Saturday at the GBA

Usually during Eric’s workshops I do not spend the whole day there. But at the Georgia Basketry Association’s gathering I spent both Friday and Saturday there. I hung out in the back corner and did some work on my laptop for a couple clients and then walked around doing a little socializing.

Teaching at the table next to Eric’s was Darlene Hyry. She hosted one of Eric’s classes down in Florida two years ago. She also showed us her extensive basket collection in her home. The photo is a little blurry because she was busy weaving and moving and I did not want to interrupt her (yeah… I was trying to blame it on her but the real reason is because I had my camera on the wrong setting most of Saturday. So I apologize for the out-of-focus pics).

Also teaching next to Eric was Thomas Holtkamp and his students were weaving the seat to a deco-inspired bench. They were a little crammed in their corner since his classes always sell out and every seat (no pun intended) was taken. Pictured is work-in-progress by the ever-lively Sharon Baiardi who owns The Basket Cases in Florida. She also recently hosted one of Eric’s workshops and you can find the post about that event here. I tried to convince her to give me the bench when she was done but she wasn’t buying it.

New to the convention teaching scene but definitely not new to basket making is Matt Tommey. (Click here for his website.) He’s from Asheville, NC and has been making baskets for 18 years now. His specialty is vine basketry and they are beautiful sculptures. I’ve been following Matt on Facebook for awhile now and he is a respected and accomplished artist. So I was excited when I heard he would be teaching at the GBA. I also learned that he is on the board of directors for the National Basketry Organization.

Taking Matt Tommey’s class was our dear friend Pattie Bagley. She is one of the first “basket people” I met on the circuit. I believe it was 4 years ago at the North Carolina Basketmaker’s Convention. So her name is permanently etched in my brain. The reason why I say this is because I’ve found one of the frustrations of traveling with Eric is that it is so hard to remember everyone’s names! I recognize faces and the location where I have met them, but their name always comes to me about 10 seconds after they said “hello Lynne” and walked away. However I am getting better. But I will never forget Pattie’s. And really, who could?

And I have big news. Pattie Bagley was elected President of the Georgia Basketry Association. So she will be very busy this year since she also teaches out of her home studio and is a resident artist at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She also needs to finish her vine basket. I heard that she talked most of the class, instead of weaving, and was not a good student. Bad Pattie.

I’ll finish off with some pics of Eric’s Jewel Basket class. One of the students Cathy made two identical baskets – one was for her friend who was stuck in Denver from the snow storm. Hope she appreciates all her hard work!

Again, I apologize for the quality of the pics! The time when I need the pictures to all be good is at a basketry convention! I’ll try and remember to check the settings next time. The same thing happened on our honeymoon. We were hiking The Narrows in Utah and I had our camera on the smallest setting. So all those pics could only be printed 1 inch in size! Furthermore, not being able to blame Eric for that one was soooooo hard! (Excruciatingly hard.)

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