Basket c. 20th century

This basket was made by the Tohono O'odham people and lives in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. When you look at it, you can tell it was made by someone who really knew their materials, someone deeply embedded in the process. The basket is made of these tight, spiraling stitches, and the artist uses black and a natural fiber color to create a rhythmic pattern. These forms are like sentences, you know? Not just decoration, but a whole language. You can feel the artist pulling and weaving, shaping and defining as they go. It's kind of sculptural in that way, with the fiber having its own particular kind of heft and presence. Thinking about it reminds me a little of Anni Albers and how she took weaving to another level. Like Albers, the Tohono O'odham artist really embraces ambiguity, they aren't tied down by a need to spell things out, inviting us to bring our own interpretations to the table.