shopping
$10 admission fee for this special shopping opportunity
10 a.m., opening welcome by the Penobscot Nation, the event’s host tribe, and the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance
10:30-11 a.m., brown ash pounding and work basket demonstration by Micmac Eldon Hanning
11 a.m.-noon, Penobscot songs by Kelly Demmons, a Penobscot
11 a.m.-1 p.m., traditional foods, Bodwell Lounge area, with hull corn soup, fried bread and blueberry desserts; food sales proceeds benefit the Penobscot Nation Boys and Girls Club
1:30-2:30 p.m., the Burnurwurbskek Singers, with drumming, singing and dancing
3 p.m., drawing for the Hudson Museum Friends Maine Indian Basket Raffle
Temporary exhibits currently running at the Hudson Museum include “Muwin and the Magic Hare” by Maine artist and illustrator Robert Shetterly and the 2006 Waponaki Student Art Show, featuring artwork by pre-school and elementary students on the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy reservations and Native students at nearby high schools.
The Shetterly exhibit features twelve images created and published in Muwin and the Magic Hare. Shetterly’s work features Muwin, the black bear and Mahtoqehs, the Great Magic Hare of the North Woods, and draws upon a traditional Passamaquoddy tale from Dream Time — a time after the earth, the water, and the sun, moon and stars were made. People and animals could talk with each other, and beings with magical powers were able to transform themselves from one form to another.
In this traditional tale, Muwin tracks the magical trickster hare from his den on the march, over the heath, to the bay and back to his winter den. Mahtoqehs eludes him, transforming himself in Passamaquoddy men and women, who entertain Muwin with ancient tales and feed him snowshoe hare, but then disappear while Muwin is sleeping.
The 2006 Waponaki Student Art Show, running Dec. 4 to Jan. 31, 2007, is organized by the Abbe Museum and Maine Indian Education.
More information can be obtained by calling the Hudson Museum at 581-1901.