Katja Collects: Jeremy Frey’s Handwoven Baskets

It’s the height of midsummer, when daylight lingers and the art world blooms with creativity. From masterfully woven traditions to contemporary forms, this season asks us to explore works that reflect both heritage and innovation. Our Katja Collects series this month highlights the intricate beauty of Jeremy Frey’s handwoven baskets. Featured in the retrospective Jeremy Frey: Woven at the Bruce Museum (and also available through Karma Gallery) Frey’s pieces command admiration, often reaching sales prices in five to six figures. These woven forms are not just vessels, they’re revelations of cultural legacy and personal mastery.

If you prefer to read a text version of the below graphic, keep scrolling, we’ve got you covered below!

What:

Jeremy Frey’s handwoven baskets

Where:

Jeremy Frey: Woven a retrospective of the Bruce Museum/or at Karma Gallery

Cost:

Five to six figures, depending on the size and complexity

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See it:

Maine-based artist Jeremy Frey is one of the most important working artists whom you may not have heard of. A fine artist, weaver, and lumberjack, Frey has carved a niche creative space that combines craftsmanship, skill, and aesthetics in the form of woven baskets. As a seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basket-maker and one of the most celebrated Indigenous weavers in the country, Frey unites an ancestral connection to the land with a deft hand and focused eye. His work relies heavily on natural resources from the Northeastern Woodlands. Brown ash and sweetgrass are the materials Frey weaves into baskets of various sizes and shapes, based on traditional Wabanaki weaving techniques he learned from his mother and apprenticeships at the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance.

He sources brown ash trees in the woods close to his home in Maine, chops the tree, strips the bark, then dries, ages, and dyes the wood before ultimately using it as the material for his sculptures. He also gathers and harvests porcupine quills, sweetgrass and cedar bark for the tops of baskets. Yet technical innovation and aesthetic appeal are the characteristics that make his woven sculptures works of art.

Frey straddles the blurred line between fine art and craft while achieving accolades from both disciplines . Frey won Best of Show at the Sante Fe Indian Market in 2011, marking the first time a basket-maker achieved this honor in the market’s 90-year history, and has subsequently won numerous Best in Show awards. The annual LOEWE Craft Prize (of which Frey was a 1994 finalist) also aims to publicize the fine art caliber of many artists working in traditional “craft” mediums. His traveling retrospective, Jeremy Frey: Woven, has been on view at national museums including the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Collect it:

The artificial hierarchies between craft and fine art have been dismantled by many contemporary artists whose vision and execution seamlessly transcend categories. Their work leaves viewers in awe of their technique and skill. Woven sculptures are having a moment, from Japanese-American Ruth Asawa’s auction-record-setting wire sculptures (influenced by Mexican basketweaving techniques), to the elevation of textile artists such as Derrick Brackens and Olga de Amaral. The artworld consensus is that technical skill and fresh visual language appeals to a broad audience. Karma, Frey’s New York-based gallery, exhibits his sculptures and also brings his vessels to art fairs such as TEFAF and Art Basel.

Care for it:

Wood sculptures can fade when exposed to direct sunlight, so collectors should consider displaying a woven sculpture in a glass case with UV protection. Also, the animal protein in the porcupine quills attract other animals, so a vitrine will keep vermin away. Household pets may also mistake the woven vessels as chew toys, so elevated placement is also practical.

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