Stowe Basketry Festival

Teacher Bios

Our Teachers

Susan Baxter

Back in the eighties when I was an engineering student, there was talk about taking Underwater Basket weaving as an easy elective. No such course existed at Clarkson, but after I graduated, I received a basket making kit. Best present ever as I have been weaving ever since. With over 33 years of weaving experience, I still find challenge, intrigue and delight with basket design and creation.

Flo Hoppe

Flo Hoppe has been a full-time studio artist, teacher and author since 1971. She teaches and exhibits worldwide. Her published books include Wicker Basketry, Contemporary Wicker Basketry, and Plaited Basketry with Birch Bark.

Marilyn Parr

I started weaving over 40 years ago, making my first basket at a Community Education class. From that first class, the addiction began. About 10 years ago I taught my first class using my own designs. I also work with a couple of Amish gentlemen that help me with wood and leather. Traveling to several states and even on a cruise, I have made so many friends. Just wish I had started this journey earlier in life!

Carolyn Kemp

I’ve been weaving since the early 1980’s and continue to be challenged and inspired by the basketmakers of the past and the weavers of today. I worked for years with my business partner Lyn Siler on numerous instruction books and patterns and have taught classes in many parts of the country. I love teaching. My favorite materials are birch bark, watercolor paper and fiber splint.

Dianne Stanton

Dianne’s vast wealth of knowledge in all styles of basketry is evident, as is her repertoire of classes that ranges from bark to ash, twining to twill, sweetgrass coiling and hand shaping. Inspiration for her artwork comes from nature, Native American basketry and her family. She has taught at major basketry conferences throughout the country, as well as Canada and Japan. Dianne has been making baskets since 1977.

Sandy Bulgrin

Sandy has been teaching basket weaving for over 38 years, having started by instructing 4-H children, which she continues today. Sandy enjoys teaching at the museums in her area along with many continuing education programs in the schools in Wisconsin and Illinois. She has taught at many state’s basket events, gourd events and retreats. Sandy organizes the Basket Weaving Cruise.

JoAnn Kelly Catsos

JoAnn is an award-winning traditional black ash splint basketmaker and teacher living in the Catskill Mountains in NY. JoAnn’s husband, Steve harvests the black ash trees, processes the logs into splint and together they make the wooden molds, handles and rims needed for each basket. She exhibits and teaches nationally. She is a recipient of the Certificate of Excellence in Basketmaking: level I from the HGA. Her baskets are in private and public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. www.joannkellycatsos.com

Pam Doubleday Wilson

Pamela Wilson finds great satisfaction in creating beautiful works, and in sharing her love of basket makings with other weavers. She has taught for Central Pennsylvania Basket Weavers Guild, Deer Creek Basket Guild, Bedford Basket Guild, High Country Basket Guild, Tidewater Basketry Guild, Penn-Jersey Basket Weavers Guild, Northeast Basketmakers Guild, Wildwood Basket Guild. She is a longtime member of the National Basketry Organization. She holds a BFA from the University of Oklahoma and MFA from Florida State University.

Bonnie Gale

Bonnie Gale has been teaching traditional willow basketry for 40 years. She has taught hundreds of guilds, art schools, basket conventions and to all ages across North America. She is the recipient of many awards, including a NYFA Artist Fellowship as well as being featured in numerous television programs, books and articles. Since 2004, she has completed over 50 living willow structures. Recently, she started making willow caskets. Her web sites include www.bonniegale.com, www.livingwillow.info and www.americanwillowcaskets.com

Bev Larson

Bev has been weaving since 1988 and teaching since 1999. She loves to share the joy of basket weaving with those around me and has done so by teaching around the country. Making basket weaving fun, relaxing, and inspiring is her goal. In 2003 she won the Eiteljorg Museums Weavers Challenge. In 2009 she added broom making as an offshoot of weaving and it too is now a passion. In 2016 she received the honor of being named an Indiana Artisan by the State of Indiana for both broom making and basket weaving.

Pam Milat

Pam Milat has been designing and weaving baskets for over 19 years. A native of MO, she retired in NC from her corporate career in 2016 and jumped into sharing and teaching basket weaving. She is a member of several basket organizations including NCBA and her local Port City Basketmakers guild. Pam travels to several out of state basket conventions/events each year to teach her art as well as teaching at the Leland NC Cultural Arts Center. She has had the honor of having her basketry art selected for 3 Gallery Shows and she also sells her baskets at the Seaglass Monthly Market in Castle Hayne NC Pam teaches multiple techniques of basketry, from plain utilitarian to artistic wonders, catheads to ribs, twills to double walls. Though they are mainly in reed, she uses color and texture to create their beauty. She dyes all her reed at her kitchen stove, blending and tweaking to create new rich vibrant colors.

Pam Hermann (fka Talsky)

It started with a pine needle basket in June of 1994. Pam has since traveled to Thailand with the Royalwood tour and has made 13 trips to Alaska since 1998, to learn Pine Needle Basketry from Jeannie McFarland and Native Haida weaving with Delores Churchill. She also goes to harvest and prepare her own western red and Alaskan yellow cedar barks and Sitka spruce root. She has traveled to Scotland and Ireland to learn from the local basket makers.

She loves everything about weaving, from the gathering and preparation of materials to creating beautiful, mostly functional vessels. The connection of weaving across the cultures continues to amaze and inspire her. Sharing her knowledge and continuing to learn from other weavers brings her great joy.

Pam has earned many awards, among them; the AMB Best Coiled for General Membership in 2003. In 2004 she won the Teachers awards for both Coiled and Naturals, for Coiled in 2005, for both Coiled and Art Piece in 2006, she won the AMB best coiled Teacher in 2009, and, most recently, the AMB Coveted Viewer’s Choice Award in 2010. 3 first-place awards at the NCBA convention 2013.

In 2001 she donated 3 weeks and over 200 hours of time to weave a family of willow Tepees for the Ronald McDonald house, which are still used by the kids today. Pam has taught all over the US and India. She now offers an online Mentorship and only teaches at a handful of select events throughout the year.

Pam completed three baskets for the Hoard Museum of Fort Atkinson, which are permanently displayed in their Mystery of the Mounds Exhibit, which opened in April 2009.

Pam traveled to Dharmashala, India for 2 ½ weeks in November of 2010 to teach the local women pine needle basketry so that they may have an industry to earn a living and make use of their long-leaf Cher pine needles.

Her work has been featured on the cover of the Wisconsin People & Ideas Magazine. Vol56/NO 4 2010, the National Basketry Organization’s Quarterly Review Summer 2015 as well as in Fiber Art Now in 2015.

Her work has been on exhibit at the Phillip Dickel Museum in Amana, Iowa as well as the National Basketry Organization’s ‘All Things Considered’.

A Note About Tools!

Tools needed for each class are noted at the end of each class description. Please make your best effort to make sure that you have what is needed. Tools are available for sharing but it can often slow down class progress.

For those flying to Vermont, Stowe Basketry Festival water buckets will be available.

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