If you haven’t had the privilege of sponging information about baskets from Len Wood in Laguna Beach, California, Gene Quintana in Carmichael, California, John Kania in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Natalie Linn in Portland, Oregon or Terry DeWald in Tucson, Arizona, you must acquire Kania’s book Antique American Basketry of Western North America (2014)
At $125, it is no fun to pay for, but cheaper than a college course.
Anthony Richardson’s photographs throughout are unrivalled! Nuances presented in the photos, thoroughly explained by the text, educate your eye to condition issues as well as fiber identification. The only way to improve this book would be to include a kit of different fibers for you to both touch and see. Maybe this amounts to your invitation to purchase examples of baskets from different areas to lock in your powers of connoisseurship. Education with a “hands-on” opportunity more easily cements retention.
Those of you collecting contemporary basketry still need to have an understanding of what preceded baskets made more recently.
To purchase this book, you can buy it directly from Kania at his website. www.coiledandtwined.com
Savvy art collecting hinges on a well-informed mind and eye in concert with one another.
Corinne Cain
Available baskets on SavvyCollector.com
