Baskets and the Burdens They Bear
Craft in Changing Communities
$208.25
- Hardcover
248 pages
- Release Date
2 March 2027
Summary
Baskets and the Burdens They Bear explores how a seemingly simple woven object can sustain community resilience and personal well-being. Once common household tools, baskets carry family stories and memories while allowing makers to express identity and find purpose and meaning in their lives.
Tracing the lives of individual makers across Indiana from the 1800s to the present, author Jon Kay demonstrates that baskets and other traditional arts are not obsolete objects but tim…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253077691 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0253077699 |
| Author: | Jon Kay |
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Imprint: | Indiana University Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 248 |
| Release Date: | 2 March 2027 |
| Dimensions: | 178mm x 254mm |
| Series: | Material Vernaculars |

You Can Find This Book In
Critics Review
“This book promises to interrogate the impact of changing technologies on individual lives and how we adapt to the loss of the secondary functions of traditional arts once their primary functions have been supplanted by new means, modes, and methods. This is also an illustration of the importance of public-focused heritage and humanities work and the influence of organizations working in collaboration with artists and community members to make sense of and buffer change. This manuscript is ambitious in the best ways, asking critical questions about human experience in uncertain times.“—Carrie Hertz, Curator of Textiles and Dress, Museum of International Folk Art
“Yes, this is about Indiana basketry. Yet I see appeal for many audiences since Kay touches on universal themes of cultural preservation, generational communications, the tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ creative designations, and integration of ethnic communities into new situations.“—Diane Dittemore, Associate Curator Emerita of Ethnological Collections, Arizona State Museum
Jon Kay
Jon Kay is Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and Director of Traditional Arts Indiana at Indiana University Bloomington. He is author of Folk Art and Aging: Life-Story Objects and Their Makers (IUP, 2016) and editor of The Expressive Lives of Elders: Folklore, Art, and Aging (IUP, 2018).
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.



