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Gualala Arts
Promoting public interest and participation in the arts since 1961.
Archive of past events: 2004 through 2014
Bay Area Basket Makers
Opening Reception: Friday, May 2 at 5:00 p.m.
"Basketmakers are the best people in the world."
The Guild serves as a source of information and means of communication among basket makers, providing inspiration and friendship. We welcome basket makers of all levels and expertise, from amateurs to professionals. Some of us show our work in galleries and juried shows, while others make baskets for the love of the making. Five times a year we publish our newsletter "Twinings" which is a way to keep in touch and provide news about the greater fiber community to our members.
At present the Guild has 89 members, most of whom reside in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. We also have members as far away as Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Utah, which adds wonderful diversity to our membership. We never know what new technique or material may pop up. And, there is a great range of age. Our youngest member is 14, and already an accomplished basket maker, and our eldest is in her nineties, steadily taking home blue ribbons from the county fairs for her exquisite pine needle creations.
Please visit our website at
bayareabasketmakers.wordpress.com.
The Gualala Arts Center, located at 46501 Old State Highway in Gualala, CA,
Serving the coastal communities of northern Sonoma & southern Mendocino Counties.
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The Bay Area Basket Makers (BABM) Guild was founded in 1984 by two avid basket makers, Maxine Kirmeyer and Jude Silva, to support and foster interest in basketry as a craft and art form.
Our members use a wide range of materials in their basket making. These range from the traditional reed, splint, pine needles, vines, bark, paper and gourds to more exotic like kelp, hog gut, fish skin and bones, horsehair, and fleece, to found and recycled materials like plastic bags, sheet metal, wire and wire mesh and cable ties. Many techniques are employed in the use of these materials including coiling, plaiting, twining, knotting, looping, felting, randing, stitching and more.
