Drawing on her family’s long history of basket-making, Theresa Secord first started making baskets in the late 1980’s. At the time, there were only half a dozen basketmakers younger than the age of 50 in the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Tribes interested in learning this art.
As an apprentice in the first year of the Maine Arts Commission’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program, Theresa Secord studied with master Penobscot basketmaker Madeline Shay. Inspired by their work, Theresa help found the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, a native run cultural organization whose mission is to preserve traditional ash and sweetgrass basketry among all four tribes in Maine.
Basket by Theresa Secord
Photo by: Peter Dembski
Now a master in her own right, Theresa Secord has been making beautiful baskets for 21 years, and regularly shows her work at such National Indian Markets as the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market in Arizona, the Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market in Indianapolis and the Santa Fe Indian Market in New Mexico, where she has won several Best of Basketry distinctions, first places, judge’s awards and special purchase awards.
Basket by Theresa Secord
Photo by: Peter Dembski
A passionate cultural advocate for this endangered tradition, in 2003, Theresa Secord was honored in Geneva with the Prize for Creativity in Rural Life at the UN for helping to lower the average age of basketmakers in Maine from 63 to 43 and recently, named a 2009 Community Spirit Award Recipient by the First Peoples Fund.
Theresa Secord teaching basket-making to Shannon Secord.
Photo by: Peter Dembski
“I'm honored to be named as the 2011 Traditional Arts Fellow. I have been a long time advocate of Indigenous basketry through my work with the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. I wish to give credit to the Elders, including my late teacher Madeline Tomer Shay (Penobscot), who kept weaving ash and sweetgrass baskets when there was little recognition and virtually no market for their work. Without their efforts, there would be few traditional basketmakers in Maine today.”
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