Cathryn Peters Designs
Hudson, WI
I weave contemporary, one-of-a-kind, antler basket sculptures; the antler is the focal point with hand-gathered natural materials and commercial rattan reed.
Message
Cathryn Peters is a full-time professional, established, award-winning sculptural antler basket artist and chair seat weaver living in Hudson, Wisconsin. She is primarily a self-taught basket weaver but has taken a few workshops with willow basketmakers and black ash basketmakers here and abroad over the years.
Originally from Vancouver, Washington, Cathryn has lived most of her life in Minnesota. She came to basketweaving through the circuitous route of chair caning and antique wicker furniture repair that she began in 1975 in Lake City, MN when her son was just an infant.
Cathryn continues to pursue the profession today on a limited basis and has pivoted to coaching and teaching online courses in seatweaving and basketry through her WickerWoman.com website.
Having repaired and restored many hundreds of wicker furniture pieces over the years, Cathryn decided to branch out and create something unique that she could call her own in 1990.
Rather than just restoring wicker furniture pieces that others had designed and woven she would design contemporary, sculptural antler baskets instead. Her husband graciously supplied that first antler for her to use in “First Attempt,” a rib-style egg basket, made just for him.
It was a natural transition from the years of wicker furniture restoration and chair caning to weaving the rib-style antler baskets that Cathryn began with; all the same weaving techniques she used in wicker repair actually came from thousand-year-old historical basketweaving techniques.
Peters divides her time between her 50-year chair caning and wicker furniture restoration business and creating and exhibiting her artistic antler basket sculptures for two reasons: to preserve the traditional craft and nearly lost art of chair caning and wicker restoration, and to nurture her creative side through antler basket artistry.
Cathryn has taught antler basket classes and workshops as well as chair caning and seatweaving classes for over 45 years. Her antler basket sculptures are in exhibitions, galleries, and private collections nationwide. Cathryn’s antler baskets have been featured in The Crafts, Report, Basket Bits, Country Woman, Splint Woven Basketry, and Basketry Round-Up.
Peters spent the last 20 years living in northern Minnesota, near the Iron Range area in Angora, with her husband and their two Labrador Retrievers. She enjoyed the country life, gathering natural basket weaving materials from her 120-acre homestead to use in her basketry as well as chair seating.
After the passing of Cathryn’s husband John, in 2012, his antler basket, “First Attempt,” was used at the memorial service. This was to honor John’s outdoor spirit and to remind Cathryn of her early basketweaving beginnings.
Cathryn now resides near her daughter and family in Hudson, Wisconsin, after selling her property in northern Minnesota. Living close to loved ones and working from a cozy she-shed studio on their property, Cathryn finds fulfillment in designing and crafting her antler basket artistry, nourishing her life and soul.
Statement
I create original design, one-of-a-kind antler basket sculptures incorporating deer, elk, fallow, or moose antlers with naturally hand-gathered materials from my rural setting and commercially sourced rattan reed.
My antler baskets are created in traditional rib-style basketry but with a contemporary flair and flow of movement. I draw on my 50 years of chair caning and wicker furniture restoration for inspiration, weaving techniques, and design.
The antler is an integral part of the basket and is incorporated as the handle or the focal point of the sculptures. Natural hand-gathered materials such as cattail leaves, birch bark, sweetgrass, willow, willow bark, red dogwood, iris leaves, and daylilies are combined with commercially sourced rattan reed, yarn and beads selected for each piece.
When embarking on a new creation, I first sit quietly with the antler, listening to it whisper and “speak” to me. The spirit of the antler leads me to the form my hands are to explore. It guides me to transforming the bare antler to the completed asymmetrical, freeform basket sculpture.
Since designing and weaving my first antler basket in 1990, the process of creating has always grounded me; I connect with the Universe and all she presents while performing the age-old craft of basketweaving.