Artwork copyright Bill Tsi’li’xw James and Fran James. Photo courtesy of the artist, 1985.

Artwork copyright Bill Tsi’li’xw James and Fran James. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2021.

Artwork copyright Bill Tsi’li’xw James and Fran James. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2021.

Artwork copyright Ray A. Cheer. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2021.

Food Storage Basket, 1984

Bill Tsi’li’xw James and Fran James
Bill Tsi’li’xw James (American | Lummi Nation, born 1944, died 2020); Fran James (American | Lummi Nation, born 1924, died 2013)

Location: Pioneer Elementary School, Shelton

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Food Storage Basket was hand-woven from cedar by late Lummi elder Fran James and her late son Bill Tsi’li’xw James in Ferndale, Northwestern Washington. They often worked together to create traditional objects. The checkerboard style weave of the basket was created using a traditional Lummi basket weaving technique.

This artwork is part of Beyond Blue Mountains, a collection that was curated by late Tlingit (Native Alaskan) artist Jim Schoppert. It presents the work of Native American artists of diverse heritage, ideas, materials, and styles. The collection takes an in-depth look at the artists’ unique voices and interpretations of tradition.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Department of Corrections.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Lummi Nation elder and master weaver Fran James (1924-2013) and her son, artist and Lummi Nation Chief Bill Tsi’li’xw James (1944-2020), worked together to create traditional baskets and art objects. In the 1960s, just a handful of people in Washington were still weaving, notes curator Barbara Brotherton: “It was such an endangered art form. It is through their efforts that mountain-goat weaving and sheep-wool weaving never died out.”

Bill Tsi’li’xw James was a teacher of culture, language and art, as well as a hereditary chief for the Lummi Nation of Northwestern Washington. He brought his people’s culture to the fight to save southern resident orca whales, salmon and the Salish Sea, and to block construction of a coal port at Cherry Point.

Fran James was a master weaver. She tutored generations of students since the 1970s in the arts of her ancestors, weaving cedar bark and wool. She was also an expert in washing, carding, spinning, dyeing, and weaving raw sheep wool and mountain-goat wool. Fran James was inducted into the Northwest Women's Hall of Fame. Her artwork is featured at Seattle Art Museum, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, and many private collections and museums all over the world.

The Lummi Nation is of the Coast Salish group in Northwestern Washington State.