Basketweaving & Beadwork

email: afourbears@gmail.com

I am of mixed Lenni Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Cherokee and European heritage.  I studied art at Ventura College, Moorpark College and Golden Gate University and have continued to study various media throughout my life.  I began weaving about 20 years ago with a group of California Native weavers in Ventura California.  When I retired and moved to the Northwest in 2004, I began lessons with Kathy Ervin of Sequim, Washington and learned much about the local materials for weaving and how to use them.  I also wove with Northwest Native weavers who were very generous and patient in teaching me.

While at a weaving event on the Lummi Reservation I met Jacque Rickard, a Walker River Paiute. We quickly became friends.  She taught me the Paiute style of weaving a pine needle basket and covering it with peyote beadwork.  Jacque makes traditional Paiute baskets so the beadwork is almost exclusively beautiful and colorful geometric shapes.  I wanted to put my own cultural stamp on the beaded baskets and that’s how the story baskets were born.  

Aside from basketry, I am best known for my 17-foot sculpture, Wheel Totem Pole, which was commissioned by the City of Ventura, California.  It stands at the entrance to Foster Park in that city.

I have shown paintings and basketry in many galleries and shows including the Meisel Gallery in Santa Barbara California, the Simi Valley Cultural Center in Simi, California, the Art Center in Ojai, California, Ancestral Spirits in Port Townsend, Washington and the Randolph Fredrick Gallery in Port Angeles, Washington, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and Olympic College Gallery. In 2004 I was one of the featured artists at the University of California’s Native Artists Exhibit. I have also done commissions for the National Park Service, a mythologist and collectors across the United States and Canada.

I have been a member of Front Street Gallery for nine years.  I am also a member of North West Basket Weavers Guild and Northwest Native American Basketweavers.