S3E3: Sheila Ransom (Akwasasne Mohawk Nation)

What if your craft could become your sanctuary and medicine? Join us as we sit down with 2024 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award Honoree, Sheila Ransom, a master basket maker from the St. Regis Mohawk tribe, who shares her incredible 30-year journey into the heart of this ancient art. Sheila didn't start her craft until later in life, under the mentorship of her godmother and other master artisans, but her connection to basket-making has since become a profound source of healing and inspiration. Sheila's vivid storytelling reveals how the natural world and everyday objects can ignite creativity and lead to stunning, unique designs. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
What inspires my work is things around me, the birds,
nature.
Everything I look at has adesign.
I could be looking at somethingin my house and it just hits me
like that's a design for abasket.
And I do that.
I just create them.

(00:23):
Most of the time I don't knowwhat I'm going to do and as I
start weaving, the basket comesout.
The design will come out.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
First Peoples Fund presents the Collective Spirit
Podcast.
The Collective Spirit moveseach of us to stand up and make
a difference, to pass onancestral knowledge and simply
extend a hand of generosity.
The Collective Spirit Podcastfeatures Native artists and
culture bearers who discuss thepower of Indigenous art and

(01:06):
culture.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
My name is Sheila Ransom White.
My married name is White.
My Mohawk name is Gunaessa.
I'm a Wolf Clan member of theSt Regis Mohawk tribe and I
reside in Aquasustin, new York.
I make baskets.
I'm a basket maker.
I have been a basket maker for30 years.

(01:31):
I have learned basket makingfrom my godmother, who was also
my first cousin.
She was a master basket maker.
My grandmothers were basketmakers maker.
My grandmothers were basketmakers, my great aunt.
So I come from a long line ofbasket makers.
I started late in life.
I should have done this when Iwas young, like my ancestors

(01:56):
were children, but they learnedand I didn't start until I think
I was maybe 40.
And my godmother got me into it.
I was just going through somemedical issues and she thought
basket making would help me toget through everything.
She always said it was goodmedicine and it was.

(02:17):
And once I started I took thefirst two weeks of learning how
to clean my splint and it wasvery difficult and she told me
most people will quit duringthat first two weeks.
And then I started to weave,which was also very difficult,
and she would walk around theroom and look at us during class

(02:40):
and she would watch us as weworked and she leaned over to me
in Mohawk and she would watchus as we worked and she leaned
over to me in Mohawk and shesaid you're going to be a basket
maker.
And I couldn't understand howshe knew that.
And she then told me othersthat were with me she said
they're not going to be a basketmaker.
I never knew how she knew.

(03:01):
Now me as a basket maker andteaching class, I understand,
because I can tell when peopleare going to be a basket maker.
It's something that alwaysstays with me.
I've had some very scary healthissues and I found what got me

(03:23):
through them was my basketmaking.
And when she told me it wasgood medicine, it is good
medicine, it's my medicine Iwent to her.
She taught me classes.
Then I would go home with her,I would stay out all night with
her, we would do classes justher and I.

(03:44):
Then I would go home, sleep andI'd go to work and I'd come
back to her house.
It was just something thatbecame part of me.
Then there was another masterbasket maker.
He was a utility basket maker.
His name was Henry Arquette.
I took classes with him as welland it was just amazing, the

(04:06):
things he taught me, othertechniques that I use today in
my fancy basket.
I have two granddaughters.
One granddaughter grew up withme and when she was a little
girl she would come down and sitin her little chair next to me.

(04:28):
She would still be wearingdiapers and she would get a
plastic knife and she wouldmimic me as I'm cleaning splints
.
Everything I did she would copyme as she got older.
When she was about eight yearsold, nine years old, she started
doing baskets with me and thenshe'd stop because of school.

(04:51):
She's into her athletes and onetime I took her to class with
me.
I was teaching a children'sclass and a lot of the kids were
her age, so she knew a lot ofthe kids.
But there were so many of thekids I had to kind of break up
the class and I would have herkeep them busy and I would take

(05:11):
the other class and try to teachthem.
And then the executive directorat the museum came to me and
she goes look, and I looked overand my granddaughter was
teaching her group of the classhow to do that basket and we
were astonished and theexecutive director said that's

(05:34):
how much she has been watchingyou, she learned from you and I
was just astonished.
And to this day she can walk inand say I want to do a basket
and she can do a basket.
She's in university now.
She's very busy traveling,she's into other things, but she

(05:55):
still has that and she is goingto be a basket maker someday.
What inspires my work is thingsaround me, the birds, nature.
Everything I look at has adesign.
I could be looking at somethingin my house and it just hits me

(06:16):
like that's a design for abasket.
And I do that.
I just create them and most ofthe time I don't know what I'm
going to do and as I startweaving, the basket comes out.

(06:36):
The design will come out.
Wow, it was just incredible toreceive the award.

(07:02):
It was humbling.
It's helped me to purchase ashed so I can house my work and
all my materials, my tools.
I can hold classes.
It's enabled me to attend shows.
It's enabled me to purchase a.
My doctor appointments that Ihave to now travel five hours
away each way and I've beendoing it each month for
treatment since March.
My nominator and I are going tobe visiting three museums in the

(07:23):
future, like maybe by the endof summer, definitely in October
, we're going to the Smithsonianto look at baskets in their
archives and we're also going toa museum in Ottawa, canada, to
look at their baskets.
I want to look at all thesebaskets and look at the styles
that are no longer used todayand I want to be able to take

(07:48):
pictures, bring those styleshome and recreate them again and
introduce them back into thecommunity.
And I think that's reallyimportant because a lot of times
we see pictures of baskets andnobody has ever seen the styles
that we used to use, learningbasket making.

(08:17):
Especially my family members,my grandchildren, my
granddaughters, even mygrandsons are interested and
trying to do it.
Now my youngest grandson is 13.
He's been working on a basketand I keep telling him how
important it is to preserve thisand to protect it and to pass

(08:40):
it on.
I don't want it to die with me.
We have a lot of basket makerscoming up in the community, but
I want my family to realize howimportant it is.
I have baskets from mygrandmother that were returned

(09:07):
to me from a doctor in Vermontand those baskets were made in
the 1940s, maybe 1930s, and Ialways used to wonder what
baskets she made.
What did it look like?
To get those baskets back to mewas so it did something to my

(09:29):
heart to know that I was holdinga basket that her hands held,
and when I look at it, I makebaskets like she does, and I
want my grandchildren to feelthe same way and to understand
that, and to understand the loveof this and how important it is

(09:50):
.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
The Collective Spirit Podcast is produced by First
Peoples Fund.
The Collective Spirit podcastis produced by First Peoples
Fund, whose mission is to honorand support Indigenous artists
and culture bearers throughgrant-making initiatives,
culturally rooted programming,and training and mentorship.
Learn more atfirstpeoplesfundorg.