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Picked up this sweet antique white oak ribbed basket the other day at the Gypsy Caravan. I shared this pic with some friends and one of them asked me if I knew who the maker was. Unfortunately, except in rare cases, is it possible to identify the maker of a basket. You can often tell the region of the country that a basket was made, either by the materials or style of construction. Since this basket is white oak and a rib construction I would say it came from the Appalachia region of the US. Of course that covers a pretty big area of the US. The thing is, most basket makers made their baskets exactly the way they had been taught without really putting their own spin on them. So, this resulted in all the baskets from a local area being pretty similar. The thing you really have to remember is that these were utilitarian objects like a screwdriver or a ladder. For the same reason they also didn't sign their baskets. When you do find a name written on a baskets or screwdriver or ladder, it was the owner's name, not the maker. Just like you write your name on a Tupperware bowl when you go to a picnic, so would they write their name on a basket. Today we think of baskets as art objects, but not back then when this basket was made, it was just a tool like any other.
Picked up this sweet antique white oak ribbed basket the other day at the Gypsy Caravan. I shared this pic with some friends and one of them asked me if I knew who the maker was. Unfortunately, except in rare cases, is it possible to identify the maker of a basket. You can often tell the region of the country that a basket was made, either by the materials or style of construction. Since this basket is white oak and a rib construction I would say it came from the Appalachia region of the US. Of course that covers a pretty big area of the US. The thing is, most basket makers made their baskets exactly the way they had been taught without really putting their own spin on them. So, this resulted in all the baskets from a local area being pretty similar. The thing you really have to remember is that these were utilitarian objects like a screwdriver or a ladder. For the same reason they also didn't sign their baskets. When you do find a name written on a baskets or screwdriver or ladder, it was the owner's name, not the maker. Just like you write your name on a Tupperware bowl when you go to a picnic, so would they write their name on a basket. Today we think of baskets as art objects, but not back then when this basket was made, it was just a tool like any other.
