Do you have a basketry collection or a piece you need to identify? Want to know if it was made regionally, nationally on internationally? Or, are you just interested in knowing more about basketry? If so, join OMA, RCWR and Margaret Mathewson on May 22, from 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at the Benton County Historical Museum in Philomath, OR. We will be providing a bag lunch, and you’re invited to continue your conversation with fellow attendees over a light tea from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. Workshop fee is $35 for OMA and RCWR members / $50 for non-members which includes an annual membership to either OMA or RCWR.

Workshop Details:
During this workshop, Margaret will demonstrate the proper care, storage, and handling of basketry. She will discuss analysis: including techniques, materials and attribution of origin. Margaret will talk about proper practices for housing and cleaning baskets, and basketry identification. As well, she will discuss the philosophy of not repairing baskets, rather leaving a basket in its current state so as not to compromise later study. Feel free to bring a piece from your collection to use as your specimen for the day!

We will be providing a bag lunch, and you’re invited to continue your conversation with fellow attendees over a light tea from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Margaret Mathewson is a scholar, teacher, and basket maker, weaving contemporary and traditional styles from many parts of the world since 1980. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, she did graduate work at UC Berkeley focusing on contemporary issues in the maintenance of ancestral ways among native peoples in California. She pursued post-doctoral study at the Smithsonian USNMNH, focused on the study of old basketry collections and working with tribes to revive traditions. She continues to attend Western Native weavers’ gatherings every year and works for tribes in several states on issues of land management, access to weaving materials and ancestral food plants, and on cultural resources education. She also teaches Native American Land Management and Agriculture in the Department of Agriculture at Oregon State University.

This workshop is co-sponsored by the Oregon Museums Association.