Wabanaki Baskets Penobscot Theresa Secord Ocean Health

Wabanaki Baskets Penobscot Theresa Secord Ocean Health

Theresa Secord was the founding director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. Working with members of the four Wabanaki nations, she led the resurrection in Wabanaki basket making. She is an accomplished weaver in her own right, often using forms and/or designs made by her grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and other relatives.

This miniature basket is exquisite from an aesthetic standpoint, but it also carries an importante message. Secord writes: “[This is ] a nod to the subsistence food of Wabanaki people and our connection to the ocean- Supeq.

Secord writes: “…this color scale, from 1912, used still today by researchers at Bigelow Labs in Boothbay Harbor to measure the water quality in the Gulf of Maine, as temperatures rise. The [blue] colors on the left, as in the Supeq (Ocean in Passamaquoddy) trinket box … shows a cooler, healthy ocean…. [The design is] A nod to the subsistence food of Wabanaki people and our connection to the ocean- Supeq.

Materials: black ash, sweetgrass, dyes.

3 inches in diameter x 3 inches high, to top of finial