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I'm Mary Lee Fulkerson, a fourth
generation Nevadan with a natural love for the wildness of
Nevada and the people who live here. (If you raise a family
amid slot machines and sagebrush, gallop your horse across
the open range, and purify in a Shoshone sweat lodge, you
are going to feel wild!) I express that in my
non-traditional basket sculptures.
My father’s family came west before
the Gold Rush of 1849, and I spent a childhood listening to
stories of cattle rustlers, Irish lumberjacks, boarding
house mistresses, midwives, and teamsters that really drove
mule teams. Later, when writing “Weavers of Tradition and
Beauty”, I met Washoe elder and storyteller Joann
Martinez, and once again I dove deep into the land of
imagination, where magic makes anything possible.
Lately I've returned to sculpting
fragrant willow, a spirited little twig that has, like
baskets, nearly 10,000 years of history in the Great Basin.
Handling it, I feel both ancient and contemporary,
because I join other American basketmakers in blazing a
trail to create a new art form that nurtures an old, old
memory--one without words-- that lies deep within all of us.

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The warmth of
August reminds me of the warmth of love, and one of the
great healing tools to bring love back is storytelling.
Telling a true story about yourself is not just a matter of
being unique, or even of finding yourself. It is also a
matter of choosing yourself. And yes, you are one of the
chosen. You are blessed.
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Hello, Goodbye
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