Fifteen years ago, backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I broke my leg. While waiting two days for a helicopter ride out, I started creating a basket with pine needles I found. My journey in making baskets began. I found the skill of weaving intriguing and have been making baskets ever since. My pine needle baskets are made by the coiling technique with sinew combined with traditional weaving strands of fiber over and under. 

All the pine needle materials for the baskets are personally wildcrafted from avalanche runs and fallen trees in the Western United States. The added beads and adornments are details from a rich variety of materials collected from across the globe. My work was originally influenced by the traditional Paiute Shoshone basket weavers of the Owens Valley, but today I adopt a freer form. I do not strive for perfection or necessarily even symmetry but yield to the creative forces in the fibers, colors, and shapes. My desire is to incorporate traditional basketry with the new.