Stephanie (Wood) Craig (Dayton) is one of few basket-weavers in the Grand Ronde tradition. The family stories Craig grew up with continue to spur her on. She has now taught over 5000 students in the Pacific Northwest region, California, and Utah, saying, “the best...I can do to keep this going is to teach as many people as I can.”
Bio
Stephanie Craig is of Santiam and Yoncalla Kalapuya, Takelma Rogue River, Cow Creek Umpqua, and Clackamas Chinook descent and a traditional basket weaver, tradition keeper, ethnobotanist, ceremonial fisher, and traditional foods practitioner. Growing up, family members’ stories gave Craig her initial sense of purpose. As she reached adulthood, she was drawn to her family’s basket-weaving tradition—seven-generations deep on her mother’s side. Besides her early and informal apprenticeships with elders on the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde reservation, The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, Suquamish Indian Tribe, and the Lummi Nation, Craig has studied under three of the most accomplished Tribal basket makers in Oregon - the late Sanda "Sam" Henny of the Grand Ronde Tribe, the late Minerva Soucie of the Burns-Paiute Tribe, Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco) - and renowned anthropologist Margaret Mathewson. Following the tradition, which encompasses all aspects of basket making, Craig harvests all her own material--beaked and California hazel, sandbar and gray willow, juncus, tule, and cattails--all from old traditional sites and other closely guarded gathering spots in the mountains. Harvesting involves first going out and trimming the plants, waiting a year, and then collecting the new, straighter growth. Craig often works with cedar bark, sedges and rushes, too, since these materials were traditionally used in weaving. For Craig, holding a woven basket, "is being able to hold history and tell the story of the weaver." The object embodies the accumulated knowledge that tradition keepers have transmitted through time and space, from one basket weaver to the next. Craig's basketry displays nature's gifts as well as intangibles: her feelings, her good heart, even the laughter and stories that played out as the work evolved. Adorned with the traditional "111" tattoo on her chin, Craig honors her Native heritage as well as the womanhood, beauty, and strength she brings to her art and through her way of life.
