"I appreciate the beauty, intricacy, and hard work"

March 23, 2022 6:07 PM

Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto (Barbareño Chumash), "When I first met this remarkable basket, it was like meeting an old friend ... I was perplexed by the date 1711 ... [W]e concluded that Juana Basilia had copied the year from the coin she used for the design." In a unit on "Native American art after 1600," Khan Academy has a ~4 min. video on the same Coin Basket made by Juana Basilia Sitmelelene, ca. 1815-1822 [YouTube]. More recently, a different Chumash basket "... Returns to Chumash Land": "Are you sitting comfortably? We have a long story to tell you." Related: Kaitlin M. Brown, et al., on communities of practice in Chumash basket weaving [PDF]; and Yve Chavez on "Indigenizing Southern California Indian Basket Studies" and "Indigenous Artists, Ingenuity, and Resistance at the California Missions" [PDFs].
posted by Wobbuffet (3 comments total)

The very shape of the figures, (though full of the symbols of colonialism,) are the shapes of ancient figures on canyon walls, they still speak of their buried heritage. Beautiful basketry.
posted by Oyéah at 6:26 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Excellent post.

I've seen a few examples in some collections around here in so CA. That piece in the SB Museum article is simply remarkable.

This is a craft I've always had a desire to learn, but never knew where to even begin. Basketry like this is just so inspiring.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:04 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

I wonder if it's inspired by this coin, which has a similar pattern of castles and lions rampant with the crown above?
posted by Scram at 12:19 AM on March 24, 2022 [1 favorite]