The Lure of the Sea

The Lure of the Sea
is just one reason…
The Anchorage
is located on one
of the top rated
beaches in New
England.
Your beachfront getaway is waiting.
All just a short drive from Portland and Boston. The Anchorage Inn
and Resort is a complete oceanfront destination, featuring over 200
rooms and suites, 2 outdoor and 2 indoor swimming pools, Sun and
Surf oceanfront dining, a poolside café, fitness center, resort-wide
WiFi, and more.
Perfectly situated on Long Sands Beach in York Beach, Maine,
directly across from famous Nubble Lighthouse, the Anchorage is
close to the Kittery outlets, golf, and boating.
3 Day/ 2 Night
Stay N
‘ Dine
Packages
Off Season start at just
$179.95*
In Season start at just
$279.95*
per couple!
For Reservations, call
���-���-����.
For casual but cool dining anytime, try the Sun and Surf. • Serving seaside breakfast, lunch &
dinner • Your favorite cocktails • Eat in, or take out • Entertainment and beachfront deck • Enjoy creative takes on fresh
New England seafood and more! On the beach, across from The Anchorage Inn. Ask about our catering & wedding
packages! 363-2961
265 Long Beach Ave York Beach, Maine
www.anchorageinn.com
*Restrictions apply. Rates based on time of year. Call for details.
Why resort to anything less?
M a i ne Life
Weaves of
Grass
Clara Neptune Keezer not only lives the magic
of her art, she’s a star on eBay.
By Bunny M c Bride
Baskets courtesy the Abbe Museum
Basket weaving is a legacy in the Keezer family. From left: Clara’s 5" Fancy
Basket; son Rocky Keezer’s 4" Watermelon and 6" Corn baskets; Clara’s 6"
Fancy and 4" Plum baskets; and Rocky’s 5" Strawberry
I
t’s rare to sell one’s first piece of art, especially if you’re just 8 years old. But Passamaquoddy artist Clara Neptune Keezer
did just that. It was a small candy basket
woven with ash splints. The buyer paid
her 25 cents, and, fittingly, little Clara spent
her earnings on candy. Eight decades later,
she’s still making baskets, but today her finely
crafted pieces can garner hundreds of dollars.
They’ve been featured in many exhibitions
(including a one-woman show at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland) and are in museums and private collections across the Unit-
ed States and beyond.
Clara grew up on the Passamaquoddy Reservation at Pleasant Point (Sipayik)
in Perry. She lived with her grand parents
Alice (a Penobscot) and Joseph Neptune.
It was Alice who first showed Clara how
how to prepare brown ash splints, how to
pick, clean, and braid sweet grass, and how
to weave the two materials together into a
basket. From her she also learned the importance of doing quality work: “If I made
a mistake,” Clara recalls, “she’d say ‘fix it’–
and I did!”
Clara has stayed true to her grandmother’s
demand during a lifetime of weaving, reaching for perfection with every twist and turn of
every strand in every basket she makes. She
weaves those strands into a surprising array of
forms, including a cornucopia of brightly colored baskets shaped like fruits and vegetables.
Jennifer Neptune, director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA), sounds
gleeful when talking about Clara’s baskets:
“When you go to Clara’s table at the [annual Native American] Festival in Bar Harbor, you’re excited because you know there
September 2015 109
Thai,Vietnamese,
Japanese & Korean
Cuisine
Eat In - Take Out
Delivery
Open 11am - 9pm
Every Day
53 Bay St, Winslow, ME
(207) 877-6688
www.asiancafeme.com
1 1 0 p o r t l a n d m o n t h ly m a g a z i n e
M a i ne Life
will be something different. She’s famous for
her strawberry and fruit baskets, but then she
makes a snowman or a bumble bee! Her baskets are so colorful and full of curls, diamond
weaves, and bows. Just seeing them makes you
happy.” As for the strong and tight quality of
her weaving: “It’s the standard that I and many
others measure our work against.”
eyond novel shapes and a bold use of
color–evident in many but not all of her
pieces–Clara’s baskets are distinguished
by a particular diamond weave passed down
through her family and the innovative way she
crisscrosses sweet grass in and out of the ash.
Those characteristics can be seen in the work
of her two sons, Rocky and Kenny, noted basketmakers in their own right. Clara mentored
both of them–informally during their growing up years (“They just picked it up because I
B
made baskets every day”) and later as her apprentices in MIBA’s formal master/apprentice
program. Among basketmakers in Maine’s
four tribes–the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot,
Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq (collectively known as
Wabanaki or “Dawnland” people)–one can
identify distinct family styles. Distinguishing
styles between the tribes is more difficult due
to generations of intermarriage, especially between Passamaquoddy and Penobscot.
In 2002, the National Endowment for
the Arts awarded Clara a Heritage Fellowship honoring her artistic excellence as well
as her contribution to our nation’s traditional arts heritage. Clara has played a major role
in the revitalization of Maine Indian basketry. According to Theresa Secord, who served
as MIBA’s director for two decades, “Clara
was one of our founding members, and she is
the one person who taught every year in the
MIBA master/apprentice program for at least
20 years. She is really the matriarch of MIBA
in so many ways.” Jennifer Neptune elaborates: “Here she is, this amazing, amazing artist, and yet so humble about herself and her
work. She has always been more than generous with her time, teaching workshops in addition to her individual apprentices, sharing
all the tricks she’s figured out, encouraging
and inspiring so many others.”
A true artist in life as well as in basketmaking. n
Bunny McBride lives in Bath. Her extensive writing
on Wabanakis includes the books Women of the
Dawn, Indians in Eden, Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris, and Our Lives in Our Hands: Micmac
Indian Basketmakers.
Bid on a Basket
A Gallery of Clara Neptune Keezer’s Baskets from eBay
Baskets from eBay; background: Blake gumprecht
Graceful loops
at basket bottom,
natural color; 4.5"
tall. $152.75
Special basket,
small loop curls
& double bow
handle; 5.5"
tall. $197.75
Large Open
Basket, Loop
Edging at Top;
5.5" tall.
$242.75
Special basket
with small loop curls
and double bow
handle; 4" tall.
$250.00
Turquoise
& natural curl;
3.75" tall.
$132.50
Very lovely May
Day candy basket,
NEA Award winner;
6" to top of
handle. $62.75
September 2015 111