Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Moore’s baskets are for sale at local farmers’ markets, the Stone Hill and Hermannhoff wineries in Hermann, and the New Day Mercantile in New Haven.
People have been weaving baskets for at least 10,000 years, coiling grasses or braiding palm leaves to hold their treasures. Pat Moore never expected to add this craft to her repertoire, but back in 1999, a friend talked her into taking a class…
By the time you moved from Florissant to Washington, Missouri, you were ready to teach [basket weaving].
I thought it would be a great way to make some new friends. I taught three classes for three or four years, and the same people continued to come, so the baskets got harder and took longer to make. Now I have 50 students who follow me. I teach in my home three evenings a week, and I also teach in Troy, Montgomery City, and Kirksville.
I’ve always loved baskets. I’m not even sure why they’re so appealing.
I think it’s because they’re handmade. They’re not vinyl or plastic. They come from nature. And making them—I’ll give my students a bag of materials, and it looks like chaos, and when you’re done, you have organized it into something that is beautiful and useful.
What materials do you use?
Reed from Indonesia. It’s very pliable when wet, and it can be flat or round or oval. Ash from New Hampshire, which unfortunately is becoming extinct because of the emerald ash borer. And I make Nantucket baskets: They have a wood base and are woven from cane. Whalers used to make them on long sea voyages, and they’d use forms in graduated sizes so the baskets would stack and not take up much space. The cane is slick on one side and very thin. Once I get all my spokes inserted in the slot in the wood base, I weave it secure with what they call “fine fine” cane, which is less than 1/8 inch thick.
Even using a single material, there’s such variety.
There are different shapes—shallow key-catchers, tobacco baskets, market baskets—which are great for new students because you weave a handle into the base and it helps with the shaping. Cat-head baskets that sit up on little feet. I’ve probably got 5,000 different patterns. Basketmakers are really good about sharing their patterns.
What does it take to be good at this?
Lots of patience. Creativity. A sense of color. Students will change up a pattern—I have a whole wall of color, different-size reeds I’ve dyed. I just use RIT dye and a mostaccioli pot, immerse the coil in hot water, then cut the ribbons [on the coil] so it can spread out. You have to like to work with your hands.
Some of your students have been coming for 17 years—it must be addictive.
There’s a lot of camaraderie. I have a couple students who say it’s their therapy. As we work, we really share, and you have to think about what you’re doing, so you forget your problems.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
To make this tote, Pat Moore wove a solid bottom (“crow’s feet” of reed fill in the interstices), and twined round reed around the base to hold its shape. “Then you up-set your spokes,” she says, “teaching them to go up instead of lying flat on the table.” A clothespin anchors each corner, and you pinch as you weave to keep those turns sharp. You follow the pattern up with flat reed, alternating natural and green, then switch to curved reed for texture. Finally, you slide on the leather handles and lash the rim. “This basket has no glue, no staples, no nails,” Moore says. “It’s all held together by the way you wove it.”
