Irene Lomayaktewa

My mother taught me when I was very young. The first basket I completed on my own was when I was in 6th grade.

No, I finished it in the summer time and sold it for five dollars. That would have been in the 1960s.

Yes, it was small and had the head of a mudhead on it.

My mother told me it was something I could always do if I didn’t have another job, and at the same time help out when I was doing something else.

No, after graduating from high school in the early 1970s I went to the Indian School in Albuquerque for two years and became an LPN. Then I went to work and Phoenix as a nurse.

I returned in the 1990s and have been doing basket weaving fulltime since then.

Yes, I work when I want and have family around me.

The Second Mesa, that is where the coil baskets come from. Polacca does pottery and the 3rd Mesa makes the wicker baskets. I am married to a man from the 3rd Mesa, but can only work on my baskets here, on the 2nd Mesa.

We make the coil basket from straw and yucca that we pick from areas around Hopi. Many of the colors are from the yucca plant, yellow comes from yucca being harvested in winter, the white is summer, and the green can be picked aany time of the year. Also, we will use sunflower for the black and Hopi Tea (hohocy) for the red.

When I dream about the baskets I will draw the visions and use that to decorate the baskets.