Passage IV

Jeremy Frey, Weaving Heritage Into Modern Art

[1]

The winning piece was a basket, it was eighteen inches tall with a curved, vaselike silhouette. [A] It was made of ash wood finely woven into bold stripes of black and white that ran from its crown to its base. [B] In the ninety-year history of the Santa Fe Indian Market—the largest Indian art festival in the nation—the 2011 event marked the first time a basket won best of show. The creator of the piece, thirty-three-year-old Passamaquoddy Indian Jeremy Frey from Princeton, Maine, the basket sold at auction for $16,000.

[2]

[C] Frey describes his baskets as “cutting-edge traditional.” [D] He primarily weaves a classic material, wood from the brown ash tree, but, unlike most contemporary basketmakers, he harvests, cuts, pounds, dries, and dyes the wood himself. Then creating highly elaborate versions of the sturdy utility baskets that have been used by generations of Passamaquoddy fishermen from Maine. He honors tradition, but he highlights artistic design. For example, his baskets feature complex weaving on areas that are often hidden and therefore typically not embellished. Many traditional baskets have basic, woven lids. Frey’s porcupine quill lids are often decorated with art inlaid on birch bark; as far as lids go, I wouldn’t say that’s basic. And while braids of grass are customarily woven into ash baskets to make them better, Frey incorporates braided cedar bark to create striking new textures.

[3]

Now that he’s a nationally recognized artist of who has rejuvenated the art of basketry, Frey feels his role is to inspire. He’s on the board of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, a group that works to help preserve it by reaching out to young members of Native communities in the state. His other goal is to continue to stand out. The woven grass bracelets he saw on a recent trip to Hawaii have influenced how he shapes the bases of some of his newer baskets, as he finds yet another way to make traditional Passamaquoddy weaving something spectacularly his own.