In and Out Basket

Elizabeth Kinlaw began playing with sweetgrass fibers when she was a child and eventually learned Gullah basketry skills from her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Gullah artists have coiled sweetgrass baskets for generations in the lowlands of South Carolina, maintaining techniques from Africa where baskets have been used for fanning (processing) rice and storing food.

For Kinlaw, basketry draws on the memory of her ancestors and the process is intuitive. The accordion shape of this basket came to her while she was weaving the base. She explains, “There is no pattern. You can envision it and you can make it out of your mind.”

This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, 2022