Lrg Pincushion Basket - wampum wool top , Pam Cunningham: Penobscot

Description

CLEARANCE PRICE:  $
38.50
WAS:  $
48.75
On this large pincushion Pam Outdusis Cunningham, Penobscot master basketmaker has used regular brown ash splints and slightly darker ash heartwood splints to give the basket a 2 tone striped look  - nearly white ash and darker reddish ash. Near the top of the basket  Pam adds 10 "point" curls (also called "twists" or "porcupine curls")  The "cushion" is hand-dyed purple wool with a gray wool yarn "X" across.    Pam has been making hand dyed purple "wampum" colored wool - here the wool has a slightly reddish cast - I would call the color violet or amethyst.   It was very difficult to photograph this - the color kept translating to a blue color.  Finally - this shows, at least on my monitor, close to the actual color.  Pam placed 1 pin in the cushion.  Maybe you can see it in one or more of the photos?
This basket is 2.5" square on the bottom and 3" round on the top.  It is , shaped basket is 3.5" to the rim of the basket - the points on the lid add another 1/2" to the height.  It is 1.75" to the rim of the basket and the cushion 1i 1.25" in height making the basket 3" total height.  The square bottom to round top is now an uncommon basket form.  Prior to 1880 - this shape was quite common.  Pam has placed tidal sweetgrass over the rim of the basket securing it with a V shaped rim wrap of a thin ash splint.
Pam has put her maker's mark, a sweetfern unfurling into a turtle on the bottom of the basket nand she has dated it as well.  - Pam is of the Penobscot turtle clan.
Recently Pam has been exploring wool, felted wool, dying wool, wool rugs, etc.  Her beautiful purple "wampum" wool used in this basket has been hand-dyed by Pam.
Made of brown ash, the traditional material of Maine and Eastern Canadian basketmakers, this has plain tidal sweetgrass wrapping the rim of the basket.
Second to last photo is of Pam dancing the shawl dance, at the 2018 Penobscot Nation Festival.   Last photo is a pic of Pam's great-grandmother, ssipsis, selling her baskets about 1920.  To make some of her basket forms Pam uses some of her ssipsis's basket making tools - gauges, crooked knives and wooden molds.    Be sure to view some of Pam's other baskets in this ebay store - you might find pumpkins, corn, strawberries, blueberries, pinecones or prayer baskets.