Five Questions Friday: With Tony of Jaskets

This week we are at the Stateline Friends Weaving Retreat so I thought I would ask 5 questions from someone else and give Eric a break! (I know he’s ecstatic about this). The lucky candidate? I chose Tony Stubblefield of Jaskets to interrogate.

The following images are of Tony and his awesome booth at the retreat where I bought a couple Christmas gifts. Below those are this week’s Five Questions.

Q: What are you doing here?
Tony: Peddling my wares! And the biggest thing is that I have three full days to weave and not be home where I am distracted by laundry and other stuff.

Q: How long have you been making baskets?
Tony: I used to always say 25 years but that was a few years ago. So, let me see. I started weaving in 1983…That’s 29 years ago! Looks like I started weaving from birth.

Q: How many workshops do you host at your home in a year?
Tony: Along with attending workshops throughout the year, I host two a year. One in the spring and a second in late summer or fall.

Q: Has any mishaps occurred at one of these workshops that you can share?
Tony: Oh yeah! (laughing) I hosted my spring workshop where someone brought over bing cherries. I had an old 50’s “bullet” garbage can next to my bar.
(editor’s note: Tony has a fantastic retro bar and cool vintage collectibles everywhere) I usually do not use this garbage can. So at this first workshop of the year, someone threw out a few “bad cherries” in this collectible 50’s garbage can and I had no idea.

Months after that, I started to notice many fruit flies in my upstairs bathroom, which is above the bar area where this garbage can is located, and could not figure out why.
(editor’s note: If you do not know Tony, his home is impeccable and neat as a pin. I could imagine that if he sees one fruit fly, he could pinpoint where it was coming from exactly and in seconds. Unlike our home where we would investigate if I left a half-eaten apple on my desk or on my nightstand, maybe I left the blackberries out on the counter, could be there’s a banana peel in the living room waste basket or possibly Chance threw up again in the stairwell. Anyways, this isn’t my story, it’s Tony’s!)

I could not find the source of these fruit flies. So I was setting up for my second workshop of the year and decided to just look in that bullet garbage can in case someone threw out a cup or something. As soon as I opened it, it was like a scene from Amityville Horror and hundreds of fruit flies escaped. Joanne Howard and JoAnn Kelly Catsos arrived early for the workshop and were laughing hysterically at me vacuuming the air — trying to suck up all these fruit flies! And the whole day, during class, all you could hear were people slapping their hands or legs, killing flies. I now check ALL the trash cans! Even the collectible ones.

Q: Before this workshop in Indiana, what was the last basketry event you attended?
Tony: In March, I was at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina making shaker boxes. Not technically weaving, but bending woods and playing with power tools which is in the same family.
(editor’s note: to read more about Tony and the class, click here for his blog! He’s got tons of pics from John C. Campbell.)

Thanks so much Tony!!

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