Vicki Diamond

If someone tells you that basketmaking is easy and therapeutic, says New Jersey basketmaker Vicki Diamond, you can be sure that person has never made a Nantucket basket!

Vicki Diamond produces her own Nantucket baskets

The origin of these highly prized baskets is linked to the ships that functioned as floating lighthouses for captains of whaling vessels off the coast of Massachusetts. Wooden bottoms, staves, ears, and handles were essential components of the Nantucket lightship baskets, as well as weavers made of cane that found its way to Nantucket from the Pacific in the holds of the whaling vessels. Later, the baskets were manufactured ashore and became increasingly refined. With the incorporation of exotic woods, bone, and ivory, and the use of nontraditional molds, Nantucket baskets continue to evolve today, although the basic design of the basket as is proscribed.

Contemporary baskets are designed primarily for appearance rather than function, but the process has remained constant throughout the years. Quality, however, has not; the buyer should beware of imported "imitation" Nantucket baskets.

Although basketry supply houses have begun producing all of the wooden parts necessary to create a Nantucket basket, the pleasure of making her own was what drew Vicki to the art. "It's the woodworking component that makes these baskets distinct," she says. "Just to make a base, I use the jointer, planer, lathe, router, and drill press! And I’m not even mentioning the hand sanding."

The process begins with a mold, usually wooden, to which a wooden base is secured. Then staves of wood or cane (both of which are acceptable) are hand tapered to fit the circle, and secured in the slotted base with careful attention to spacing. Of course, if handmade oak or walnut staves are used, the process is considerably lengthened: thin, uniform strips of wood must be cut on the band saw and then hand sanded to round the edges. Then the actual weaving, which Vicki claims is the easiest part, begins. When it reaches the top of the mold, the basket is removed and "packed" if the weave is not tight enough. Then wet reed is bent over a mold into circular shapes for the inside and outside rims. After a final fitting, the ends are scarfed and glued. Then the rims are fastened with brass escutcheon pins and a filler piece of cane is set between the rims. A length of fine cane, or "lasher," is used to lash the rims together, and at this point a handle can be secured. Cherry is difficult to bend, but Vicki makes her own ash handles. "The process," she says, "is longer than you would care to hear about, but it involves a froe, a form, a spoke shave, and a shave horse that I built myself from green walnut, using only hand tools."

The handle is secured to the basket with a bone or ivory button knob. The alternative to knobs, wooden "ears" that are carved to slide snugly down into the sides of the weaving and require cuts in the rims, are time-consuming but attractive, and both have been used traditionally. To finish, Vicki plugs the hole at the bottom of the wooden base with wood or bone, and brushes the entire basket with clear shellac. Some modern basketmakers use polyurethane, but Vicki prefers the finish found on old baskets.

And there you have it--the process of creating a Nantucket basket! Trained in the classic tradition of Nantucket lightship basketry by four top artists in the field, Vicki sometimes expands those parameters to incorporate other materials such as sea grass, pine needles, waxed linen, leather, hand-dyed raffia, and palm seed stems (inflorescenses) in her baskets for a tapestry effect.

The hardest thing for Vicki about making baskets is finding time to make them all (the wait time for custom orders is currently three months), but the precision and number of steps required to make a high-quality Nantucket or Nantucket-style basket can also be exhausting. Vicki, an artist and sculptor who works in such varied mediums as wood, oil paints, encaustic, cement, and stone, confesses that after a particularly exacting day of basketmaking, she sometimes needs to unwind by doing something easy and therapeutic. "I go outside and break stones," she says.

She is not, however, just a basketmaker. As a sculptor, Vicki works in a variety of mediums, including wood, cement, and stone. She is also an accomplished painter in encaustic and oil. While some of her work is representational, most is not, and many of her cement sculptures are variations on the symbolic image of the vessel. Within the various mediums in which she works, Vicki explores texture, color, shape, and size, attempting to express the fluidity of nature and the universality of simple form. Her favorite form of expression is stone, which allows her to work outdoors on a large scale. In addition to two functional structures--a stone painting studio and a stable for her two llamas, Vicki has created a number of stone sculptures, including an eight-foot stone sphere, on the property. Much to the delight of her husband and two sons (who are glad to have her weirdness publicly confirmed) Vicki and her stone sculptures are featured in the recently published book, Weird N.J.

Vicki’s work has won numerous awards and has been exhibited in various galleries and shows, including a solo sculpture show at the Paterson Museum in New Jersey and a group show at the Instituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice, Italy. Her educational background is in English literature, although she has also pursued graduate studies in Italy through New York University’s program in studio art. As far as her basketmaking is concerned, Vicki credits her skill to her four teachers, John McGuire, Martha Weatherbee, Carol Linquist, and Elizabeth Geisler, who are masters of the Nantucket basket.

Vicki is currently finishing a creative dissertation on poetry for her Doctorate in Arts and Letters through Drew University, and has just finished a two-tiered stone "poetry circle," where she hopes soon to host poetry readings.