Artist Uses Long Line to Craft Baskets

A long line basket by Penelope Cyr-Lorensen. Photo by Penelope Cyr-Lorensen

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Time and time again, Kodiak artists have proved they can turn anything into art, and tonight, one crafter will exhibit baskets she creates from long line. Penelope Cyr-Lorensen is originally from Maine, but says she learned basket weaving in Kodiak over 30 years ago.

“I took a basket class and we made a simple basket with God’s Eyes and that was the first thing I ever made. I was never crafty or anything like that. So, I tell you what, I was hooked that very first day.”

She took classes when she visited the east coast and started making other baskets, including ones in the Nantucket style. She says those baskets are made with cane, or wood stems, from material like cherry and oak. And the style has its own history.

 “A Nantucket is originally made on Nantucket, off Massachusetts. Back in the, I think, the 1800s. Maybe even earlier too. The late 1700s. But they’re called lightship baskets also. And the light-ships, the men who worked there had lots of time on their hands. So, they started doing these.”

Cyr-Lorensen later began making baskets from long line.

She says her husband goes sport fishing and one of his friends gave her the idea when he stopped by their house.

“He had all this line in the back of his truck and I thought, okay, heading out fishing? He goes, no, I’m going to the dump to dump all this line. I’m going, well, there’s gotta be something I can do with that. So, I’m not a hoarder or anything, but I just know I can make something. So, he dropped off a couple of things of line, and that’s how the upcycling long line came to be.”

She says creating long line baskets doesn’t involve weaving.

“I fuse it together with heat, so I kinda melt it together or I glue it together. For instance, if I used one of my Nantucket molds, I would use a heating iron and I just heat that line all the way around. It’s like coiling and heating and coiling as you go. So, it gives it a different texture and a different – like if I’m using grey line, the burn marks will be black.”
    
Cyr-Lorensen says the long line comes in a variety of colors and after she removes the basket from the mold, she decorates it with everything from pine cones to bone.

You can check out her work at her First Friday exhibit, which will be at the Alutiiq Museum between 5 and 7 p.m.