As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Farnsworth Museum has an exhibit going on right now titled Women of Vision which honors women artists, art collectors and donors. I will try from time to time to pass along some of what I saw there.
Molly Neptune Parker is a highly skilled basketmaker in the tradition of the Passamaquoddy tribes. She was born in 1939 in Indian Township, ME and died just last year. She made it a mission to pass on to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren both her skill in basketmaking in the traditional way using fine brown ash and woven sweetgrass, and her knowledge of the Passamaquoddy language. She herself attended a two-room elementary school through eighth grade, completed high school in Princeton, ME and studied business at University of Maine, Orono, and then continued her education through various tribal certification programs. She helped organize a basketmaking cooperative at Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, was a founding member of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, served on the Indian Township Tribal Council and was the first woman Lieutenant Governor of the Council. She received the First People's Funds Community Spirit Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship, an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Bowdoin College in 2012 and a Distinguished Achievement Award from University of Maine, Machias, in 2013. "Her exquisite flower baskets have a delicacy of form yet powerfully carry forward a history blended from tribal culture, the natural world and their maker's foresight in giving new life to that which otherwise might have been lost."
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