Lorraine & Gene Wieskamp

Our baskets are a collaborative enterprise. For over twelve years, we have worked as a team, creating baskets that are both useful, and pieces of art. Gene is the wood worker, and takes care of the preparation and finishing the baskets, while Lorraine does all the weaving. We strive to produce authentic reproductions of the Lightship baskets originally created by the men who manned the lightships off the coast of Massachusetts, and later on the island of Nantucket. Our love of the Nantucket Lightship baskets, and the history behind them, has led us to share this beautiful tradition with students eager to learn this same art form here in the United States, in Australia and in Russia.

Our baskets are a collaborative enterprise. We strive to produce authentic reproductions of the Lightship baskets originally created by the men who manned the lightships off the coast of Massachusetts, and later on the island of Nantucket. For over ten years, we have worked as a team, creating baskets that are both useful, and pieces of art. Gene is the wood turner, and takes care of the preparation and finishing of the baskets, while Lorraine does all the weaving. Recently we have worked on a selection of miniature baskets that are perfect replicas of their larger counterparts. Our love of the Nantucket Lightship baskets, and the history behind them, has lead us to share this beautiful tradition with students eager to learn this same art form.

Lorraine and Gene Wieskamp began weaving baskets about eight ago. Through numerous workshops and seminars, conducted by nationally and internationally renown basket weavers, they have learned a number of different basket weaving techniques, specializing in the Nantucket Lightship basket tradition. Initially weaving just as a hobby, they have developed a reputation, not only as weavers of Nantucket baskets, but also as teachers of the art. They have taught workshops in Virginia and Florida, as well as several different locations in Australia. In 1996, they were invited to attend and participate in an International Cultural Fair in Novgorod, Russia and while there, lectured on the history and technique of the Nantucket Lightship Basket to students learning the ancient Russian Birch Bark weaving traditions. Over the years, they have won a number of awards for their Nantucket baskets, the most recent of which was an Award of Merit at the 1999 Mount Dora Arts Festival. In 1996, a Nesting Set of 7 Nantucket Lightship Baskets won the Viewers' Choice Award at the Belle Grove Planation in Middletown Virginia, Exhibition of Contemporary Virginia Basketmakers. In 1997, they won a First Place Award at the Fairfax Council of the Arts Open. Exhibition, and have won several other awards for their baskets.