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ABOUT OUR COMPANY | REQUEST OUR CATALOG |
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Brookside Baskets, Inc. is headquartered in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where the Connecticut River meanders through the forests and villages of old New England. Marcia Powers founded the company in 1997 to create affordable handmade ash wood baskets in traditional New England and Shaker styles and Taghkanic style baskets. Our ash wood is harvested in New England and cut into splints that are shipped abroad where craftsmen hand weave the baskets to our specifications. Since each basket is made individually, No two baskets are alike. Each is a unique treasure. TRADITIONAL NEW ENGLAND ASH WOOD BASKETS The men and women who settled western New England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a hardy and frugal people. They had to be as they struggled to eke out a living from the rocky soil and hardwood forest that covered the land. Whatever they made for themselves had to be made to last, from their practical Linsey-woolsey clothing to the baskets they made for every conceivable carrying task around the farm—for the garden harvesting and egg gathering, for sewing baskets for carrying a lunch to the fields, and for storing herbs and edibles in the kitchen or root cellar. Because they wanted them to last, old New Englanders made their baskets from the most durable wood available to them, white ash. Ash actually becomes stronger over time and ages to a lovely gray patina. Brookside Baskets, Inc. made their Traditional New England Baskets from ash Harvested and milled in New England, and then woven overseas by old-world craftsmen. Tough, durable and beautiful, your basket is guaranteed to give long years of service, just like the baskets that were made 200 years ago by the hardy Yankees of New England. Some of those original baskets are still with us today. THE SHAKER TRADITION OF BEAUTIY IN SIMPLICITY Ann Lee came to America in 1774, poor and illiterate. However, so effective was her An industrious and skillful people, the Shakers made a special virtue of simplicity and utility in their craftsmanship. As a result, they achieved a classic beauty in their furniture and baskets making that remains unique to this day. Brookside Baskets, Inc. follows the Shaker tradition of using the finest ash hardwood in making our baskets. The ash is harvested and milled in New England and then hand woven in authentic Shaker deigns overseas by old-world craftsmen. Ash is one on the toughest of the American hardwoods that becomes even more durable with the passage of time, which will make your Shaker basket a treasured family heirloom as the years go by. LEGEND OF THE TAGHKANIC BASKET Some of the finest baskets every made were turned out by a handful of families form a place that time forgot. The hills around West Taghkanic in upstate New York were poor for farming, but ideal for ash, oak, hickory and maple trees—the raw materials of basketry. Isolated by geography and inclination, the people of the hills made extraordinary baskets using techniques which, some say, descended from Native American ancestry. A reporter from the city called them “bushwhackers,” a derisive moniker like hillbilly that clung to the people and their baskets, yet entirely missed the mark. For these were not hillbillies, but a shy clan plying their craft with simple dignity, turning out sturdy, yet beautiful woven baskets which are highly sought-after by collectors. Today, the unique designs of the Taghkanic basket tradition are being recreated overseas by Old World craftspeople using Vermont White Ash which has been environmentally harvested to assure the continual regeneration of Vermont’s hardwood forest. Your Taghkanic basket is a tribute to its authentic American roots.
Request your free catalog today!
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