October, 2011: Kathy Rousso
Kathryn Rousso weaves, writes about, and photographs baskets and bags. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington, a Certificate of Merit in Northwest Coast Basketry and Textiles from the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Alaska, and a Master of Fine Arts in Textile Arts and Costume Design from the University of California, Davis. Her first baskets were woven under the guidance of Delores Churchill, Holly Churchill and many others at the Totem Heritage Center. Rousso was exposed to Mayan textiles as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala during the late nineteen-eighties and later discovered new weaving techniques and materials in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Indonesia, and New Zealand. In 2001 she was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research on maguey net bags in Guatemala. Her time is now split between Ketchikan Alaska, Guatemala, and Mendocino, California where she is the textile coordinator at the Mendocino Art Center. Her contemporary baskets incorporate elements of twined, looped, and braided maguey fibers, cedar bark and spruce root, plus a few surprises.
Here is her website for those people who would like know more about her, and see some of her current works.