A stunning spruce root basket made by prolific Haida artist, Isabel Rorick from the Raven Clan . Regarded as one of the greatest Haida weavers of her generation, Isabel descends from a long line of notable Haida artists. Isabel’s mother, Primrose Adams, her grandmother, Florence Davidson, and her great-grandmother, Isabella Edenshaw (wife of renowned carver Charles Edenshaw) are well-known Haida basketry weavers. On her father’s side, Isabel inherited basketry weaving from her aunt, Delores Churchill, and her grandmother, Selina Peratrovich.

Rorick’s basketry is highly sought after and has been widely exhibited at galleries and museums across North America. Her weavings can be found in collections at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, the Burke Museum in Seattle, and the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. Rorick’s work was recognized in 2009 with a British Columbia Creative Achievement Award for Aboriginal Art.

This basket is woven from spruce root in a plain twining style with four bands of iron oxide dyed spruce root. The design depicting a skaana (killer whale) is applied with maidenhair fern in a false embroidery technique. There is a band of “spiderweb” patterning near the rim of the basket integrated with skip stitches. Rorick’s signature of three concentric circles of skip stitch pattern is found on the base of the basket.

–-Sarah Raven