The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of The Spirit of Basketmakers; Past and Present, an urn-shaped black ash and sweetgrass basket by Akwesasne Mohawk artist Nanci Ransom, a tradition bearer with more than thirty years of experience. Rooted in generations of basketmakers, the work honors both ancestral knowledge and the contemporary practitioners who continue to sustain this cultural legacy.
Completed over the course of two months and featuring more than 800 hand-curled accents shaped on historic family forms, the basket embodies resilience, adaptation, and deep ties to land and community. Created at a moment when black ash is endangered by the emerald ash borer, the piece stands as a testament to survival, continuity, and the ongoing stewardship of Indigenous artistic traditions. It also reflects the artist’s commitment to passing knowledge forward, ensuring that both materials and teachings remain vital for future makers. As such, the basket serves not only as an artwork but as a living expression of cultural endurance and hope.
Ransom writes, “The legacy of Mohawk and Indigenous basket weaving is spiritual, cultural, and enduring. Basket making is not just a craft; it is a sacred dialogue between people and place, between past and present, between those who came before and those yet to come. Each basket carries a legacy."