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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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This
is a time we are being called upon to reinvent ourselves.
Stand outside in the breeze, feeling its currents flow around
and through you. May the wind whip off the clothing of the
past and uncover the beauty inside, exposing your innermost
dreams, readying you to offer your authentic self to the world.
May you help the future be born through you.
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Hello, Goodbye
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