Theresa Secord

I learned traditional ash and sweetgrass basketry on the Penobscot Nation reservation, when I was living and working there for my tribe as the staff geologist in the 1980’s. I became a basket maker in my 30’s apprenticing with the late Madeline Tomer Shay for 5 years. My great-grandmother was a renowned basket maker in our tribe and I watched her weaving baskets as I was growing up.

I have mentored as many as a dozen basket makers and a number of my apprentices have gone on to teach their own apprentices. Some of those apprentices’ apprentices now have apprentices. My long term work as an arts advocate, as co-founder and inaugural director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, has resulted in a number of new basket makers in the four, federally-recognized tribes in Maine; Maliseet, Mi’makq, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot.

My art practice reflects a quintessential Penobscot style and approach drawing upon ancestral designs and the natural world through the traditional hand-harvested ash wood and sweet grass. Most recently, my work is centered upon bringing awareness to environmental and climate change crises in our territory in my basket designs. Since 2021, I have been including the use of the endangered Wabanaki languages in my work and teaching language use in traditional basketry in tribal immersion camps.

Being a Taproot artist fills me with pride as a culture bearer and validates 3 and 1/2 decades of work dedicated to our traditional basketry practice. I believe this will bring more attention to our once again endangered basketry and the ways we can work together as a community to re-cultivate our practice together. In my own art, I will be able to continue to expand my investigation and ideas of using our basketry to highlight important issues of our times, such as ecological issues and climate change, language revitalization. These ideas also reflect our own Wabanaki community values.