Corn basket
Basketmaker Billy Ray Sims of Indian Springs, Ala., is keeping an old tradition alive: the making of Appalachian, hand-split white oak baskets, inspired in part by the old Gullah tradition. Two of his creations were on display at the Smithsonian recently – an egg basket and a creel basket used to hold fish – and Sims collaborated with the museum on the making of “A Measure of the Earth” film project. “Making baskets helps me stay balanced, and real, and connected to the earth, literally,” he explained in a Garden & Gun feature last year. “I feel like I’m connected to old souls.”
