Nancy putting some finishing touches on a pine needle basket. She makes pine needle and kudzu baskets large and miniature,  lamp shades, paper designs, kudzu cloth and large 8′ sculptures depicting Cherokee stories. All can be seen at her shop Kudzu Kabin Designs in Walhalla. Her last name and Cherokee heritage is from her father’s line and she frequently shares Native American stories with visitors at powwows.
​Visit her website at www.NancyBasket.com.

Biographical Summary:
Nancy Basket, EarthSkills Guest Instructor.

Nancy Basket learned pine needle basketry from her friend, Judy Arledge, in 1981. Since then, her detailed and beautiful work has been featured around the nation and in two films: The Last of the Mohicans, where she made cattail leaf mats, bark baskets and corn husk masks; and in one television episode of Young Indiana Jones creating a beautiful cattail gondola for a hot air balloon scripted in that episode.

For the last 25 years, Nancy has researched and shared her basketry and storytelling skills at primitive skills gatherings and powwows through the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) as a presenter of traditional and contemporary baskets. She's been an artist in education since 1990 and received the South Carolina  Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage award in 2005. The Schiele Museum in Gastonia, North Carolina purchased Nancy’s miniature baskets that represent many American indigenous cultures for display in their dioramas. The Barnwell Museum purchased her pine needle Cradleboard after it toured the United States in the Wyoming Western Show. Locally, Nancy shares basketry and storytelling through the Pickens County Museum and Hagood Mill. The McKissick Museum recognized Nancy as a master basket maker in an apprenticeship program to a Catawba woman. She was given a grant by the South Carolina Arts Commission to make a book of her basketry designs. In 1992 her two chapters were included in the book, Natural Basketry. 

Several colleges have sponsored Nancy in workshops for their students and teachers, including, Lander University, Converse College, University of South Carolina, Furman University, and Columbia College. Clemson University offered students a week long Native American Cultures course taught by Nancy and her friend Dr. Rebecca Moore which included basket making to all Oconee County teachers. South Carolina and Alabama educational television have featured Nancy on several programs and SCETV is showing a video of her coiling a kudzu basket on their website this spring during a new TV segment. Nancy works with community elders in retirement homes and she has taught for two weeks with the Delaware Department of Education with the “Very Special Arts” program. She loves working with the Juvenile Justice programs, such as the Aspen Group that operates in Oconee County; John De La Howe in McCormick, and organizations  like the White Path Center in Cherokee, North Carolina. She is a founding member of the Native American Prison Program NAPP here in South Carolina. 

These traditions have been passed down to her children and grandchildren. Currently, Nancy's daughter and business partner, Joleen, helps her run their business Kudzu Kabin Designs in Walhalla, South Carolina.


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