Carol Eckert

Lives in Tempe, Arizona (2008)(http://www.gallerymateria.com/artists/eckert_c/eckert_c.html 4-30-08)"I use an ancient basketry technique, coiling, to construct contemporary allegorical vessels, shrines and staffs. All of the forms are coiled with cotton thread over a wire core, using the figure-eight stitch. Each piece begins with symbols and stories. Creation stories, legends of great floods, parables of good and evil. I am intrigued that cultures from so many different places and times share related traditions, and by the universal nature of animal symbolism: snakes as symbols of evil (or regrowth and renewal), stork and cranes as signs of good fortune.