The works of basket maker Mary Adams represent the ingenious marriage of traditional Mohawk crafts with contemporary popular forms. Adams, who is in her sixties, teaches basketry at the local reservation museum twice a week. Half a dozen traditional basket makers work near Adams on the St. Regis Reservation, including her sister, Margaret.
After coming into contact with Europeans in the late eighteenth century, the Algonkian and Iroquoian peoples replaced their indigenous style of basketry —stitched wood and bark, twining, and plaited matting—with the plaited and woodsplint technique common to Germanic and Swedish colonists. The sharp points of woodsplint in the Wedding Cake Basket [SAAM 1989.30.1] are a variation of the porcupine twist or "curlicue" manipulation of the splints, recognized as "thistle weave" in the distinctive Mohawk style. Adams skillfully contrasts protruding design elements with the smooth texture of surface splints, which are interwoven with sweet grass.
Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990)
