Wednesday Wonder: Joan Brink, Basketmaker

I feel my passion in nature, participating

with all my being in its beauty.

~ Joan Brink*

New Orleans-born, now Santa Fe resident Joan Brink did not become serious about basket weaving until the mid-1980s, when she began collaborating with Native artists. Since then, she has become a masterful maker of vessels that convey symbolic content in their nature-inspired shapes and designs.

In the video below, Brink demonstrates how she works and speaks to the beauty she creates daily in her studio:

Joan Brink In the studio from Wendy McEahern on Vimeo.

Brink exhibits widely — her work is shown at the prestigious Jane Sauer Gallery in Santa Fe and at the annual SOFA-Chicago, for example, is sold in Museum of New Mexico Foundation shops, and is in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian — and has had the honor of seeing her work published in a number of books and magazines, including 500 Baskets: A Celebration of the Basketmaker's Art (Lark Books, 2006) and Southwest Art.  

Go here to learn about Brink's technique and see images of her finely crafted work in various stages of development. Thirteen images of her work also may be seen in her e-gallery. 

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* Quoted in "Walking the Beauty Path" by Mary Howard in Connecticut College Magazine, 2006

Joan Brink at Dane Gallery

Joan Brink Interview with National Basketry Organization, 2004